This is Mirror Lake with the reflection of Eagle Cap Mountain overlooking it. This was taken right at our camp site.
On our first day hike our goal was to summit the Matterhorn. It's the white granite peak in the background of the picture above. We did some technical scrambling/climbing up the boulders of the spine in the foreground with the idea of working our way out there along the ridge tops. After a few hours we were up to the ridge but at a dead end of cliffs and drop offs. We had to drop down the back side to an amazing remote lake where we had lunch, took a swim, and hiked back to camp.
Day Two. We hiked to the summit of Eagle Cap Mountain. There was a well established trail to the top but it was steep switchbacks the whole way up. Once on top the view was amazing in all directions. This is me standing at about 9,595 feet, with a pretty big drop to my right. The lake down and to my left is Glacier Lake (a well deserved name).
Here's the four of us on the summit of Eagle Cap Mountain. Left --> Right: Josh Rowley, Jayson Rowley (bro in-law), Me, and Shane Rowley.
After hitting the summit to Eagle Cap, we dropped down the back side and had to navigate our way down this snowfield. They chose to use their jackets as sleds, but I took the more cautious approach of kicking steps the whole way down. It was much steeper than the picture looks with big rocks at the bottom. Once past the snowfield we crossed some rocks and run off streams and made it to Glacier Lake for another ice cold swim. The run off water from these snowfields was cold, clear, and tasted great.
After our two days of day hikes we loaded everything up on Saturday morning and hiked back out with our packs a few pounds lighter. We stopped for an amazing burger at the Lostine Tavern and drove five hours back to Portland to rejoin civilization.
