Anthony Lakes hiking offers a mountain paradise

Anthony Lakes, a crystal jewel with breathtaking views of the majestic Elkhorn Mountain ranges, is popular destination for locals and travelers visiting Eastern Oregon.

Recently, 11 Tri-Citians made the three-hour drive to the area near Baker, Ore., for a hiking trip organized by the Intermountain Alpine Club (IMAC) of the Tri-Cities.

The lake offers campgrounds, picnic areas and flat walking trails around the lake with lots of places for families to play, float, swim, and fish for stocked trout. Non-motorized boating and mountain biking are allowed.

In the winter, the ski resort boasts some of the best snow in the Pacific Northwest. They don’t call it “Powder” for nothin’.

It’s a mountain paradise — a fantastic place to discover and enjoy the outdoors and engage with the natural environment. And there are some amazing trails — from easy to difficult — that can’t be beat. The best time to hike in the higher terrain is from mid-June to November.

The group timed this trip perfectly. The weather was superb — not a cloud in the sky.

The snow had melted, and while there were a few lingering snow fields and drifts, they did not represent any concern to hiking along the ridgeline trails and saddles.

We parked the cars near the historic ranger cabin and started walking on the kid-friendly trail along the shoreline of Anthony Lake, past several walk-in campsites. The plan was to do a nine-mile loop trail around the three mountains and come back to the lake in the afternoon. The trail goes six-tenths of a mile to Hoffer Lakes and then begins to climb a pass at 7,800 feet.

The geology here is fascinating. The group received a short, enjoyable field lecture from Columbia Basin College geology instructor Chris Faught, who explained that the rocks are about 100 million years old (Lower Cretaceous and Upper Jurassic).

The area is called the Elkhorn pluton, which is made of intrusive quartz, granite and diorite rocks uplifted in the Cenozoic period of volcanism, 65 million years ago, and then attacked by glaciers and weather over the ages.

The hard, crystalline rock mountaintops protrude out of the earth and the valleys are filled with glacial deposits.

You can see well-preserved lateral and recessional moraines of the numerous Pleistocene glaciations, some created over 150,000 years ago and others as recent as 15,000 years. The landscape is so stark and beautiful, I couldn’t stop thinking that when I get old I want to be like granodiorite.

In a mile, you reach a side trail that climbs seven-tenths of a mile to The Lakes Lookout at 8,522 feet. It’s a steep and difficult hike, best done slowly and carefully with poles, but the view from the top of this craggy vista is truly remarkable.

You can gaze down into the glacial-carved basins below with the lakes lying in a row. To the north you can see the top of the ski area, and to the west you can gaze out on the North Fork of the John Day Wilderness area with one mountain range after another all in rows.

After you’ve soaked up enough, you head back down to the trail junction and make a left, and head through the forest and rock-strewn side slopes on the Crawford Basin Trail adjacent to Crawford Meadow.

The trail then goes 2.5 miles, dropping down a little to 7,530 feet. If you look backward you can see the Lakes Lookout and then Lees Peak. Then the trail heads back up 400 feet to Dutch Flat Saddle at 7,900 feet.

To the north, there’s a ridge with Angell Peak towering above the John Day Wilderness. From there, it’s another sixth-tenths of a mile to the top of Angell Pass, past rocky exposed ledges that show striations carved by the glaciers.

Lost Lake is visible below to the west, and Black Lake lies in the glacial basin to the east. The Elkhorn Crest mountain range covers the view to the horizon to the south and east with Van Patten Peak towering over the valley below.

Along the way you will traverse through numerous different and diverse ecosystems, from wet riparian to subalpine and arid. There are dozens of colorful wildflowers to be observed, including the stunning pink and purple shooting stars, white anemone and bog orchids, knotweed, smartweed, monkshood and penstemons, paintbrush, valerian, spiraea, sandwort, pennycress, starwort, beardtongue, stonecrop, vetch, lilies, dusty maiden, kittentails and more.

From Angell Pass, the trail descends and in three miles, you’re back at Anthony Lakes with a stunning view of Gunsight Mountain as the backdrop. If you like, you can take off your shoes, sit on a log or a rock and cool your feet off in the cold clear water.

This story was originally published July 22, 2017 at 2:38 PM with the headline "Anthony Lakes hiking offers a mountain paradise."