This is the most interior, isolated stretch of trail in the Eagle Cap, and is in surprisingly awesome shape to boot. The path is all business with several very long and straight sections and very good footing that serves as a very fast corridor that doesn't see much user action. Shamefully, the trail almost entirely ignores the Minam River, keeping its distance so you can only hear the rushing water but never see it unless you stray from the trail. It only reveals the river when you get up to where it flows down from Blue Lake (which is the non-original headwaters of the river). Once you ford it there, as more of a creek, you leave it immediately feeling somewhat cheated that you traveled so far on a trail named after a river you didn't got to fully experience.
The upper stretches give you some really nice visuals of a series of unnamed points towering on the other side of the creek, and then you break into some open meadows where Eagle Cap is front and center. It is a good ending to a unique trail in the remote part of the wilderness. There are several nice stream crossings to get fresh water along the way.
The trail is a continuation of the Minam River Trail, but broken off here to isolate this upper stretch for its own attention. From Elk Creek Footbridge upstream is goes through the 2019 Granite Gulch fire, which is visible in some short stretches where it burned hot but mostly just burned along the ground and will soon be hardly noticed. I found it amazingly maintained with all the logs cut out, including some big ones, in 2019.
Trail Notes
- 0.0 mi. Starting at the Elk Creek Bridge intersection head up river on the trail.
- 0.1 Intersection with Granite Gulch Trail to the east.
- 1.7 Cross Granite Gulch Creek.
- 2.3 Cross Wild Sheep Creek.
- 4.2 Intersection with Trail Creek Trail, which is well marked on the right.
- 7.9 Intersection with trail to Frazier Pass. There is a nice meadow here with the early stages of the Minam River flowing through it.
- 8.6 Cross the Minam River getting close to the headwaters flowing from Blue Lake.
- 9.7 Arrive at the southern dam of Minam Lake
- 9.8 Arrive at the trail intersection that officially ends this trail. Continuing on this trail becomes the Minam Lake Trail.
