Thirty-one summits exceed 8,000 feet. Trout fishing can be fair to excellent in the 37-plus miles of streams. And if your luck there is lousy, you can always drop a line in one of the lakes. The upper four miles of the Wild and Scenic Eagle Creek flow here. Backpacking and horsepacking are very popular pursuits in this area.
Hunters come for elk, deer, mountain goats, and bighorn sheep.
Black bears, bobcats, and mountain lions prowl these parts, too. High summer temperatures guarantee swarms of mosquitoes and horseflies in wet areas. The Lakes Basin Area, a series of sparkling sapphires surrounded by peaks, ranks as the most impacted by humans and the most fragile region of the Wilderness. Huge portions of Eagle Cap are virtually unseen. Ridges radiate out like the spokes of a wagon wheel from the 9,595-foot hub known as Eagle Cap Mountain, which overlooks the Lakes Basin and anchors the southern portion of the area.