Oval Lakes — Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025

Day 1: Arrived at 9:15am on a Saturday, and the parking lot was almost full (6 cars: it’s a small lot). Pit toilet was in great condition, clean & plenty of TP. Road up is washboard gravel, but any car can make it.

At the fork in the trail, I headed ccw, following the Eagle Creek Trail, and didn’t see anyone else all day. Bear tracks heading in the same direction I was down the trail, and lots of scat (some very fresh). Make sure you have proper bear storage for your food. Lots of blowdowns, some I had to crawl under, some easy to step over. The trail was quite brushy and overgrown, but easy enough to follow. Larches are just turning golden, some still green. Other fall colors were lovely. Found a lovely campsite by a stream on the other side of Eagle Pass and had a quiet night alone.

Day 2: Smoky haze in the morning that cleared up quickly. I finally met up with the bears I had been following the previous day. A family of 3, mom and 2 large cubs (I’m assuming) ran off quickly when I made my presence known. At Tuckaway Lake I started running into folks. Most seemed to have stayed at one of the Oval Lakes. 4 parties had dogs with them, none on leash but all had pretty good manners/recall. Heading downhill in this direction was pretty steep at times. Brushy on this side of the loop as well, sometimes the brush was over my head.

Overall, trail is in decent shape, if you don’t mind scrambling over/under a few trees, and muscling your way through some overgrowth. No trash on the trail (special thanks to the dog owners for not leaving behind poop bags, much appreciated).