Day 5: Over Ivan Carper: 9.5 miles

All good things must come to an end. Today we would leave the primo campsite. Not only that, but we'd have to pack camp. And carry our full pack. Up almost 1000 feet over Ivan Carper Pass. But it was time to move on and so we did.

For the last time we went back by Mirror Lake and Upper Lake and then started the ascent to the top of the pass. It wasn't too bad. We got to the top and took a break. While sitting there we heard someone coming up from the other side. We greeted him and he ignored us, dropped his pack and headed back down. Several minutes later he reappeared with another pack and shortly after that his wife came along. Despite the earlier snub, they turned out to be friendly and we chatted for quite a while.

Eventually it was time to move on and we headed down into the west Lostine River valley. Along the way we met a woman on a horse who thankfully turned out to be quite friendly. We told the story of my earlier run in and she had a laugh and said if the horse was really that skittish it had no business being out on the trails. Karen had done a llama trek in the Wallowas several years back and the woman knew the tour operator and updated Karen on her and the llamas.

Further down the trail we ran into some young guys coming up the trail. They looked to be fit but one of them was obviously struggling to get up the hill. It made me feel good to know I was in better shape than him!

We quickly came to Minam Lake where we dropped our packs. Minam Lake was once the headwaters of the Minam River but once upon a time the locals decided they wanted the water to go north instead of south. So they built up the south end of the lake until it spilled over to feed the Lostine River. A bit of the water still seeps out to feed the Minam and we walked over the dike where it does that to head up to Blue Lake which is now the headwaters for the Minam.

We stayed at Blue Lake for a bit and then headed back down. Along the way we saw a mama blue grouse and several chicks. We watched them for quite a while as it took took them 20 minutes to cross the trail. They didn't seem too shy, which probably explains why they are endangered. Back down at Minam, we saw another family of grouse, this time including papa.

We picked up our packs and headed down the West Lostine Trail. We had a couple of difficult river crossings but managed to get across without getting wet. At Copper Creek we found a nice meadow with some nearby campsites. We set up camp and headed to the creek to wash up and filter water. There we saw some folks camping in the meadow (which is illegal). One of the guys wandered over and asked us if we knew of a lake nearby that started with an M. We told him Minam Lake was about three miles up the trail. He asked how to get there which was odd since they had to have walked by a hugh cairn with a sign in it pointing out the direction to the lake to get to where they were. We offered to showed him our maps and he said he had one. Apparently he hadn't bothered to look at it.