Eagle Cap Wilderness is the largest wilderness area in Oregon, a vast protected section of the Wallowa Mountains within the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. First occupied around 1400 AD by the ancestors of the Nez Perce and later used by the Cayuse, Shoshone, and Bannock, it long served as hunting, gathering, and summer ground. Federal protection expanded from primitive area status in 1930 to wilderness designation in 1940, then inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System in 1964 and enlargement in 1972. Its glacial valleys, granite peaks, alpine lakes, streams, abundant wildlife, and extensive trail network make it one of Oregon’s foremost mountain landscapes.