Finally Back In The Wallowas

Finally, we made it back to my favorite place in the world.

3 years ago we took our yearly trip to somewhere in the state to explore. We chose the Wallowa mountains in north-eastern Oregon. Way eastern. Basically Idaho. You can see Idaho from the top of the more eastern peaks. It's a big pocket of beauty in a tough to reach area. You have a long drive from pretty much everywhere.

But it's worth it.

THE GOAL
Backpack to Aneroid Lake up the East Fork Wallowa River Trail, camp at the lake, spend the next day exploring the backcountry, come back Wed.

THE PLAN
Get to Wallowa Lake State Park, spend the night in the campground, pack up and leave early Monday morning to reach the lake as soon as we can. Spend the rest of the day chilling by Aneroid lake. Spend Tuesday exploring the backcountry areas like Tenderfoot pass or Dollar Pass, and climb either Aneroid mtn or Pete's Point. Backpack out early Wednesday.

THE TRIP
Wallowa Lake is a bit over 5 hours from Portland. Luckily most of the drive is pretty scenic. The first 1.5 hours are basically the entire Columbia River Gorge. The middle 1.5 hours is the boring stretch of nothing from the edge of the gorge to Pendleton. From Pendelton the drive goes up into the Blue Mtns for 40 minutes of beauty and then once we hit the turn off for route 82 in La Grande the last hour goes from pretty to stunning the closer you get to Joseph. The drive from Joseph to Wallowa Lake along the east bank remains one of the prettiest stretches of road in the state.

We had a late start due to the puppy being annoying but we had dinner at Terminal Gravity at 4:30 and were at the campsite by 6. We just set up camp, wandered around a little bit, and went to bed by 8. Wallowa Lake campground is a "party campground". There's no privacy, spots are one on top of the other, and people wander all over the place. There are RVs and tents everywhere. It's where you go to "camp" in the sense of hang out with lots of people and make smores, and take the boats out to drink. You aren't really getting away from it all at these spots. It's weird to call camping social, but it is at spots like this. You go here to "get away", but all you are really doing is temporarily trading your local bar and home for a tent and a fire.

Terminal Gravity Brewing - the best

I like going out to the wilderness to actually be out in the wilderness. We woke up at 5am the next morning (thanks a lot, dog) and got packed up and moving after some false starts by about 7:30. The trailhead leaves the end of the road and immediately splits into the East fork and West fork Wallowa River Trails. We went east.

The East Fork Wallowa River trails follows (get this) the East Fork of the Wallowa River. The two forks are divided by Bonneville Mountain. The EF trail is also bordered by the ridge made up of 4 mountains: Mount Howard (Which you can summit via tram), East peak, Hidden Peak, and then in the back Aneroid Mountain.

The trail starts off semi-steep on some long switchbacks. The trail to Aneroid is 6ish miles long, and climbs roughly 2800 feet in elevation. Basically Dog Mountain stretched out over twice the distance. Turns out that's pretty easy in terms of steepness. Even with 30lbs on my back it never really climbed at an unreasonable rate. The trail never really stops climbing for 6 miles, but it never feels like you are hurtling uphill. It was very easy to settle into a pace and just walk.

Wallowa Lake

Chief Joseph Mountain

Switchbacks

There is a nice waterfall 2 miles in. The first two miles are mostly long gentle switchbacks to get out of the immediate valley and onto the side of Bonneville Mountain. You get occasional views back towards Wallowa Lake. After the dirt maintenance track rejoins the trail at a bridge, you are basically at the waterfall. Another switchback and you are at the top, which is a small dam, which provides a solid view and a great first breakpoint. The sun finally crept over the eastern mountain wall at this point which meant things started to heat up.

Flower meadows

dumb dog enjoys the flowers

The next two miles are the boring third of the trail. You just wander slowly uphill. The trail occasionally breaks out into small meadows filled with pretty wildflowers and good views up the valley.

Once you hop a stream and then cross the river to the east bank, everything improves. The trail becomes less rocky and turns into more of a soft dirt. The trail briefly splits at a narrow cliff edge, people heading up take the outer wall with the views. People coming back go down a steep drop. During the last mile or so the trail actually levels out a bit more and the meadows come in.

A picture of the meadows

Me taking a picture of the meadows

Ladies

Aneroid Mountain

Aneroid Mountain

This is when the Wallowa high country really asserts itself. You walk through wide open expanses with great views to all sides. A little more climbing and Roger Lake sneaks into view to the left, with a couple camping spots. Just .3 miles later and you'll see little offshoot trails to Aneroid Lake. We took one, found a camping spot, and settled in.

Aneroid Lake is beautiful. Most camping is on the east bank. The water is very cold but very refreshing. Little fish constantly jump out of the water. Across the lake sits the ridge of Bonneville Mountain. To the south you can see several smaller ridges and in the distance, Pete's Point. If you wander to the south side of the lake, there are some private cabins that you can see if you are respectful.

I wandered to the west bank and climbed a small ridge to get a wide view of the lake and Aneroid mtn behind it. I then wandered to the north bank and that was the real view. If you hike to Aneroid, the north bank campsites are the ones you want to try and nab first. The drama of the cliffs is just astounding and doesn't get old.

View from the North Bank cabins

Aneroid mtn

Boulders on the slopes of Bonneville mtn

Panorama of the Aneroid high country

Our camp is on that bank

South bank Panorama

We spent most of the day just chilling, amusing the dog (she found a meadow and just ran around like a loon for a while) and taking naps. We explored the lake fully. We made friends with our neighbor Samantha, who was on her first day of a 40 mile trip. Then it was bedtime.

dog

The next day was supposed to be our exploring day, but we woke up feeling extremely bad. Poor sleep and suddenly we both had trouble catching our breath, which was weird since we had been fine the previous day. We debated if we could even explore. We would have been okay with just chilling, but the dog is a puppy and hates not doing stuff. We were trying to decide if we should just pack it up and leave when the weather made the decision for us.

Like a mirror

The air felt thick and had hints of a smoke smell. between 8am and 9am, the mountains suddenly got hazy. That was our answer. No way we were going to hike up a mountain in this gross haze, and we wouldn't even see anything. The faint smoke smell also made me worry there might be a forest fire in the range somewhere, which meant it was time for us to skedadle.

We packed up and walked out. Walking out was easy. Nothing beats a gentle downhill grade for 6 miles. The haze and heat only got worse as the day went on, and confirmed our decision. I'm bummed we didn't get to explore more, but it would have been miserable and it was a joy just to be out there anyway. We made ourselves a promise to try and make a yearly backpack pilgrimage, because the Wallowas really are like nothing else. It is my favorite place on earth.

haze over Aneroid

Hazy panorama

stop with the haze

The best photo I took all trip - Kayaker in Wallowa Lake with Bonneville Mtn behind him

Hazy gorge drive back

The Biggs bridge

Celio Park

Driving into the Columbia river gorge

All tuckered out

THE RESULTS
Hike out - 6.5ish miles.
Then another 1-2 miles worth of wandering around later that day.
Roughly 2800 feet of elevation gain, but very reasonable.
Another 6.5 miles out.
Somewhere around 15 miles total in 2 days, most likely.
1 tired pup.