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27.91 miles of hiking • 4750' elevation gain •

We've been to the Wallowas a few times, but never made it up to the popular Lakes Basin area. We knew we were going to have good weather on Friday, but the rest of the weekend looked doubtful. So, to get some bang for our buck, we did what may be unthinkable sacrilege to many - we day hiked the Lakes Basin area. We sure were hoping that our maps and Sullivan's book were accurate on the mileage! We went up the W. Fork Wallowa River trail to Six Mile Meadow to the junction to start the Lakes Basin Loop, then meandered through the beautiful lake areas and meadows, climbed up over Glacier Pass, dropped down to Glacier Lake (amazing!),continued down past Frazier Lake (really beautiful), then closed the loop. It was a blast! Sure, it would have been great to spend more time there - but, this gave us an idea of the amount of people in the area and some ideas for what we would want to do on several days of backpacking there. The trail from Glacier Pass back down to Six Mile Meadow had a bit of brushy overgrowth, and it was so quiet - we saw no one until right around the meadow. We did have to take off our shoes to cross the river where the trail crosses it beyond Frazier Lake. Overall, the elevation gain was spread out on the hike and it was not too much for us. Going up over Glacier Pass was a little rough after about 14 miles of hiking, but it was mostly all down hill after that! A really great day for us!

Comments

Roman, nuizontann, and Woodswalker heart this trip.

Woodswalker
August 1, 2015

Love this area. I dayhiked East Eagle and Main Eagle last year and really am looking forward to going back.