West Eagle Meadow and Boulder Park Horse Camps, Oregon

This trip started out great, however as time went on things went a little sideways, but it makes for a good story.... so here goes:

Tombstone Lake in the Wallowa's.

I had planned to do a 10 or 11 day trip at three different camps, all in the same general area.
I took my time driving there, and arrived at West Eagle Meadow around 5:00pm the first day. You have to drive on dirt FS roads for a long while, coming from Medical Springs which is outside of Baker City. The hiking books, websites and even an email inquiry to the ranger station, had made it seem like the last 4.5 miles of the road were extremely rough, it actually says not recommended for trailers, so imagine my surprise when it was totally fine. It had been recently graded, big rocks had been removed, and fresh gravel had been added.

This camp has 6 sites in a loop, there are no corrals but some spots have hitching rails, and one has a star feeder. There is a bathroom with a garbage can in it.This is a nice camp but it obviously does not get a lot of use. It is situated right before you get to the trailhead and parking area for backpackers and hikers. The fee is $5.00 per night or free with a NW Forest Pass.There is technically stock water if you are willing to walk a ways to the creek, or drive a little closer in order to fill containers.

West Eagle Meadow Horse Camp.

West Eagle Meadow.

As I was settling in on the first evening, I soon realized that my water heater was on the fritz. Great....
Cold showers for many days, of course this would happen on the first night, and not the last.

Most of the trails I rode on this trip were not extremely well marked, the signs are old, some are missing the necessary info, a lot of times just the post remains.
On the West Eagle Meadow Trail you ride straight out for the first three miles, and then it splits and you have a choice, left or right, so my first day I went left, destination, Tombstone Lake.
These trails are not for the faint of heart, cliffs, granite, lots of elevation gain, but there is a payoff, absolute beauty. As I rode up and up and up, I looked across and I could see where the trail went that I was going to take the following day....hmmmm interesting how from afar it doesn't look even remotely passable!

On the West Eagle Meadow Trail.

Looking across at the trail for the next day....it goes across the landslide area!

On the trail to Tombstone Lake.

My horse, Rina, had started out that morning with a pep in her step and was spooking for no reason at silly things, but after gaining about 3000 feet of elevation she wasn't quite so rambunctious anymore. We eventually got to a ridge, and there was the lake spread out below us.

Tombstone Lake.

The mountains beside Tombstone Lake.

I turned around from there and on the way back down we could see the lake and waterfall across the way, we would be visiting the next day.

Echo Lake from afar.

Corkscrew Falls.

The next day, you guessed it, we went to the right, which headed to Echo and Traverse Lakes.
This wasn't quite as much elevation gain and was a little shorter of a ride, but not by much. What was nice was my horse never actually broke a sweat or was breathing hard, because although it's constant climbing for long sections, the trails are zigzag switchbacks. The mileage on both rides was not crazy long ( about 15 and 13 ) but it takes all day to do them in this kind of country, not much chance for moving fast, lots of granite to negotiate, and of course stopping frequently to take it all in.

Having a break on the way to Echo and Traverse Lakes.

Echo Lake.

A section of the trail to Traverse Lake.

Traverse Lake.

Traverse Lake.

Heading back down, above Echo Lake.

We spent one more night and then the next day, we moved to the second camp, a mere 8 miles away.

Boulder Park has 8 sites, again there are no corrals but two have star feeders, a bathroom, plus another bathroom at the nearby trailhead with a garbage can, and another creek for stock water that is not especially close. This camp is free, I have no idea why, since it is more popular than the first one, but I am not complaining.

Boulder Park.

Our camp spot at Boulder Park.

Although the campground is called Boulder Park, the trailhead is called Main Eagle. Again you ride straight out, this time for just over 4 miles, and then you have two options (there is another option before you get there, but it is not horse friendly, and the trail is not maintained) straight to Eagle Lake, or right to Bear Lake, which is the one I did first.

These are easier trails than from out of West Eagle, but there is still a climb, minus the switchbacks this time, and one short cliff area to get to Bear Lake. On the way, there is also a detour to Culver Lake.

The first part of the Main Eagle Trail, very lush foliage beside the creek.

Crossing the creek on the Main Eagle Trail.

Well, this bridge has been out for awhile.

Checking us out.

Eagle Creek Meadow is where the trail splits.

Bear Lake.

The following day I went to Eagle Lake which is where things started to go awry. First my camera stopped working for no reason I could decipher, then a short while later as I was leading Rina across a section of granite, she slipped and fell, landing on her side and ripping the reins out of my hand. Luckily she got back up quickly, and since the trail was a little wider, she wasn't in danger of going off the cliff. She was a little scraped up, but no major damage done, so we continued the rest of the way to the lake. Pictures from here on out had to be taken on my Iphone.

Eagle Lake.

The dam at Eagle Lake. They dam it for irrigation water.

On the way back as we were about 4 miles away from camp, a storm came through, some extreme winds and then hail, rain, thunder and lightning. We took cover and waited for it to blow over which it did fairly quickly. Just as I was thinking, well that wasn't so bad, we rounded the corner and a huge tree was down, completely blocking the trail. And that was the theme for the rest of the ride, a trail that had been completely clear earlier, was now littered with downed trees, most of which were really hard to get around. I had to be very creative to get my horse through it, a couple of times I wondered if we would get out at all, at this point I was cold and wet and not keen on spending the night out there, but we made it back.

One of the many trees that fell.

The next day I was supposed to move to the third camp, and so I packed up and started driving, only getting about a mile away before coming across more downed trees completely blocking the road. I was trapped. Someone in an SUV had driven in to the trailhead that morning, and I saw by their tracks that they had driven off road to get around it. I thought about that option for about an hour and a half, and then just decided it was too risky with my trailer. Eventually I backed up and as I was parking on the side of the road the SUV people came back by. I stopped them and asked if they would notify someone once they got back to civilization, to come and remove the trees. I figured I would be spending another night, while I waited for rescue. But the couple in the SUV were very helpful and drove ahead down the road to where some other people were camped, found an ax, came back and chopped up the trees clearing just enough room for me to squeeze my trailer past, which was extremely sweet, and very lucky, since just a few miles farther down the road, I saw smoke. Yup, a forest fire caused by the lightning. There were helicopters starting to dump water on it, and I was being passed by trucks bringing up firefighting equipment.

I finally made it to my third camp which was Buck Creek, (far enough away from the fire). I spent the night there, and considered doing the ride there, but there had been more storms overnight and thunder was still rumbling in the morning. Also, there was smoke starting to drift through the air, so I figured it was time to shorten my trip. The road back down is very steep, enough to smoke my truck and trailer brakes causing me to have to pull over and wait a bit for them to cool.( I learned later my trailer brakes weren't working very well, so that explains it, but it is a very steep road ) As I got into Baker City there were fires burning in every direction, and there was thick smoke almost all the way home. In the next couple days even more fires started, sadly, Eastern Oregon was burning up, and I was really glad I left when I did....sometimes you got to get while the getting's good!


GPS COORDINATES TO WEST EAGLE MEADOW

GPS COORDINATES TO BOULDER PARK