~ Wallowas / Eagle Cap Wilderness ~

After a period of separation from my BFF, who currently and non-permanently resides in Portland, Oregon, and occasional meetings in the company of others (primarily our significant others), Elizabeth and I formulated a plan to spend a weekend camping. The plan involved us meeting at a pre-determined halfway point and then venturing into the deep wilderness together. We met at La Grande, at a Denny's Restaurant right off the highway. If one considers a map of the pacific northwest, one would notice that La Grande is not halfway between Portland and Boise. Indeed, it is much closer to Boise, which meant that Elizabeth had about two hours of extra driving than I. Nevertheless, we met in LaGrande where we found this amazing place to have a lunch, Folley's, which was in "downtown" La Grande, and we each enjoyed an eggplant parmesean grilled sandwich with a sundried tomato pasta sallad. After eating, we took a stroll along the main drag of "downtown" and unnecessarily purchased passes for the Eagle Cap Wilderness trailhead. Then we drove deep and for a long time on backwoods fireroads, to the Two Colors campground in the Eagle Cap Wilderness in the Wallowa - Whitman Ranger District. Our main adventure was a big hike along the Main Eagle trail. This hike was through some spectacular scenery, as evidenced by the below photographs. On our hike back from whence we had come, we stopped at a stream to enjoy a cooling experience. Elizabeth removed all of her clothing and plunged into the ice cold water, which is a very Elizabeth-thing to do. I merely dipped my feetsys in, which was mighty refreshing. The trail itself was interesting. It varied from gradual ascents and decents, and was littered with boulders and rocks of all sizes (which were sometimes hard to navigate) along with piles of horse manure (the area is popular with the owners of stock animals, such as horses, for recreational use). At some point, Elizabeth made the comment that she rather enjoys the smell of fresh horse manure. I disagreed. Later, after navigating around some fresh and very sloppy horse manure, she retracked that statement. The main highlight of the trip, in my opinion, was having so much time with my Honey Bear to just talk, and talk, and talk, and talk.

Posted by jennifer at 8:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)