Where we went and why
Last Sunday, we tried to do the Echo Basic hike, but we got to a spot in the road that we didn't think we could cross with our car, so we turned around and went on our merry way. We decided to go back today and just park a bit down the road. You can read more about our little excursion to find a hike that day on my blog post about about my 60 minute step routine from last Sunday.
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| This view is only seen if you take the logging road. |
How to get there
The trail head is pretty easy to get to. There's a trail head marker on Tombstone pass. It's not foo far west of the Eugene split, but don't head towards Eugene. The trail head is on the right if you're heading from Sisters towards Sweet Home. You'll see a sign that says Hackleman Old Growth trail is 1/4 mile ahead. Soon after that sign, you'll see a sign for the Echo Basic Trailhead on the right. You go up a cruddy dirt road. It's 2 miles long. There are some spots that washed out and were filled in with rocks. Then there is a big dip in the road. We opted to not drive over it, but other people made it over just fine. We parked 1/4 mile from the trailhead. It's a gentle 1/4 of a mile, but it does mean that you're 1/4 mile from your car when you're done. There's no shade on that 1/4 of a mile either, so it's hot and miserable getting back to the car.
The Hike
We found out about this hike from 100 Hikes in the Central Oregon Cascades. I'm not sure if the current version on Amazon is the same version I have. I doubt it though since we got our book a couple years ago. The book said to take a logging road .7 miles uphill. My husband walked up to the trailhead and told me to go first. I looked at the path and told him that I didn't think this was the actual trail because it looked like a goat path instead of a logging road. The parking area looked like it continued on to a logging road. We pulled out the book and he read through it. He decided to agree with me and we went up the road. We kept looking for this footbridge, but never did see it. We've been lied to in books before as far as the distance, so we kept going. After about 1.25 miles on the path, we decided that we had definitely taking the wrong way. We ended up heading back to the car.
The road that we took was pretty awesome though. The road hasn't been used in a long time and mother nature is taking the road back. There were parts of the road that had been washed away and we had to climb through briars and brambles to continue. There was also a tree blocking the path and we had to climb over it. There were a couple spots where we were pretty close to the edge of a cliff and I was pretty scared! The flowers along the road were amazing. We kept stopping to take pictures. The views were also amazing. We could see Mt. Washington and Three Fingered Jack. I want to go up Three Fingered Jack so bad, but it's a pretty long and intense hike so that will have to wait. The road had a gentle grade to it and most of the terrain was quite comfortable to walk on. There was a spot that had a fire pit in it. We think hunters might go along this trail. We also saw some shot gun shells and bullet casings. There were also some aluminum cans that had been shot at. It really bothered me seeing the trash left behind. Mother Nature was trying to take back the area, but people were leaving their trash behind. There were a ton of butterflies along this path as well. I really enjoyed this section.
We decided that we would head back to the car and com back another day since we would have gone three miles by the time we got back to the car. When we got back to the trailhead, my husband decided he wanted to go up to see the flowers. I think he figured that if they were as awesome as they were on the road, that the basin would have been even more awesome, so we went up.
The trail starts off pretty steep and rocky. It continues to go up and up and up and up. There are some flat spots, but for the most part, it's a miserably steep, rocky and very narrow path. We stopped a lot along the way. There wasn't much to look at other than trees. I took very few pictures. After .7 miles (according to the book, but I didn't consult any of my apps to verify) we came to a footbridge. We took a bit of a break and sat on some trees.
After we crossed the footbridge, the path went up and up some more. It continued to be pretty narrow and rocky. There were some spots where we had to step up pretty high. I was thankful for my poles to help propel me up and also to help with my balance. Eventually, you come to this spacious area with a lot of green plants. I'm not sure what kind of plants they were, but very few of them were flowering. I would imagine that this place would be absolutely gorgeous in full bloom, but it was pretty blah while we were there.
Once we got through the mucky stuff, we started to go downhill. The path was pretty steep at time and had some dangerous spots. There were a lot of water trails that weren't quite creeks, but they were more than just puddles. Many of these spots were too wide to step across and getting through them wasn't exactly fun. We tried to keep our feet dry by stepping on the tree limbs and rocks in them, but that didn't always go well.
