We completed our Idaho 12ers by climbing 2 in one day!

As Garrett's summer vacation was coming to a rapid end he and I decided to attempt to climb our last 2 12ers in one day. Thursday was my birthday and I have a 2 year tradition of birthday peak bagging (Grand Teton/2011 and Carrauntoohil/Highest Peak in Ireland/2012). For 2013 there couldn't be a better way to spend my birthday!

 Me on Top of the Grand 2011

Carrauntoohil from trailhead

Carrauntoohil up close. I went up the left of the pic and down the right. This was a very cool hike!

Enough of me... back to Garrett's goal of finishing the last two Idaho 12ers before school started (Monday the 19th). Because of the local fair, where my daughter participated in Horse 4H (Halter and Equitation), Pig 4H (Showmanship and Quality) and Garrett showed our family dog in Showmanship and Obedience, we only had the day of my birthday to climb. After getting my Daughters pig (named Bacon) entered, washed and prepped Garrett and I loaded the MotoRu (Our Subaru motor home)and headed for Mackay.

We found the trailhead just fine, set up camp and got some sleep. We wanted to wake up early knowing we had a big day ahead of us. The alarm went off at 4:45... Garrett did not want to wake up. I realized it takes a group to get him going in the morning, during our Church/Donaldson hike he didn't complain once when he knew other people were getting up preparing to leave. When it is just dad I guess an early start isn't as much fun. After some chocolate milk and a lot of convincing from me we finally got started up the trail at 5:45am. 

The trail was very well marked (or so I thought). In my rush to get to the top I missed a fork in the trail and ended up following trail markers that are for the descent of the scree gully, ugh. I figured we would go up the scree and hope to find a good route.

 Here is a cool pic of Garrett with Mt. Idaho in the background.

Here is a close up of that cool looking tree from the previous picture

Here we are starting to see what we were going to have to climb to get to the top. Its going to be a while before Garrett picks the route as he wanted to try to go directly up the middle.

I took this picture on the way down but it shows our route to the top. We stayed to the right of the gully and found pretty decent footing. All in all it really wasn't a bad way up.

On our way up we tried to stay on solid rock and out of the scree and talus as much as possible. We did get off the ridge in a few places due to trail markers (which again are probably for the descent). In hindsight on the way down I realized taking the ridge up as far as you can seems to be a better route, more exposure but better footing. Here is a pic of our climb to the left of a loose section.

At around 10:15 we were on top of the summit of Mt Idaho. Here is Garrett's favorite summit pose with Borah in the background. There wasn't a summit register on top??

The shortcut down the scree gully was fun! Garrett found a cool feather and wore it in his hat the rest of the way down... asking me every 5 minutes or so if it was still there.

After getting back on the trail back to the car we made good time and finished the first one for the day around 12:30. Our lunch of choice while hiking is PB&J sandwiches (made only with mom's homemade raspberry jam) I made a couple and we ate and relaxed for a bit then headed off to the trailhead for our second peak of the day (Lost River Peak).







PART 2 - Lost River Peak


 My Dad came over from Star Valley, WY to explore the area by Challis and soak in a hot springs there. He also wanted to see these big mtns his grandson had been climbing. Its too bad the smoke was so bad while we were there as you really couldn't see the mountains very well as the day progressed.

One cool thing about Lost River Peak is you have cell coverage for pretty much the entire way. There were several people tracking our progress during the climb and it was fun to be able to send pics, txts, and emails along the way. We arrived at the trailhead for Lost River and started the relentless climb to the top at 2:00. It was starting to get real smoky as the wind changed during the day. I'll take smoke over thunderstorms though, the weather still showed 0% chance of rain. Here is a pic of Garret by a cool dead tree on the way up the lower section

 After climbing the lower ridge we beelined up through the trees coming out exactly where we wanted to at the start of the super gully. There was a real nice campsite that someone made. Here is a picture of Garrett standing in it.

Now the fun began... this climb was physically tough! Bad air, steep slopes, no shade, LOOSE scree, tired legs, hot temps, etc made this one the hardest climb of the 12ers for me (although it was by far the most fun descent, more on that later). Here is a pic of Garrett before the real steep fun began. We tried to stay left and climb the rocks when possible. I use hiking poles and they were essential for making forward progress in the loose sections.




 Once we got past the narrow section we made our way left to the west ridge. The smoke was so thick you only see a red dot where the sun was.

 Here is Garrett on the bottom of the west ridge with the smoked out peaks in the background

Here is Garrett walking up the west ridge. Notice how you cant see the road in the background due to the smoke.




Once we made the top of the super gully the hike along the knife edge ridge to Lost River peak went fast. At about 5:50 Garrett found the summit register and celebrated his 9th and final 12er!!

Now the fun began... going down the super gully was a BLAST!! I was glad that we were the only ones descending as we forgot Garrett's helmet so I let him use mine. We were hoping to be back to the car by 7 originally, because it was after 6:20 before we started down the gully we knew it wasn't possible (or was it). Here is Garrett ready to run down the gully.

I used my phone to video the first half of our descent but it didn't turn out.. makes it look like we were on flat ground, it was real disappointing as we flew down the top part! We had to stop midway down to empty our shoes. Look how many rock we were carrying in our shoes, ouch!

Not sure if I read about this before but we tried a little trick to keep the rocks out of our shoes for the rest of the way down. It worked amazing! We didn't have to stop again to empty our shoes.

With one full stop to empty shoes it only took us 30 mins to go from the top of the SG to the small camp at the base of the SG. Definitely the best 12ers for the descent! Even the rest of the way down through the trees went fast as we were back at the car at 7:10... if we just wouldn't have had to stop to empty shoes we may have had a chance to make it to the car by 7...

Here is Garrett at the car throwing his hat at me in victory

Here are a a few links to GPS data of our day:
Mt Idaho
KML Link:
GPX Link:

Lost River Peak
KML Link:
GPX Link:

All in all our day consisted of 10,000 ft Vertical elevation gain, 12.42 total miles and just over 12 hours of hiking/climbing. The next day dad was sore and Garrett was back to his normal. In fact the next morning as I was going up the stairs with Garrett to his room he sprints up the stairs as usual and I pull myself up the rail as my thighs burn in pain...

What a great time we had in the mtns of Idaho over the past several weeks! We met several great people during our journeys and hope to see all of you again. Each mountain presented its own unique challenge as no two are alike in my opinion; these aren't your typical tourist hikes where you follow a defined, maintained trail to the top. We were very fortunate as the weather was always perfect for us. Garrett was a trooper, he amazed me each time we climbed as he never once wanted to give up (well maybe except for the traverse to LR from Breit were I decided to turn around and a few early morning starts :-)I just hope I am able to keep up with him in years to come as he progresses and I become older.

 A BIG thanks to all that helped us reach our goal!