Eccles Pass Trailhead

This high vantage provides commanding views across each, and distant peaks of the Gore and Ten Mile ranges. After a steady climb through dense forest, the landscape opens across stunning alpine meadows leading up to Eccles Pass: The Meadow Creek Trail winds through an aspen-pine forest to the Lily Pad Lake Trail split and bends northeast (.57 miles : 9,560'). It widens on a variously soft and rocky path through columns of lodgepole to Meadow Creek (1.35 miles : 10,036'), resuming a methodical climb once across. At 2.5 miles (10,764') the trail narrows in a transitional forest where lodgepole give way to spruce and fir in the high subalpine. The forest briefly opens with a glimpse of the upper valley (2.65 miles : 10,835'), and presses steeply to a crest over the first of three large meadows (2.95 miles : 10,988'). The trail drops and undulates ruggedly up the wooded south edge of the first and smallest meadow, crossing Meadow Creek once on a makeshift bridge. Large side pools in the vicinity are particularly good for angling. The thinning forest breaks on the edge of a second, much larger meadow with a revealing look at the entire upper valley (3.6 miles : 11,128'). Chief Mountain (11,377') stands prominently to the south, and Eccles Pass can now be seen to the northwest.