Wallowa Mountians and Hells Canyon

I took some time off from work in the second week of August and planned a trip to the NE corner of my new state of Oregon. I really didn't do too much planning for this trip, just kind of winged it like I have been doing and it worked out. I recruited my roommate Molly to come along with me. We had a general plan of driving out spending a few days in the Wallowa's and then checking out Hells Canyon before heading back.

So with this general plan and a few print outs for hikes we would do we were out of Portland by 4 p.m on Thursday August 9th 2007. Headed east on I-84 and stopped in The Dalles for a bite to eat and stopped there at Fred Meyers to pick up some grub, windy windy windy. Back out to 84 and kept on going east. I hadn't been east of Biggs, Oregon on 84 so I was excited to see more of the Columbia river valley on the dry side. Lots of very smooth rounded sand colored hills in these parts. After seeing no trees for a good hour we saw a forest on the south side of the road. The only thing was this was a very geometric forest, it was a tree farm. When driving by it and looking at a right angle from the road you see between the trees, which is akin to looking down a very long hallway. This went on for some time, I think it was around 5 or more miles and then it just stopped and again it was the high desert. The sun started to go down as we were headed into Pendleton, Oregon and we caught the sunset as we ascended into some hills.

We still had a ways to go, we were headed to the Hurricane Creek trail head just south of the town Enterprise. After pulling into Le Grande and picking up a redbull and some beef jerky we headed north on state hwy 82. We had some entertainment along the way. The sky was full of lightning to our east and gave us glimpses of the mountainous terrain we couldn't fully see. That may not sound like much to those back home in the midwest but lightning is rare in Portland, I have only seen it once in 6+ months. We finally pulled into Enterprise around 11:00 at night. We had some trouble finding the road we were looking for that would take us to our campsite so decided to find someone to ask. The only thing open, the only thing showing signs of life was the bar, the Range Rider I believe it was called. So I pulled up and didn't even have to go inside because two tipsy helpful patrons were just coming out. I believe on of them was named Moses. They filled me in on how to get there and then told me they both work for the Terminal Gravity Brewery which makes there famous (at least around Portland) IPA. They said I should stop by and get a tour, which I said I would try to do. So out of town to the campsite we were, drove through a little rain but was done when we got there. Right next to a little stream, we set up the the tent with the help of my car lights in the chilly night and were sleeping very shortly thereafter.

Our first hike was to climb the Hurwal Divide (the ridge line which separates the HURicane and WALlowa watersheds). Again the idea for this hike came from "75 Scrambles in Oregon" and a very interesting picture of the area. The hike ahead of us was around 11 miles with 4,700 feet of elevation gain so we packed accordingly and were off. Unfortunately we got lost. We were searching for a turn off to the Thorp Creek trail off of Hurricane Creek trail at about the 2 mile mark but didn't have much luck. It wasn't marked so we tromped around the creek looking for it and spent about an hour before giving up. A little dejected we decided to just hike up the Hurricane Creek trail and see what we could see. A few minutes into this we came across a old gentleman who told us he just turned 86 and he had been hiking in these hills his whole life. He had some ski poles, gardening gloves, an NRA ball cap and a whole lot of stories. He told us of his cattle operation he had going, he told us of how in his youth he would go for days just hopping between the high alpine lakes eating the fish he caught. He also told us where we missed our turn off to thorp creek trail but it was too late in the day to finish the intended hike. He suggested we hike up to Legore Lake, and pointed in the general westerly direction. He told us how to get there and about some old mines along the way. We left our friend (who's name I forgot...) and headed south again on the hurricane creek trail, headed towards hurricane creek falls. The trail meandered and climbed gently through wooded areas and into some nice wide alpine meadows and back into the trees. The falls were kind of weak with the lack of water this time of year but were nice none the less. Took a break and had some lunch here. We could see our initial destination as we looked east. I scrambled around on some rocks in the area and took a few photos before we trucked it back to the car.