I love running in the Wallowas, and Eagle Cap has been on my list for a while. Health issues over the last few years have kept me from checking out this route/giving it any kind of effort. I had thought about seeing how fast I could do it, but on this day ended up deciding to just go for a steady effort without a push since it was the first of 5 days I was going to have in the mountains and I wanted to enjoy them all vs feeling fried after one.
I brought all my fuel and started with two full soft flasks of fluid at 825am. Weather was perfect--calm, low 40s, partly sunny. I kept a consistent effort on the way up, so tried to keep moving, didn't stop to refill, and ate on the run. I did have a few on and off jacket stops as well. After the first couple of miles, there are a number of relatively flat, very runnable miles, until about the last two miles which go back into a steeper ascent. My plans to keep moving were slightly foiled when I happened upon a gorgeous goat right on trail. He/she was super chill and I couldn't help but stop for a short photo-shoot. I tend not to be the luckiest in my wildlife sightings, so I had to take advantage of this one. I kept moving and left my goat friend behind. I reached the summit at 11:14am. I had realized as I got close that I was probably going to be ahead of the 3:04 time that Ashly put up on the up back in 2020. I figured I could probably snag the FKT at this point, so I spent about 5' on the summit admiring surrounding peaks before heading down. On the way back to the trailhead I stopped once to refill flasks for a few minutes and then in the last 5 miles or so, realized I could sneak under 5 hrs round trip, so just kept an eye on time and pace to make sure I got that done.
There is still TONS of time left out there on this route and I'd like to go back and see what I can do on it with more of an effort--lots runnable and very good trail throughout. Thanks to Ashly for putting up the route/time and looking forward to seeing other women get out there.