Fall in the WALLOWA Mountains - Minam River Full Documentary

It's September and we're back in Oregon and headed for the Eagle Cap Wilderness for our annual fall campout. All right, it's official. Entering the wilderness. The trail so far was nice and gradual and easy walking. That would all change once we left the main trail. Trail not maintained. Guess which one we're going up. It was time to leave the canyon floor and start climbing up towards Heart Lake. Right off the bat, the trail started going straight up the mountain. The route we were doing wasn't the longest one we've ever done, but it did have its fair share of climbing. Well, we're working our way up the climb up to Heart Lake. Starting to cloud over on us. Hopefully it doesn't rain. Forecast said showers in the morning. We'll see. Mountain's got its own way. All right, well just hit the junction with Heart Lake. I'm a little ahead of the boys, so I'm gonna wait for them to catch up and then it's just a little jaunt into the lake. I think it's gonna be pretty awesome in here. See a campfire ring already. Heart Lake. We made it to the lake under fair skies, but as we set up and settled in, the clouds started to build and run over the mountain and down past us. Well, good morning. Morning day two here from Heart Lake. Great night last night. Really slept good in the hammock. Had a couple downpours there for a while, but I think we all stayed dry. Today I think we're gonna push out of here and hopefully end up on the north or on the Minum River. That's about it. We took our time getting going and enjoyed a quiet morning around the lake. Before long, it was time to throw on our packs and finish our climb over the pass. Once again, steep trail greeted us as we started the day. Well, we made it up here to Arrow Lake. More straight up trail, but we just got this little rise to go over and then it's downhill. It's gorgeous. I just love this country. We're calling this what? Bench Canyon Pass. F**k yeah. As we were heading up the trail, we noticed that there were a couple of lower down into the drainage. The clouds started to form above us and we thought we could hear thunder in the distance. All right. Well, we're almost down here to the Minum River and we've got a thunderstorm. I think that's off to the west. Likely it's gonna hit us. It's already been raining on us, but not hard. Hopefully we can get down here, find a camp right away, get set up before it hits. We didn't exactly beat the storm and we didn't see any campsites at the trail junction, so we hiked a ways off trail and made something work. With the rain coming down, we were happy to be set up. Well, good morning. It is morning day three here from just above the Minum River. Bit of a late morning for us. Gonna get a late start on trail, but we have just a little ways to go. We're trying to get to the base of Fraser Pass today. Set us up for going over Fraser Pass tomorrow and then spending the rest of the trip at Hidden Lake. Coming into the hike, I didn't expect much out of this section of the trail. I thought that we would just be hiking in the trees next to the river with no views, but that's not how it was at all. We made it to the base of Fraser Pass and found a great campsite. The rain was coming and going, but we had a good fire and the whiskey kept the cold away. Well, good morning. Morning day four here on the Minum River and at the base of Fraser Pass. Fraser Pass behind me. Going up and over that today and gonna be pulling into Hidden Lake where we'll stay for the rest of the trip. Should have two zeros and we're very much looking forward to that. Great campsite here and if we get the one I'm thinking of at Hidden Lake, we'll have another great campsite tonight. Up and over Fraser Pass. I was expecting Fraser Pass to be a well-used trail that was nicely graded, but it was the opposite of that. All right, we made it to the top of Fraser Pass. That was one steep pass, but not too long luckily. So now we're going to drop down a little bit and then kind of hug the mountain and climb up into Hidden Lake, hopefully saving us like a thousand feet of climbing, we hope. As we started down from Fraser Pass, we could see the near sheer rock mountainside that we were trying to get around to get into Hidden Lake. We dropped down the passaways to the top of the tree line. From there, we left the main trail and started our bushwhack. Almost immediately, I found a game trail that looked pretty well used and it was going in the direction we wanted to go. I figured it might take us all the way to the lake. There were a couple of parts of the trail that would have been better to have four legs rather than just two, but in the end, that game trail took us almost all the way into the lake. After looking at every campsite on the lake, we settled on one at the end and set up camp, but this time we were setting up for a few days. Well, good morning. It is morning day five here from Hidden Lake. Not too bad. We have reached the zeros portion of our trip and we're basically spending the rest of the trip here. I've got two full zeros and then we'll head out on the third day. I love this place. I'm glad my memory holds and it's just as amazing as I remember. Oh, time to sit back and just relax and enjoy these last couple days of the trip. It was pretty easy to settle into life at Hidden Lake. The weather had finally broke and the skies were clear. We took it easy around camp and played our games and eventually, I wandered around the lake. Well, good afternoon. Afternoon day six here from Hidden Lake. Brandon and I have climbed up to one of these ponds. He's going to try fishing it. Hasn't had any luck so far down at Hidden Lake. Brandon and I walked up from the lake to a couple of ponds that were higher up in the basin. Our only plan for the day was to explore the rest of the basin and fish our way back to camp. All right. Well, good morning. Morning day seven. Going home day. Just leaving Hidden Lake here. Getting an early start. The sun's just coming up over the trees here. What a trip it's been. Let's go get this. After a couple of days of rest, we were on trail early and ready to get down to East Eagle Creek. All right. We've hit the junction with the main trail now. East Eagle Trail. Just got to head down this valley. Should start going pretty fast now. I came into this trip looking for a real reset for my backpacking trips. I'd had a couple really rough ones in a row, so we tailored our route especially so we could get the reset we were all looking for. I'm happy to report that I for one got what I was looking for. Going with the right people can make all the difference on the trip. It's been a while since I've been out with just these guys and it brought back some great memories, but I'm most comforted by the fact that we're still making new ones. All right. Just hit the sign. What a trip this has been. I'm absolutely in love with this place, but still got to wrap this one up. And yeah, you guessed it. There's beer in the truck. Let's go get one.