6 miles of hiking • 2500' elevation gain •
'Recliner Hike' after the Ice Lake trip to 'recon' Chief Joseph trail/MT ascent.
Somewhat of a precursor for the hike that follows this one.
I needed a quick little recliner hike to keep my knee from totally whacking out on me after the longish 19 mile Ice Lake hike. Went up to the Chief Joseph trail from the South Wallowa Sate Park TH and found their nice foot bridge out at BC Creek and 'scwacked up a bit for a little recon to find a better crossing and got another picture of some waterfalls. Finally made it across BC Creek without getting washed away and continued on the hike. Met a guy while I was crossing BC Creek that said there was another way up to Chief Joseph trail from the Lake area so intended to find that junction to head down to the lake to meet my family for amid afternoon lake swim. Got to the junction in about 1.5 miles and saw where there was a bush whackers climbers trail up the ridge that bypassed miles of easy graded Chief Joseph switchbacks. I thought I saw a T Pee on the top of some point and for some really stupid reason also thought that it was the top of Chief Joseph without really checking elevations very well on my GPS, so I decided I would go to this point on my next hike thus this hike was somewhat of a recon for the next days super crazy loony bin scramble/schwack...
