Trail going west of Ice Lake

[christabrews]

Does anyone know if this trail from Ice Lake to the Matterhorn summit and beyond (in red) is at all maintained/easy to follow?

I am trying to plan some kind of loop hike in the Wallowas for early September, and I was hoping to summit one peak along the way. This looked like a good option in Caltopo, but the trail is not on my paper map of the area.

[retired jerry]

the trail is also on gaia, but that probably just means it's taken from the same data base as caltopo

[Bosterson]

The trail from Ice Lake to the Matterhorn summit is a user trail but is easy to follow from the back of the lake. From the Matterhorn to Sacajawea, it's not a trail for the most part since you're walking on rock, but it's a ridge so there's only one route until it becomes user trail again up by the summit of Sac. After that, it's a well defined user trail down Sac into the basin where it becomes the Thorpe Creek trail that goes down to Hurricane Creek. That trail isn't always (or ever?) maintained but was easy to follow when I was last on it in 2018. The crossing of Hurricane Creek is DIY though.

As a loop, that wouldn't work too well though since you'd have to car shuttle from the Hurricane Creek TH to West Fork Wallowa River - unless you're doing a longer trip and want to cross Matt-Sac and then head south to the Lakes Basin and then come back north to Wallowa Lake. Crossing the Matt-Sac ridge with a full pack is a little awkward at times since there's a little scrambling.

[teachpdx]

It was doable the last time I was there, circa 2019. I stayed up on the ridges and didn’t go down Thorp Creek, but others came up from that way. My current avatar is actually from the Matterhorn summit.

If you are doing an anticlockwise loop including Lakes Basin, there are also user trails/alpine routes that connect from Horseshoe Lake/Razz Lake nearly straight to Ice Lake without dropping all the way down to the West Fork and back up. There are a couple spots with scrambling, and still a decent amount of elevation gain, but not as much as dropping all the way down.

[christabrews]

Ooh, do you happen to have any GPS info on those from horseshoe or razz lake? Or are they pretty easy to find?

[retired jerry]

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12985

[Bosterson]

Don't forget these - as Bruce says, this could be one of the classic loops.

viewtopic.php?t=24345

viewtopic.php?t=25879

[christabrews]

Thanks, those are some great recommendations!

[Bosterson]

Just note that the Razz options all require off trail travel and navigation, through rough and steep terrain, which is that much harder with a backpacking pack.

The Lakes Basin is a zoo so if you're going before Labor Day, you might also look at options in the southern part of Eagle Cap. Plenty of loops can be made down there.

[bobcat]

Lots of options for a loop, depending on how big you want it to be. Another one is to go up from Thorpe Creek to the saddle north of the Hurwal high point, tag Hurwal, and then go north to Chief Joseph. From there, down the southeast ridge to intersect the trail and return to Wallowa Lake.