Mount Howard – wanderingyuncks

2024 was a big year for us hiking wise. It wasn’t the number of hikes (55 days on trail) or mileage (496.8), but the culmination of an eight-year goal to complete all 100 hikes from a single edition of William L. Sullivan’s five regional guidebooks (post).

With our focus set on finishing the Eastern Oregon book, and in the process the 500 hikes, we primarily stuck to Oregon this year. In order to complete that goal we took three separate trips to NE Oregon and one to Central Oregon. We did spend three days hiking in Washington but failed to make it to California or Idaho this year. We also only spent four days hiking in Southern Oregon in 2024.

Our easternmost hike was at Hat Point, Oregon above Hells Canyon (post).

Our southernmost hike was an overnight trip in the Sky Lakes Wilderness (post).

As always seems to be the case our westernmost hike involved the Pacific Ocean, this time at Crescent Beach (post).

Finally, our northernmost hike was during the same day as our westernmost hike. After visiting Crescent Beach we drove north to Oregon’s Fort Stevens State Park for a hike which was further north than any of the hikes we did in Washington this year.

As mentioned above there were 55 days spent hiking which included a total of 84 stops. Twenty of the stops involved trails that we’d hiked before but none of these were exact repeats. Out of the 496.8 miles 75.4 were repeated from previous years.

One unique aspect to this year was relying on different forms of transportation for two of the hikes.
In July we took the Wallowa Lake Tramway up Mount Howard (post).

In August we traveled by boat to Wizard Island in Crater Lake National Park (post).

We were fortunate to have good weather for most of the year. It got damp at the end of October and stayed that way for most of the remainder of the year, but our November vacation took us to Disneyland (post) where the weather was close to perfect. That was our first non-hiking (albeit a lot of walking) vacation since 2012.

While weather wasn’t an issue, wildfires were. In particular smoke from a record setting 1,937,512 burned acres beginning with the Little Yamsay Fire in April. The fires really took off in July and the fire season wasn’t officially declared over until October 28th.
The Town Gulch Fire near Carson, OR was dangerously close to blocking our access to one of the featured hikes we needed to do to finish our goal (post).

Here are a some of our favorite sights from the previous year.
January – Corvallis to Sea Trail

February – Sunrise from Maple Creek Road

March – Mary’s Peak from Fitton Green

April – Bridal Veil Falls

May – Fishhawk Falls

May – Willow Creek Trail

May – Juniper Hills Preserve (The trails here were/are closed so we simply parked along the road and took pictures.)

May – Madison Butte

June – Cook Hill

June – Deception Butte Trail

June – Mt. Adams from Big Huckleberry Mountain

June – Grasshopper Meadow (Unfortunately this area burned by the Young Grasshopper Fire in September.)

July – Horsepasture Mountain

July – Nasty Rock Trail

July – Lower Bonny Lake

July – Minam Lake

July – Mount Howard

August – The Pinnacles

August – Downing Creek Falls

August – Schneider Cabin

August – Pine Lakes Trail

August – Laverty Lake

August – Aneroid Lake

September – Hidden Lake

September – Mt. Jefferson from Sprague Lake

September – Black Wolf Meadows

October – White River Canyon

October – Kinzel Lake

October – Sawtooth Trail

October – William L. Finely National Wildlife Refuge

October – Gold Lake Shelter

November – Silver Falls State Park

December – McKenzie River Trail

We couldn’t have asked for much more out of this year’s hikes and for the first time in eight years we don’t have any specific hiking goals that we are working on. Our focus will remain on visiting trails that we still haven’t hiked as well as expanding the areas we’ve visited. Happy Trails!

For the final hike of our week in Enterprise we had purchased tickets for the Wallowa Lake Tramway. The tram was built in 1970 as the steepest 4-person gondola in North America. It takes 15 minutes to travel the 1.83-miles from the 4450′ lower terminal to the 8150′ upper terminal.

The operating hours vary but the tram was running from 9am to 4:30pm so we had some extra time in the morning which we used to check out the Sugar Time Bakery in Enterprise before driving to the tram. We were a little early and did some wandering around Wallow Lake before the tram opened and then were the first riders of the morning.

View after coming back down.

The ride provided some nice views. Fortunately for us it was the clearest morning that we’d experienced all week. When we arrived at the upper terminal we exited our gondola and prepared to set off on our hike.

The tramway from the top.

We were continuing to check off featured hikes toward our goal of completing at least part of each of the 100 hikes featured in William L. Sullivans “100 Hikes Eastern Oregon” (post). He describes two options for hikes on Mount Howard – a 1.9-mile loop and a 5.5-mile hike that adds an out-and-back to a spring below nearby East Peak. Heather had opted for the 1.9-mile loop and I was going to try the longer hike so we split up and I headed for the Royal Purple Overlook.

Pointer for the Royal Purple Overlook (right) and Summit Overlook (left).

Penstemon

Heading out to the Royal Purple Overlook.

They do hold weddings up on the mountain.

Lewis flax

Mountain coyote mint

The Hurwal Divide, Point Joseph and Ruby Peak from left to right.

