Eagle Cap Peak

For our 5th anniversary, Sparky decided we needed to go for a hike. A friend of ours recommended what he called an "easy" hike up one of the forks of the Lostine River to the top of Eagle Cap Peak in Oregon.

"It's all on good Forest Service trail." he said.

While this is in fact true, he failed to mention both the actual mileage covered and the elevation gain. Which in my opinion were prodigious.

So here are some pictures:

Entering the Eagle Cap Wilderness:
One of the bridges over the Lostine was washed out, so we and the dogs got to improvise:
One of the waterfalls coming from the upper valley:
One of our first glimpses of Eagle Cap Peak. It looks like it's a long ways away. And it is.
Getting closer:
Our options once we reached the head of the valley:
Sparky wetting down the dogs for the hot and exposed push to the top:
Looking East towards one of the many lakes at the head of this basin:
Sellie the puppy going for a slide:
Getting ever closer: note the two large dikes of darker rock. As far as I could tell, they were basalt intrusions into the older plutonic granite. I didn't realize the Columbia Basin flood basalts reached so far south. Though perhaps they are remnants of a different event.
Looking back North from the top of the peak. The valley on the left (that we came up) is as classic a glacier carved valley as I've ever seen: U-shaped, heading almost directly north and almost perfectly straight. Very cool.
One of the other lakes seen from the peak:
Sparky, me and the dogs. We hauled champagne up to the top for our anniversary toast:
One of the few pictures taken on the way down:
It turns out the hike was just shy of 19 miles long, with an elevation gain of just about 4000 feet. Eagle Cap peak is about 9800 feet high, and seeing as how Sparky and I live about 500 feet above sea level, the last couple thousand feet were quite difficult for us. We'd walk about 20 or 30 yards (steeply uphill), and stop for a couple of minutes until our hearts stopped racing. We did this for probably the last mile to the top.

The reason we have so few pictures on the way down is because of exhaustion. I find walking downhill quite painful (too much knee abuse when younger), so I went very slowly. By the end, though I had no blisters, the bottoms of my feet were very sore, and each step was torture. Sparky was even worse off: she'll lose the toenails on both her big toes, and she developed several large blisters to boot.

The following day, I was so sore I just stayed in bed and watched the Olympics. I'm really looking forward to what Sparky wants to do next year. Really.