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| This is the goat path that starts off the trail. |
The path continued downhill and then it ended. There was a ginormous tree blocking the path. It wasn't the type of tree that you could just hop over. I didn't even think about taking a picture of it. I couldn't even really tell where the path should have been. There was a path that people had made to an easier place to get over the tree, but it was still pretty dangerous and scary. If I had slipped while going over the tree, I could have had a 2 inch branch lodged in my thigh. Oddly enough, I made it over this thing and didn't even realize that I should have been scared. I nearly died while doing some of the path on the logging road because I was so close to the edge of the cliff, but climbing over a ginormous tree didn't seem like much until I was on the other side and realized what I had done. The people ahead of us helped to guide us back to the trail. You're literally walking on branches from the fallen tree. You can't see the ground. I'm glad they were there, otherwise we might have had a harder time getting back to the path.
Once we were back on the path, we continued to go down. There were some more mucky parts. My husband's hiking pole ended up going about a foot down into the much. I'm glad that wasn't his foot. He did ruin his shoes though. Anyway....we continued to go down. It continued to be narrow and steep. Eventually we got to the footbridge that we had gone across and we knew that we had .7 miles left of crazy steep, narrow and rocky terrain left, but if we made it up it, we could make it down it. It was pretty steep and rocky. I found myself wondering how I had made it up it. I also found myself thinking about the fact that today was supposed to be my rest day, but I just climbed a bloody mountain. Ooopsy. I'm looking forward to Thursday! It's my next rest day and this time, I'll be able to actually rest since I won't be in an activity challenge by then.
We made it down the hill and to the car. In total, we were out there for four hours. We normally walk at least 2 miles per hour, but on the first section, we stopped to take pictures quite often and for the actual Echo Basic hike, we stopped a lot to breathe and went really slow due to the miserable terrain.
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| This is one of the mucky crossings. |
The Video
If you liked the pictures, check out my Echo Basin YouTube Video with more pictures from the hike. The first section of pictures is from the walking from the car and the logging trail. The Echo Basin hike starts when you can see the goat path going up. (I edited this page to correct the link. I had originally uploaded the wrong video file.)
BodyMedia Screen Shot
The hike was far too long to use the workout tab on the app, but here is the website screen shot with the calories per minute. You can see where we took our breaks. The first arc is when we went out on the logging road. Then it dips down while my husband messed around with an app to determine that we were not in the right place. We didn't stop much on the way back from the logging road. Then it dipped again while we decided if we were going to make the climb The next section is the .7 miles to the footbridge. Then we took a break on the logs. The next section is from the footbridge to the summit. You can see where we took pictures and had rest stops. The last section was coming down. We didn't stop much coming down, but we did go slow at times to cross the ginormous tree or other path obstructions.
MapMyHike Screen Shot
I really like the MapMyHike website. I just wish it was easier to save the stinking stuff. You can see that we did not make good time on this hike, but it didn't matter. I'd love to know why this app things I burned 5886 calories. There is no way that happened. The book said that the hike was a 600 foot elevation gain, but we according to MapMyHike it was closer to 700. I love looking at these maps. It really shows that I can't walk in a straight line. If I ever get pulled over and the cop thinks I'm drunk, I'm so screwed if he tries to make me walk a straight line. I wonder if I can just ask for a breathalizer test.
BackCountry Navigator
The first screen shot is for the logging road and the second one is for the actual hike from the book. Something is just not right about the first screen shot. This app has some major issues and I know that, but this is just weirder than normal. I know I never went 8.4 MPH on the first part or 9.5 MPH on the second part. What I'm confused about is the min grade listed and the min and max altitude. It shows a difference of like 1300 feet, but then the altitude gain is only 201 feet on the first one? The second one seems accurate though when compared to MapMyHike.BackCountry Navigator shows that the total walk was over 6 miles too. I don't think I'll be paying for this app. It just seems off on too many things.
RunKeeper
I went a little overboard with the apps on this hike. I'm trying to find something that I like, so I run them all at the same time. I have to walk around with flash chargers to make sure that I don't run out of battery on the hikes! The first one is for the logging road, and it has issues. I know the logging road did not have a 1300 foot elevation change. I'm not sure why this app and BackCountry Navigator both think that it did. Maybe I need to ditch this phone tracking stuff and buy an actual GPS tracker.
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