Partners: Josh and Scout.
Stats: Approx 8 miles and 5,000ft gain to summit elevation 12,065ft. 8hr round trip.
Route: West ridge, class 2/3.
Links:
Mount Idaho on Summitpost.
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| Mount Idaho from Hwy 93. |
Mount Idaho is Idaho's seventh highest peak. Many climbers rank this as their most favorite peak of the 12'ers. It has an easy and shaded approach up Elkhorn Canyon to a fun class 2/3 ridge and finishes with a classic scree chute to the summit.
We started from a road at the mouth of Elkhorn Canyon and followed a decent trail into the trees. Elkhorn is not your typical Lost River Range canyon; it's relatively easy to work your way up.
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| Elkhorn Canyon. |
At some point we turned left and hiked up a steep slope to reach the Towers area on the west ridge.
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| Approaching the Towers. |
After the Towers there is a clear view of the rest of the route. Its a pleasant ridge walk until the base of the summit pyramid. Its scree from there to the summit.
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| Summit pyramid from the west ridge. |
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| Borah Peak. |
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| Looking up the west ridge, past the Towers. |
The main ridge never really feels more than class 2 and sticking to the spine is the way to go.
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| I took a picture of Josh taking a picture of Scout. |
The saddle was a little windy. Note Scouts ears aloft in the wind.
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| Borah and Sacagawea. |
The views of Borah and Sacagawea were as awesome as they were distracting.
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| Josh en route to the summit. |
What parts of the route that could be considered class 3 were fun with very little exposure.
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| Summit pyramid. |
The summit appeared tantalizingly close but we were only a little more than half way up at this point.
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| Chute to the east of the summit. |
From the base of the summit pyramid, its all about finding the correct chute. We actually went a bit to far to the right and topped out just east of the true summit.
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| Merriam Lake at the base of the north face. |
It was a short, fun and slightly airy traverse to the top.
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| Looking west from the summit. |
We topped out and had a nice long lunch while took in the views.
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| Close up of the Pio's. |
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| Mount Corruption with Diamond Peak behind. |
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| Looking east from the summit. |
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| Borah, again. |
We were pretty sure we could make out some people moving up to the summit of Borah.
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| Summit Zzz's. |
Maybe our summit lunch break had been just a tad too long. When I encapsulated our moment of glory, Josh was straight cold taking himself a nap.
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| West face from Elkhorn Canyon. |
Yes, Josh was easily roused and soon we descended our peak. We used a dried up waterfall to descent higher up into the canyon than where we came out of it on the ascent.
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| Mount Idaho from Hwy 93. |
It became what is now the typical hot escape from the LRR. It was easily 40 degrees warmer on the valley floor than it was on the summit.