Pete’s Point, West Aneroid Peak, Eagle Cap the furthest away (post), and Craig Mountain.

Closer look at Eagle Cap.

Craig Mountain and the Matterhorn (post).

East Peak

Heather arrived at the overlook just as I was ready to move on to the Summit Overlook. We took a minute to appreciate the view together and then I headed back to the loop.
Pano that Heather took with her phone.

Buckwheat

Pointer for the Summit Overlook.

View from the Summit Overlook. Heather is standing on the Royal Purple Overlook.

Buek’s groundsel

Point Joseph

East Peak as I neared the Summit Overlook.

The Seven Devils poking up above the smoke from Idaho.

Seven Devils

Mount Melissa to the left and East Peak straight ahead.

Sullivan’s 5.5-mile option included taking a short-cut near the Summit Overlook to link up with the trail leading to the spring. While the short-cut path was obvious it was also clear that the Forest Service doesn’t want people using it based on the sign asking people to stay on official trails and the wood placed over the start of the path.

As a compliance officer it’s my job to follow the rules and guidelines and that’s what I did here. It would add roughly half a mile to my hike, but I remained on the loop for another 0.2-miles dropping to a 4-way junction where I turned right.
The 4-way junction.

East Peak from the 4-way junction.

This trail was clearly less utilized than the Summit Loop and it dropped down a ridge before turning toward East Peak and traversing to a saddle below the Summit Overlook.

Mountain bluebird

Climbing to the saddle.

The view from the saddle.

Wood blocking the lower end of the “short-cut”.

From the saddle the trail climbed steeply through some trees gaining 200′ in 0.2-miles.

Looking back at the Summit Overlook during one of my several breaks during the climb up.

The trail continued to climb, but a bit less steeply, for another 0.4-miles to a second saddle.
There were a few obstacles to avoid along the climb as well.

Meanwhile Heather was admiring a spring along the Summit Loop.

The Royal Purple Overlook from the trail.

Up, up I go.

Golden-mantled ground squirrel watching me navigate some blowdown.

The views helped keep my mind off the climbing.

The second saddle in sight.

The angle was enough different from the saddle that I could see a couple of additional peaks.

The Matterhorn on the left and now Sacajawea Peak behind the Hurwal Divide to the Matterhorns right.

The saddle provided a brief level stretch before the trail launched steeply uphill again.

I was now in the Eagle Cap Wilderness. The trail gained nearly another 300′ over the next 0.4-miles where I arrived at a faint fork.

East Peak

Lots of buckwheat along this section.

Buckwheat and lupine above the trail.

The fork. According to Sullivan the righthand fork peters out in about 0.2-miles and then it’s possible to scramble up East Peak in another three quarters of a mile. I went left heading for the spring.

The trail lost just a little elevation then made a nearly level traverse below a tiny snow field to arrive at a series of springs.

The McCully Creek Trail which we hiked a couple of days earlier (post) is on the far side of the near ridge.

A phacelia

Lyall’s Goldenweed

Wallflower

Looking back at the trail.

Flowers near the springs.

Shrubby cinquefoil surrounded by bistort and mountain death-camas.

Mountain death-camas and bistort

Looking up at the springs.

Monkeyflower

I ventured past the first large spring and hiked to an open rocky ridge where I gained a view of Aneroid Mountain.
There were several smaller streams below East Peak.

Aneroid Mountain

Ground squirrel

View from my turn around point.

Looking back at my route to the second saddle.

I headed back to the Summit Loop where I continued around the outer loop to the Valley Overlook.
Dusty maidens near the springs.

Heading down to the saddle.

Cairn at the saddle.

Milbert’s tortoiseshell

Pale agoseris

Climbing back up to the 4-way junction.

Back on the Summit Loop.

Crossing the service road coming up from McCully Creek.

Mountain Heather

Pointer for the Valley Overlook.

Spur trail to the Valley Overlook.

Flag at the Valley Overlook.

Wallowa Lake below the Valley Overlook.

Wallowa Lake

East Peak peaking up over the trees.

I returned to the loop and continued another half mile back to the upper terminal of the tramway.

Wallowa Paintbrush

The upper terminal.

It was hard not to stop and order some food from the Summit Grill since it smelled so good when I met back up with Heather, but we had a 6:30 hour drive home ahead of us so we simply hopped back on the tram for the 15-minute ride back down to the car.
Apparently Heather was busy making a friend while I was visiting the springs even though she did not feed any animals.

My hike wound up being 6-miles with a little over 1200′ of elevation gain.
The straight line is the tram ride.

The hiking portion highlighted.

This was a nice way to end our trip, but it would have been even nicer if we’d have felt like we had more time to just hang out up on the summit. Knowing that this had been the best day for the views helped us not wish we’d have scheduled this hike earlier in the week though.

We headed home through the smoke from the various fires and felt fortunate that we were able to get our six days of hiking in and check off half (6 of 12) of our remaining featured hikes putting us at 494/500. We’re still hoping to finish this year but given the fire situation that may be a longshot. Happy Trails!

Flickr: Mount Howard