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Mount Howard is located in North Easter Oregon and it is the tallest mountain of the Wallowa region. It is known for its breathtaking view from its summit. Due to its popularity, a tram was built to take visitors all the way to the peak at more than 10000ft. There is also a restaurant at the summit of the mountain Called Summit Grill. People in Wallowa often ride the tram to the top to grab a drink while enjoying the view from the summit. In addition, due to Mount Howards height and location, the summit of Mount Howard also provides the perfect place for launching paragliding. Paragliding is a very well known recreational activity here.
The tram station was not far from Wallowa Lake Resort lodge. It only took us about 1 minute to walk to there. When we got there, there was not many people heading to the summit due to the low visibility of the day. The kid who set up the fire in Columbia Gorge is to blame for all these smog. We got to the ticket booth and the round trip ticket is $30 per adult. Seniors and kids under the age of 12 can get cheaper tickets.
The tram seems quite aged but well maintained. The tram was not very big and can only sit 4 people. After we got into the tram, we had to wait for a couple minutes before the tram actually starts moving. While taking the tram, we had the perfect view over Wallowa Lake from the top. It was just amazing. Looking down at the mountain, we could also see trails used by ATVs to deliver goods to the top of the mountain.
After around 7 minutes, we got to the top of the summit. The first thing we did is to grab lunch at Summit Grill restaurant. It was not a very big restaurant and just offered the usually burger, fries, and salad. We did see many locals enjoying their lunch here.
Once we finished our lunch, we went for some hike at the summit. There were few very short trails at the summit. Every trails at the summit lead to a view point towards different directions. However, due to low visibility, we could not see very far. The total of all the trails at the summit sums up to be about 2 miles, but when we were hiking on the trail, it felt less than 2 miles and we finished all the trails rather quickly.
We also went to see the paragliding launch area at the summit. There was no one there when we went. We could feel strong wind blowing towards us.
In general, Mount Howard summit is a must visit place since it is the hallmark of the region. The summit of Mount Howard offers incredible views during clear weather and having a drink at the Summit Grill is just one of the best thing to enjoy.
Deadman's Falls is a waterfall located at Wallowa region, Oregon. It is not a famous waterfalls like many others, but it does have its uniqueness. To get to Deadman's Falls, the hiking trailhead starts at Hurricane Creek Trailhead. This trailhead is about 15 minutes away from the town of Joseph. This trail was actually suggested to us by the ranger when we visited the information center at Joseph. The ranger told us that this was her favorite hike of all time and insisted us to try it!
The Hurricane Creek trail is a very popular trail with many day hikers and backpackers because this trail leads all the way into Wallowa Lake Basin. We got to the trailhead early in the morning around 8AM and there were already a few cars at the parking lot. We noticed that this trailhead requires $5 payment. Luckily, we have NW Forest Pass and did not have to pay for the permit.
Although Hurricane Creek trail is a popular trail, we did not run into any other hikers in the first 2 miles. The trail was very easy to hike on with little to almost no elevation gain. We hiked through beautiful meadows between the mountains and along the creek. We did saw some backpackers heading back and were surprised that they were not wearing any shoes!
We hoped that they did not step on any horse dumps.
Since the trail goes along the running Hurricane Creek, we could often hear the water rumbling through the rocky canyon. The view of the creek running through the rocks were magnificent. After about 3 miles into the trail, we finally reached the waterfall. Unlike many other waterfalls, Deadman's Falls did not have a lot of volume of water. We almost missed it.
In addition, while we sat down there and enjoy the view, a woman came by and started climbing on the rocky surface beside the waterfalls. She just kept climbing higher and higher and eventually got over to the top of the cliff. We were amazed with what she did, but not sure what she was looking for.
When we headed back to the car, we started to see more people hiking the trail. There were backpackers, and day hikers with their dogs and babies. This was an amazing trail with beautiful views. We wished that we could have more time and hike the entire 12 miles to Wallowa Lake Basin, which has stunning views as well.
Arrowhead Chocolates Coffee & Tea is a cafe located in the town of Joseph in Wallowa County, Oregon. It specializes in chocolate related drinks and also makes chocolates as well. It is quite a popular cafe in Joseph and it was always crowded in the store.
While visiting the Wallowa region to enjoy the vacation, this was a cafe that we could not miss. Before even entering the store, we could already smell chocolate from outside! Once we entered the store, the store employees greeted us with a huge selection of chocolate and drink menus, we were having trouble trying to figure out what we want.
