Two night backpack doing a very popular loop for hikers, horseback, mountain bikers, and dirt bikers alike: Carbon Creek to Upper Eagle Lake to Horsehead Pass to Angel Staircase to Switchback Peak to Cooney Lake to Carbon Creek.
I did the hike with an older friend (who just turned 71) so we did a slower pace, but managed to have a lot of free time at each lake, with the following times:
- 1145am-330pm Parking Lot to Upper Eagle
- 815am-915am Upper Eagle to Horsehead Pass
- 945am-1010am Horsehead Pass to Boiling Lake
- 1020am-1210pm Boiling Lake to Angel Staircase Trail
- 1210pm-155pm Angel Staircase to Switchback Peak
- 210pm-315pm Switchback Peak to Cooney Lake
- 815am-11am Cooney Lake to Martin Creek Trail Junction
- 1115am-12pm: Martin Creek Trail Junction to Parking Lot
The trails were in fairly good condition, though expect a lot of dust in sections, horse shit in others. One blow down on the hike out. A couple stream crossings requiring good balance.
Upper Eagle had incredibly bad mosquitoes well into dusk, leading to the majority of our time spent in tent--not ideal whatsoever. We camped at the Horse Camp but should have been on the water. There were only two others camping at the lake and they were there to view mountain goats, which we totally missed. Bugs were intermittent until we encountered intense horseflies on Angel Staircase and then again until late afternoon at Cooney Lake. These were massively sized and relentless, but went away before dinnertime. The wind at Cooney must have kept the mosquitoes away, but the morning had no wind and there were a ton of mosquitoes. Only one other pair camped at Cooney the night we did (with their blow up doll bachelor party mascot!) and they seemed to have wild success fishing.
The entirety of the loop was peak wildflower bloom.
If you are doing the loop, be sure to scramble up to Switchback, which is a very short boulder hop and talus balance right up the ridge trail after getting past the Okanagon Summit marker. It's on most maps. There is a summit register in a blue Nalgene.
The weather was utterly great this weekend, and though we had a great time, there was tons of activity on trail, the dirt bikes are incredibly annoying, and we probably won't return until late August if we go back, given the bugs.
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