Date: September 27, 2019.
Objective: Blackmon Peak 10,300'.
Stats: 3.5 miles with 1,500 feet of ascent in 3:46 round trip.
Difficulty: Class 2. Moderate, short hike but high altitude.
Links:
Lists of John.
Strava.
Idaho: A Climbing Guide.
Summit Post.
The Back Story
Back in
2016, Deez and I hiked into Fourth of July Lake to tag a few 10ers before I left for
Mt. Rainier. Blackmon Peak was on the list for that trip, but I ended up passing on it due to a thunderstorm coming in. After that trip, we decided that Blackmon would make an excellent first 10k peak for Landen (or anyone really). We eyed a couple of dates in 2017 but all were canceled; once due to lingering snow in the summer and once due to bad smoke from a wildfire in the late summer/fall. We set out for it in
2018 only to turn down Fourth of July Creek Road to find the area closed due to the Bible Back fire. The first attempt of 2019 ended just east of Garden Valley with a disabled vehicle and a few tears. The next window we had required us to thread the needle due to a forecast weekend storm bringing cold temps and snow. We excused the youngster from school to bring him along on an already scheduled trip to Sun Valley where Deez had a mid-week work conference. The original plans for that week had also been scraped to accommodate having the kiddo along, plus needing to get in and out of the mountains quickly due to the approaching cold front.
Trip Report
With a full day in Sun Valley, I wanted to get up a peak but didn't want to commit to anything too tough because we would be hiking Blackmon the next day. I selected
Dollar Mountain for a warm-up hike. It left "us" with "lots of energy left" which was good. Due to the schedule, we had a not early, but not late departure from Sun Valley. We crossed our fingers, said a prayer to the Car Gods and headed over Galena Summit. We arrived at the trailhead but had to sort though three bags of gear to condense into one pack.
Side note: we were still prepared to spend a night in the backcountry if the weather improved. Since we were now doing the peak as a day hike, at least we no longer needed 90% of it.
12:45PM and we were actually putting our boots on the mountain! I knew we had a bit of time to spare for the short hike, but I also knew the weather was going to be cold and windy up high.
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| Blackmon from the trailhead. |
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| Actually at the trailhead. |
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| Initial section of the route. |
It was nice and warm down low. The initial section of the route was a bit ambiguous. I just kept an eye on the map and tried to follow the road-turned-trail that leads to Strawberry Basin and the saddle just west of the peak. We payed a quick visit to one of the mines and eventually I found the trail; a great trail in fact. Easy ground! We came across a group of hunters who were ready to discharge their bows and politely let me know that "there were deer here just a minute ago".
Wink-wink.
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| Looking west toward the Sawtooths. |
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| Low on the southwest ridge. |
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| Weaving though the trees on the ridge. |
From the trail, I picked a prominent gully and hiked up the side to gain the southwest ridge and then stopped for a rest. The route is short and straight forward but the anticipation was high. It wasn't long before we set off for the summit.
Probably not going to throttle back at this point.
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| Deez crushing it up the ridge. |
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| Landen close to the summit and eager to top out. |
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| Fourth of July Peak. |
We had to make one more quick stop to don a layer in the cool breeze. The summit sits just above treeline and the views were amazing. D.O. Lee Peak sits just to the north and was impressive but the view to the east and Castle Peak was out of this world. The combination of a skiff of fresh snow and low angle light with the crisp fall air was just fantastic.
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| Landen waiting for us on the summit. |
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| Castle Peak in the background. |
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| USGS marker. |
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| D.O. Lee Peak. |
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| Landens first 10k summit! |
It would all be for naught without plenty of time on the summit, so we layered up with what we had and got our gawk on. There had been a few twists and turns to get this summit and I was sure to thank the Mountain Gods for allowing us to set foot here.
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| Mount Frank and Lonesome Peak over Ants Basin. |
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| That summit selfie. |
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| High-fives. |
Eventually it was time to head down and it wasn't long until we had to doff our layers. We took the same route down, which wasn't the most exciting, but it was easy to follow.
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| Looking down the southwest ridge. |
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| Hiking down. |
It didn't happen the way we planned but Landed got his first 10k summit. We made good time on the descent and soon found ourselves back at the mines. Watch your step around there! We gave one more round of thanks to the mountain and made sure to pay respect to the Car Gods as well. The rest of our quest was smiled upon and soon we were in Stanley for dinner. The ensuing cold front left a few inches of snow in the high mountains so it will be interesting to see how the rest of the rest of autumn shapes up.