So we ended up getting the special drink, called Napoli. It seemed to be a mixed drink with juice and tea. Another drink that we got is a blended chocolate drink. The Napoli drink itself has a beautiful and mythical color. The bottom of the drink had orange color, and the top of the drink is blue. In the middle, we could see the transition of the color from orange to blue, which is amazing. After we stir the straw to mix it, the drink becomes purple color. The drink itself taste like fruit tea with sweetness, however, it was not very sweet. We liked it a lot because of the taste of fruit. It was like one of those tea that you would get from Teavana.
The blended chocolate drink was not as special as Napoli of course. It did have a very strong chocolate taste. Unlike chocolate drinks at other stores, this blended chocolate drink at ArrowHead Chocolates is not as sweet as we thought. We could actually taste some bitterness of the chocolate from it, which is quite interesting.
At Arrowhead Chocolates, there were also several hot drink menu items. If we order a hot chocolate, either white or dark chocolate, they would give a spoonful of chocolate for tasting. We were lucky that the employee gave us samples to try and the chocolate was amazing. Since we had already ordered our drink, we did not get another order of hot chocolate.
Nevertheless, this is definitely a must visit place when visiting Wallowa region!
Old Town Cafe is a very nice little brunch place in the town of Joseph in Wallowa County, Oregon. The restaurant is open since 7am in the morning and closes at 2pm. It offers all day breakfast to customers and customers can also choose to do take out instead of dine in. The restaurant offers both indoor and outdoor seating area. in fact, there are more outdoor seats than indoor seats.
We visited this place around 8:30am in the morning and there were already so many people at the restaurant. We walked in into the restaurant and the waitress told us we could just find a seat ourselves when there is a table available. So we did and sat down, and the waitress brought us the menu. The menu offers similar brunch selections that other brunch restaurants offer. One good things is that we could choose to have the full serving or half serving. This time, we decided to order a full serving of scramble egg with link sausages, half serving of cranberry crepe and French toast.
Scramble egg with link sausages is also served with house made potato. The potato is cooked perfectly with crispiness and sweet. The sausage is quite chewy as well. The French Toast is very crispy. In our past experience, we always thought that French toasts are softer with sweetness. The restaurant provided maple syrup to be used on French toast to sweeten it. The cranberry crepe is our favorite dish here. Inside the crepe, there is custard creme which blend very well with sour cranberry sauce.
The only down side here is that the outdoor seating area had quite a lot of flies flying around and were quite annoying. It would have been better if there were not that many flies around.
Overall, the service at the restaurant is quite good and we were served as fast as they could. They did inform us that the serving of food could take longer than usual due to the number of take out that they need to serve first. We strongly recommend this place if you visit Wallowa region. This is one of the better brunch places that we have been to.
Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America. The canyon is located at North Easter Oregon bordering with Washington and Idaho state. It is about 16km wide and has the deepest river gorge of 2436 meters. At the deep end of Hells Canyon, Snake river flows through it and carves through the canyon. Snake river also acts as the border between Oregon and Idaho.
Although Hells Canyon is the deepest canyon in America, it is not as popular as Grand Canyon due to its remote location. We visited Hells Canyon when we were having vacation at Wallowa Lake. To go from Wallowa Lake to Hells Canyon, it is about 1.5 hour of drive to Hells Canyon Overlook. Original we were worried about the road being in bad condition or unpaved, but we were wrong. The road was in perfectly good condition and was only paved back in 2015. So driving to Hells Canyon Overlook was quite easy through the winding mountain road.
While on the way to Hells Canyon Overlook, we came across many free range farms. We were actually stopped by 2 cows standing in the middle of the road! The cows were starring at us in the car and slowly moved to the side of road. We were wondering where the cows come from because we were very high up in the mountain.
After about 1.5 hours, we reached Hells Canyon Overlook. It was a smoggy day due to Oregon forest fire, but we could still see the canyon wall at the far end. We felt so small while overlooking Hells Canyon!
Afterwards, we decided to drive all the way down to Snake River to see what it is like at the end of the Canyon. We drove on the road for another hour toward East to reach the bottom of the mountain by Snake River. It felt very deserted and not many cars are around. We did not see any gas stations either, thus it is important to keep the gas tank full!
We drove along Snake River and also went through a single lane tunnel to reach Hells Canyon Park. There were few trailers there with people camping there.
Overall, Hells Canyon was an interesting place to see, but do not expect too much activities here. There are some boat tours but we did not bother to take a tour. It was a good experience but we would not recommend to put this on the must do list when visiting Wallowa region.
Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant is one of the only high class restaurant that offers upper class fancy food around Wallowa Lake region. The restaurant itself is located in Wallowa Lake Lodge, which is located at the South side of Wallowa Lake. The restaurant itself offers patio seating area and indoor seating area, and can accommodate up to around 100 people. There is also a piano inside the restaurant where sometimes they will have pianist playing classical music during the dinner time.
We went to Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant for dinner after a super long day hike. It was also convenient for us since we stayed Wallowa Lake Lodge for vacation, so we just had to walk down there to get to the restaurant. When we got there, the patio seating were all taken since it was a beautiful summer day and there were hordes of deers roaming around the garden outside. The window seats facing the garden were all reserved as well. It did not matter to us however, because we were just very hungry with tired legs and just wanted to sit down and have food. The waitress led us to the window seat on the other side facing the parking lot, which is really good too!
The menu did not offer a lot of choice but it was good enough. We wanted to order the prime rib steak, but the menu indicated that it was only offered on Saturday. When the waitress came by, she told us the restaurant had a special today that offers prime rib with cheese on top. That sounds amazing! Thus we ordered a cranberry salad, a prime rib dinner special, and a shrimp cocktail as appetizer. A short moment later, the waitress brought us a basket of warm bread. It was quite interesting because all 4 bread in the basket are different. They were all wheat, white, and 2 others that we did not know what to call it.
The shrimp cocktail arrived first. There were 4 large fresh shrimps place at the top of the wine class and dipped with salsa sauce! The shrimp was fresh and tender! We were really surprised to have this kind of food at such a remote location! Moments later, our dinner were served! The prime rib smelled so good with the cheese on top! The prime rib steak was cooked perfect that simply just melts in the mouth. The taste of cheese helps to add some salty taste and texture to each bite of the prime rib! The prime rib was also served with steamed broccoli and baked potato, which is just ordinary. The cranberry salad was served with cranberry and cranberry sauce. The sauce was a little more sour than we liked. The salad also had a lot of almond added on top of it which added crunchy texture to the salad.
Overall, Wallowa Lake Lodge Restaurant was an amazing restaurant to dine at at such a remote location of Wallowa region! We suggest to give it a try when you visit Wallowa Lake!
Ice Lake is located in the Wallowa Mountains at North East corner of Oregon. The hiking trail to Ice Lake is one of the most popular hiking trail in the area. From the trail head at Wallowa Lake to Ice Lake, the one way trail length is about 9 miles long. Although it is a long trail, the elevation gain on this trail is moderate and quite easy to hike on. Since the trail length is 9 miles, people often to backpacking and camp at Ice Lake for a night before heading back. Some people used Ice Lake as the base camp so that they can hike the mountain peaks in the area such as Matterhorn.
We chose to do a day hike to Ice Lake this time. We started on the trail quite early around 7:30AM and the parking lot was nearly full at that time. This is probably due to the long weekend and many people were doing backpacking. The first 2.5 miles were very easy and smooth with nearly no elevation gain. Took us about an hour for the first 2.5 miles. Then we came to a wooden bridge with the rail only on one side of it. Just before the bridge, there was a trail forking off to Wallowa West Fork trail. That trail leads to Wallowa Lake Basin area, so make sure you know which trail to take.
After the bridge, we entered into the meadow. The trail goes through the meadow that was in the canyon of the mountains. With the morning sun shining on the mountain side, the view was just gorgeous. After the meadow, we started the first round of switchbacks and start to gain some elevation. The climb was quite easy and was not difficult at all.
After the first round of switchbacks, we were hiking in the meadow again. We could see the river flowing through the mountain ridge on the far side and we knew that was where we were heading to. The river was flowing from Ice Lake. We reached the bottom of the ridge and started the second round of switchbacks. The elevation gain here is similar to the first round of switchbacks and easy to hike.
After hiking to the top of the ridge, the trail became essentially flat and led toward Ice Lake. We could still see many wild flowers blossom on the side of the trail. After half more miles, we finally reached Ice Lake. We could see many people swimming in the ice cold water since the day was so hot! There were also dogs running around and enjoying the water.
We sat down to take a break and enjoy our lunch here. We were having some cookies and suddenly and Labrador Retriever ran to us and just sat beside us. We knew she want the cookies but she wasn't looking at us. She was just starring forward. It was not until her master called her and went away.
So it took us about 4 hours to get to Ice Lake and coming back down took about 3 hours. If we had more time, we would have gone up to Matterhorn which provides stunning view over the entire Wallowa basin. Matterhorn was only about 2 more miles but has quite a lot of elevation gain. So we will do it next time.
Overall, this is a must do trail when visiting Wallowa! Just make sure you bring enough water and leave early if you are doing a day hike!
