Crunch Time
Uneventful and memorable.
Those two words seem to best sum up five days of real sweat, some tears, and just a tad bit of blood following the outdoor challenge — that trip back in time to the Wallowa Mountains — I previewed last week in Write to the Point.
It was uneventful because there were no injuries — outside of a toe blister — and memorable because a group of old friends did just fine it seems recapturing a bit of their youth.
Oh, the tears—those were caused by brutal leg cramps. Now I have a true understanding of what football players go through when dehydration sets in and they need an IV stuck somewhere in order to quell the pain.
Mind you, the return to the Eagle Cap after four decades was hardly an Everest-esque trek by any means. But when Pat, Bob and I brushed through the last of some stubby conifers at the summit we felt as though we conquered the world’s highest mountain.
Our “climb” was still notable considering it was maybe one of the tallest peaks we’d been to the top of without the help of a chairlift.
We were further buoyed when we asked some teenagers coming down the trail how difficult the hike was. They assured us by saying they had seen 60 and 70 year olds on the summit.
The original goal was to get as close as possible to retracing some of the steps taken in 1976, when we were mere pups at age-23. It was a promise I had made to hoist a pack once again in the backcountry.
While we considered the idea of carrying full packs for four days in the midst of these gorgeous but rugged peaks — 25 miles or so in a loop— reality intervened. Legs and shoulders nearly 40 years older might not handle it that well.
Instead we chose a shorter trip with a good chunk carved out by our SUV that took us up to about 5,500 feet above sea level. The final 2,000 feet of elevation gain to the Lakes Basin, a place where glaciers had carved out a dozen or more alpine pools 10,000 years ago was a sweat-buster and a calorie burner.
But that got us just halfway to the goal of getting to the top of the area’s namesake peak, The Eagle Cap, just shy of 9,600 feet. Thought to be the tallest mountain in the range, but just short of the honor, there was no going back.
The Eagle Cap Wilderness was first carved out of the Wallowa range in 1940 by foresighted outdoors people. It was one of the initial parts of the Wilderness Act of 1964 that set aside millions of acres that would be enjoyed by those willing to either hike or be packed in via horse and mule.
No motors or wheels are allowed inside the confines of the area’s 565 square miles, nor other wilderness areas mind you. But after trudging up the trail’s dozens of steep switchbacks, one had to wonder how even animals made it.
After conquering the first 1,000 feet of elevation from the Two Pan trailhead, the trees gave way to a wide valley where the East Fork of the Lostine River meanders and offered constant views of the sharply angled Eagle Cap.
The Eagle Cap looms large and when peering up from its base near Mirror Lake it still looks like a mile’s climb. Having one time hiked into and out of the Grand Canyon, the top of Eagle Cap certainly seems to be a rival, but in reality it’s only half the hike to the summit.
The temperatures a mile in the sky are much more pleasant even when we got a late start on Friday’s “summit” attempt. Considering the thermometer on the true valley floor in Enterprise, Ore. was near 90 degrees, temps in the 70s were a blessing.
The trail to the top of the Eagle Cap, like everything else we encountered, was one rocky switchback after another. But as the trail wound its way skyward, that sharp peak inched closer.
As a person who is not at all fond of heights, especially when the downhill side of the trail sinks at a solid 45-degrees and then into an unsettling horizon — a plunge to sure death — this “hike” was not one of my favorite outdoor experiences.
But promising not to look down and carefully stabilize myself with a trekking pole, one final left turn revealed there was hardly any more of a hill to climb. My friends had reached the top first and when I broke through the trees they confirmed I too had made it.
It was deep breath time in the noticeably thinner air.
What a sight seeing how glaciers once spun themselves from the Eagle Cap and carved out seven different valleys from its flanks.
An hour spent on top of our little world was plenty for me, but maybe not for my friends.
While they sought out advice from an outfitter in the final miles of our hike to civilization on how much it would cost to haul in their gear for a possible return trip, I was calculating when my pack would be resting once and for all off the shoulders.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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