Echo Basin Trail

 Wanting to do an easy day, I looked on the map for a short hike that I hadn't ever done before. I chose the Echo Basin trail because it looked like it was only an hour drive and away from any fires. Oregon was burning once again and as Conrad and I drove to the trailhead, there was thick smoke in the Blue River area from the Ore Fire. The smoke diminished and by the time we took the turnoff for the access road, we were away from most of the smoke. The access road was advertised as needing high clearance, but the worst part was right at the trailhead, so I just parked a short distance down the road to avoid the worst section. The trail began with a steep ascent. The trail was in fairly good shape, but there was a steel cable in the trail which we hypothesized was used in some sort of logging activity.

The trail continued to climb and there were some fairly large trees to enjoy. The largest of these were the cedar trees which I found out later were Alaskan Yellow Cedar trees and some of the largest in the state are located in this basin. Once we hit the loop, we could see why. There was so much water out here. There was a stream beside us the whole way as we hiked which I assumed was named Echo Creek. On the loop, though, was just thick vegetation given that the soil was thoroughly soaked. It made for some amazing meadows with a great view of the surrounding peaks. There were large sections of boardwalk through here that looked like they were in desperate need of repair. The trail was beaten down well enough to find our way through, but there were definitely some sections where we had no choice but to get our feet a little wet and muddy.

The trail continued to climb uphill until we got to the highest point in the meadow and then it just went downhill. So straight up for the first mile with about 600-700 feet of elevation gain and then straight down for the second mile. As we started going down, we got into some of the densest vegetation on the whole hike.

Here there were flowers towering above Conrad as he fought through the greenery. It was a pretty neat spot, but it was over rather quickly. With the loop completed, we sauntered downhill running into the only other group we would see the whole day. We encouraged them to check it out as it was a very enjoyable hike with some beautiful views. We were back to the car in about an hour with just another hour of driving to get back home. We did break Conrad's rule for hiking which is that the hike has to be longer than the drive, but we had to save his energy for his race in the mile during the evening. It worked, because he broke 6 minutes for the first time with a first place finish in 5:59!