In common with many of the neighboring lakes in the Eagle Cap Wilderness of the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in Wallowa County, Oregon, Aneroid Lake is nestled in an example of a cirque valley with large tarn scoured out of the mountain side by glacial movements during the Pleistocene. Located at the southern foot of Bonneville Mountain the lake and its basin form the headwaters of the East Fork Wallowa River. Aneroid Mountain, namesake of the lake, is about to the east, while Roger Lake lies in between a mere away. Dollar Lake is to the southeast and Pete's Point slightly to the southwest. Because the lake is within the boundaries of the Eagle Cap Wilderness protection area it is inaccessible by any motorized vehicle or any other mechanized mode of travel. However, there is a popular hiking trail for horse and foot traffic. A small group of private cabins that predate the wilderness designation are located beyond the south end of the lake. Aneroid Lake ties with Laverty Lake for the twenty-third highest lake in the Eagle Cap Wilderness at elevation.
History The first known name for the lake is believed to be Sterling Lake. In 1889 Tom Sterling with hired hand William H. Graves trailed a band of sheep through the Wallowas to Baker, Oregon. They had camped at the lake several days during the trek and it was known unofficially as Sterling Lake for a time. M. G. Royal, then president of the Weston Normal School, had camped in the area on a lecturing visit in 1893 and made an excursion to the lake with his family. He was so impressed by the natural beauty of the lake he named it Anna Royal Lake after his mother, Mrs. Mary Anne (Stanley) Royal. This name was not recorded in any more official manner than the inscribing of it on the flattened side of a tree limb and hammered into the ground at the shore's edge. Charles H.(Silver Tip) Seeber relocated to Wallowa county in 1889 from Walla Walla for health reasons. He held several patented mining claims in the area of the lake, and lived there almost continuously for many years. He remembers the lake being called Anna Royal Lake when he first arrived there but also that it was changed over time to Aneroid Lake.
In the summer of 1897 Hoffman Philip was a member of an exploration expedition of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries that visited the nearby Wallowa Lake and collected specimens. Mr. Philip did not leave when the party completed their objective and turned homeward. The beauty and climate of the area fascinated him greatly at his 25 years of age. It would have kept him if not for the United States entering the Spanish–American War in 1898 and his fateful friendship with President Theodore Roosevelt while fighting with the Rough Riders. On a personal adventure in the fall of 1897 Hoffman struck out alone with his horse and rifle on a long ride, leaving the blazed trail. Failing to pick up the trail again as he had intended he came upon a stream and made camp along it spending a miserable, cold, dark night. At day break he followed the course of the stream eventually arriving at this small, wild lake. Checking his barometer he judged the altitude of the lake to be quite high. Upon his return he inquired locally about the lake and found no one aware of it having been named previously. He arbitrarily gave it the name Aneroid Lake, an attribute of the device he measured it with.
In the end it was decided the name was to remain Aneroid Lake mostly because Aneroid Mountain, a peak to the east, was already commonly known as sharing the name, and also because no records beyond the verbal accounts existed to support any effort in restoring any previous naming.
Camp Halton Sometime prior to 1889 a doctor advised a 15 year old tuberculosis patient Charley Seeber, "You may live a week, you may live two, but you won't see your 17th birthday. If I were you, I would find myself a peaceful mountain lake somewhere and enjoy your last days as much as possible." Heeding that advise twice widowed father John F. Seeber Sr. moved his family from Walla Walla, Washington to Enterprise, Oregon to the southeast and a gain of almost in elevation. Charley hiked regularly up in the Wallowa Mountains surrounding the city in the hopes of improving the health of his lungs. In that effort he found the lake to fulfill his prescription from the doctor in Aneroid Lake. He filed three mining claims at the south end of the lake and over the next several years he built a cabin and foraged an existence from the lake and the land around it. His mining efforts didn't produce much in the manner of riches but in all of his building and searching he found what he was doing, was living. There were scars from the disease that had left him, such as the early turning of his hair to a grey-white earning him the widely known nickname "Silvertip".
In his new found good health Charley built a few more cabins and gave up on mining, finding it much more lucrative to offer lodging and supplies to the many adventurer heading into or out of the Cornucopia mining district 13 miles to the southeast. The estimated gross mining production of the Wallowa region, mainly in the gold of Cornucopia, was ten million dollars as of 1923. Being located right on the best north–south route of travel much of that traffic was coming and going in his direction regularly. In the later years he would also advertise in area newspapers offering the public a rustic mountain adventure with a comfortable bed to sleep in. Charley's residence at the lake, a two-story cabin with the lower portion being his general store offering unabashedly over priced goods and items. This was mainly because Joseph is over to the northwest and Enterprise another further than that. He would purchase his stock and pack it up the climb in elevation to the lake himself. He built a total of ten cabins over the five plus decades he lived there with six of them still standing as of August 2019. Charley "Silvertip" Seeber retired from his little resort at the lake in the mountains at the age of 86. The property is now in the hands of private owners who have since named it Camp Halton. There is live-in caretakers at the camp for up to six months of the year.
