The trailhead is just a few miles from Anthony Lake at what looks like an old ski resort building called "Little Alps". Officially there is an upper & lower trailhead but the road has washed out enough in one spot that no cars or trucks can reach the upper trailhead. (This doesn't mean that they haven't tried!) Its just over a mile from Little Alps up to Van Patten Lake.
We then followed the use trail around the West side of the lake to it's South end. From here in her book 75 scrambles in Oregon Barbara Bond recomends heading straight up towards the saddle you can see between peaks 8648 & 8318. We had to fight our way through vegetation in a few places but after a short distance you come to an upper meadow.
The traveling was much easier after this point & we continued on up to the saddle.
From the saddle we headed West towards Van Patten but first we made a slight detour to tag the summit of Peak 8648.
Peak 8648
We later realized that we could have gone around instead of over this :^)..
We continued the scramble on up to the summit of Van Pattern.
Eric looking for a place to sit!
We were not disappointed by the views!
Way off in the North East we could make out the Wallowas
On top we found a makeshift summit register that had been in use since 2006. There were only 8 entries (though I'm sure more people have climbed the peak) including this one.
Reading the Summit register!
We retraced our steps to the saddle but before descending went the other way & tagged Peak 8318 so that we could say that we had 10 peaks for the trip :^)..
Looking down to Van Patten lake & back at Peak 8648 from Peak 8318.
Just as we were about to go down the way we had climbed up we noticed an animal trail heading off along the flanks of van Patten Ridge. thinking it might be an easier way down we followed it and it was a more gentle & interesting route back down to the upper meadow.
Following the animal trail down.
We had the luxury of throwing away water when when it became warm & getting fresh cold water!
The trip clocked in at 6.5 miles & 2450' of EG & there are lots more photos here.
Map:
