Eagle Benson

20 miles of hiking • 5000' elevation gain • 1 night

Eagle Creek has it's own climate—I need to remember this for future trips. Trying to take advantage of the beginning of this stretch of great weather, a friend and I headed out for a two night loop of Eagle Creek to Wahtum Lake.

We hiked to 7.5 mile camp the first night. Despite the blue skies, everything was soaking wet. Drenched. With a low in the mid 30s, no fire was a bummer. After a relatively long and cold night, we awoke, hung out leisurely under the tarp, and broke camp.

Our plans changed due to the sheer wetness of everything. We decided to take the Eagle Benson trail instead of continuing up to Wahtum Lake, so we could make an audible for the second night, afraid it might be truly freezing on top of the Benson, and yet still saturated enough to not have yet another fire.

When we finally made it up to the Benson at Camp Smoky, a stiff wind was blowing through the trees and everything was covered in snow, between an inch and a foot thick. My buddy was extremely cold and wet, shivering from the water in his clothes from scraping through the low brush of the burnt area that the Eagle Benson trail cuts through.

I built a fire, wood covered in snow withstanding, but my friend was having trouble warming up. We decided to hike the rest of the way out that day instead of staying a second night. The southern end of Benson has 1-2 feet of snow everywhere, and it ends right at the wilderness boundary on the Ruckel Creek trail.

Finished the hike by headlamp, and stopped in at Charburger for some ghetto food and coffee to keep me awake for the drive home.

In retrospect, we could have stayed another night if I would have paid better attention to my friend. I have my nutrition and hydration needs dialed from 50+ nights out backpacking, but this was his second ever backpacking trip. He started cramping on the way up the rather demanding Eagle Benson trail (2.5 miles, 3000 vertical feet), and that should have been an immediate signal that he either wasn't taking in enough calories, enough electrolytes, or wasn't drinking enough. We should have stopped, had lunch, drank some gatorade and took time to let him recover halfway up the hill instead of pushing to the top. When we got to the top, it was inhospitable and he was having a hard time getting back to normal.