Recreation
Trails Aneroid Lake can be accessed by either the East Fork Wallowa River Trailhead at Wallowa Lake or Tenderfoot Trailhead. The East Fork Wallowa River Trailhead is by far a shorter hike to Aneroid Lake, being only long. It begins at the south end of Wallowa Lake, near Wallowa Lake State Park. After about of hiking on the East Fork Wallowa River Trail, the climber will reach a small dam. At there is a small, well built bridge. At lies Roger Lake. The trail is usually well maintained. It may be heavily traveled in the summer months.
Fishing Aneroid lake is one of 12 lakes in the Eagle Cap Wilderness stocked with thirty five hundred to four thousand fingerling rainbow trout by helicopter every two years. The size and number of the trout was chosen because of the 95% survival rate in the initial to fall upon release from the "aerial stocking device" into the lake. It takes 2 years for these fish to grow to the legal harvest length of provided they survive the rest of the challenges of a high altitude lake. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife started the program of stocking high alpine hike-in only lakes because of the amount of public feedback that fishing is an expected experience when visiting a wilderness. Factors taking a toll on survival numbers is water temperature, sufficient food supply, and especially the voracious predation of the naturally reproducing eastern brook trout established historically in the lake by longtime lake resident Charles "Silvertip" Seeber. Charley was known for often serving an over priced dinner of large, freshly caught trout to his lodging guests at his cabins on the south end of the lake, or alternately renting out the fishing boats he had packed up to the lake at some point in his fifty plus summers he spent there.
An attempt to stock the lake with larger to rainbow trout was executed in 2017 as part of a three to four year study. The larger fish can physically endure the challenges of the lake better and they are testing if a lesser amount of larger fish stocked will improve survival rates and net more legal length fish for anglers over time. Preliminary tests of dropping the larger fish showed very high rates of success.
White Winter Backcountry The Eagle Cap Wilderness has many mountainous peaks and valleys with steep slopes and precipitous windswept ridges all with a high accumulation of yearly snowfall that begins as early as October. Aneroid Lake is a popular backcountry skiing and snowshoeing destination.
Avalanche History The early spring irregular and unpredictable weather patterns at the upper elevations makes the area well known as a high risk zone for a sudden avalanche that begins without warning and instantly amasses an unstoppable force of snow and debris that swallows anything in its path. There are two known and recorded avalanche incidents, both caused by human activity, that resulted in the loss of life in the Aneroid Lake basin.
February 14, 1982 – A group of eight people had set up camp in two igloos, a tent, and a Forest Service cabin on Saturday, February 13. Everyone in the group was equipped with emergency beacons, shovels, and complete awareness of the risk of avalanche around them. The group had purposely cancelled a trip to British Columbia because the risk of avalanche was too high and selected the slopes surrounding Aneroid Lake as an alternate location. The entire group was each reasonably educated in avalanche assessment and safety protocols. All members were in agreement that steep slopes even in this location were to be avoided as conditions were still too dangerous. On Sunday afternoon two skiers from the group, Richard Easter and Judith Scott had gone looking for a low hill to practice turning techniques and wandered a considerable distance from the rest of the group. Finding a light slope dotted with glades between trees Easter had Ms. Scott stand and wait in some larger timber on some relatively flat terrain while he skied ahead. Gently edging his way onto to slope, he turned and saw it coming. Unable to warn Ms. Scott in time the relatively small avalanche that had broken off at the ridge above them had more than enough volume to pin her instantly against a tree where she was standing and suffocate her with six feet of snow over the top. Mr. East was unhurt in the slide having stayed on top and had been carried over one hundred feet down the hill. He immediately pushed back up the slope and began a beacon search for Judith. Probing with the end of his ski he could not locate her position. He alerted the rest of the group for assistance which arrived to the location within fifteen minutes. It took over an hour to locate and dig down to her. CPR was administered for a lengthy period of time without success. It was never determined why the entire group had left the shovels behind at camp that day but the fact of it severely hampered the immediate rescue efforts from reaching her in time. The avalanche was classified as an SS-ASu-D 2-O and began at around 7800' elevation. It had a two foot thick fracture line that ran an estimated seventy five feet along a northwest aspect at the top and narrowed to about twenty five feet at the run-out zone two hundred feet below. Eighteen inches of fresh, heavy new snow had fallen two days prior to the accident over the top of a melt-freeze layer developed over a cycling of warm to very cold weather the month before. An accumulation of very dry powder was layered between them allowing the upper portion to slide free of the much thicker encrusted base layer once Easter had caused enough disturbance below to initiate the event.