Wallowa Lake is located at North Eastern corner of Oregon state and it is known to be little Switzerland in Oregon. It is located right by the town of Joseph and it is about 6 hours of drive time from Portland. Wallowa Lake is also one of the seven wonders in Oregon and its surrounding mountains provide a lot of amazing hiking trails for people who love to hike.
We decided to go for a 4 day vacation at Wallowa Lake during the Labour Day weekend. We left Portland very early at 7AM in the morning and headed East of I84 towards Wallowa Lake. The drive on I84 was smooth along the Columbia Gorge. The scenario was just amazing. Once we arrived at La Grande, we took a rest and had lunch there. We have never been to the Eastern part of Oregon before, thus every thing seem to be very new to us!
We arrived at Wallowa Lake around 2PM in the afternoon and this time we are staying at Wallowa Lake Lodge located at the South side of the lake. Wallowa Lake Lodge is right by the lake and very convenient. The lodge did not offer any air conditioning, but it was not needed. The electric fan was good enough. There was also a lot of deers roaming around the lodge and we have never seen such a big horde of deers before.
On the first day, we just walked around the lake and had a good rest. At night, we went out for star gazing. Wallowa Lake was a perfect place for star gazing due to extremely low light pollution.
On the second day, we woke up extremely early to do a hike at Ice Lake. The hike to Ice Lake was extremely long but well worth it! The lake was beautiful and the trail to the lake was just simply amazing! After we came back from hiking, we had a wonderful dinner at the restaurant at Wallowa Lake Lodge.
On the third day, we went for brunch at Old Town Cafe. The food was amazing there! Afterwards, we went to buy few drinks at Arrowhead Chocolate Coffee & Tea. The chocolate smell amazing there. Later in the afternoon, we decided to head to Hell's Canyon and it was the deepest canyon in US! It was definitely worth a visit!
On the fourth day, we did another hike to Deadman's Falls in the morning along Hurricane Creek. We loved the hiking trail that went through the meadow! In the afternoon, we took Wallowa Tram to the top of Mount Howard. Mount Howard was one of the tallest peak and we were able to see Wallowa Lake from the top!
When we head back home on Friday, we found out that there was wild fire along Columbia Gorge. We could see ashes falling down from the sky onto the car and I84 was closed. We had to drive on Highway 14 on Washington state side instead. It was extremely smoky and visibility was very low.
Nevertheless, Wallowa Lake was an amazing place to visit. We would definitely go there again and explore the area again!
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