Date: June 16, 2023.
Objective: Mt. Zumwalt 8,816ft.
Stats: 6.5 miles with 3,700ft gain round trip.
Links: Lists of John. Idaho: A Climbing Guide. Summit Post. Strava.
I'd been keeping en eye on the weather and waiting for some kind of opportunity to open up. I had a loose idea of snowshoeing this peak earlier in the year, but it just hadn't line up yet. I wasn't super thrilled about doing this later in the year but the weather was good and I needed to check the box. My kiddo who is now full grown adult had been saying he wanted to do a peak with me soon and misery loves company.
We started straight up the south slopes from the Grandjean road. It's pretty steep and soon we found some brush to deal with. There are no trees to provide shade and it was pretty dang hot. The most enticing thing about this peak is that it doesn't take much elevation gain to get awesome views of the Sawtooth Range.
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| The view after about 10 minutes of hiking up hill. |
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| Looking south. |
Once past the brush, the SSW Ridge is a very pleasant hike that is shaded by trees and affords those awesome views. We were able to follow some good game trails to around 8,000ft where we started to hit snow. We didn't bother to bring snowshoes and the last 400ft was the worst. Just soft snow, a few postholes but really nothing awful.
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| Looking toward the summit. |
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| Snow with about 400ft to go to the top. |
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| Views. |
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Views.
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Views.
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Views.
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| Summit shot with Ian. |
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Views.
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Views.
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Views.
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Fortunately the summit was flat and dry and we were able to hang out and enjoy the view while we had a snack. I'm always blown away by views of the Sawtooths. We had seen a few ticks so we made sure to stop and do a tick check every so often. Going down though the brush wasn't as bad as going up, but it was still pretty steep with tough footing and slow going. We were back at the car with no tick bites so two thumbs up there.
