Sawtooths Backpack, July 1995
Posted: May 10th, 2020, 4:38 pm
Temporarily laid off from work, I decided to make use of my stay-at-home time by scanning some of the many Kodachrome slides I shot back during the ‘age of film’. So, now that I have some of those photos digitized, here’s a VERY belated Sawtooths trip report:
My memory of this trip is a bit fuzzy after 25 years, but with a little help from the interwebs I think I can piece it together well enough.
One thing I recall for certain is that in the summer of 1995 I had very little vacation time available. Luckily though, July 4th fell on a Tuesday that year. That meant a nice backpack trip was possible by tacking just a couple of vacation days on to that holiday weekend. Growing tired of the Cascades and Wallowas, my friend Jeff and I hatched a plan to do a nice 30 mile loop in the heart of Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains. This is in central Idaho near the town of Stanley, about a nine-hour drive from Portland.
Soon enough we were at the Redfish Lake trailhead ready to roll...
That’s Jeff’s old ‘79 VW bus. I loved that thing. It took us on many an adventure back in the day. His dog Katie was along for the trip as well.
The trailhead for this hike is actually a boat dock. Several times a day a shuttle boat ran hikers from the Redfish Lake Lodge to the trailhead at the far end of the lake. Opting for the boat trip saves hikers about five miles of ho-hum walking each way...
The boat trip was fun...
Soon we were making our way up the trail, and it quickly became obvious why they call these mountains the Sawtooths...
The weather looked poised to cause trouble, but it cleared up nicely as the day progressed.
A lone tooth appears...
Lovely Elk Peak comes into view...
We stop for a break before tackling the climb out of Redfish canyon...
The SW face of Elephants Perch comes into view as we ascend...
We encountered large patches of snow on the trail as we ascended toward Alpine Lake. Once there, we were surprised to find the lake was half covered in ice. Maybe two thirds ice...
Also surprising was the amount of snow still on the ground here. It was everywhere. LOTS of snow. Post-holing galore. We did not expect this. I think this was the first time we had ever attempted a backpack trip in early July, and we just assumed, or perhaps just hoped, that snow wouldn’t be an issue. But it absolutely was. Alpine lake sits at 8300 feet, and ahead of us was a mountain pass at 9100 feet, and many, many miles of high alpine country beyond that. That might have been fun with the right equipment, but we didn’t have any of that. So our grand plans ended here, just five miles into the wilderness, and several miles short of our goal for the day. Of course this was before the internet, before online hiking forums, forest service web sites, NOAA snow coverage maps, etc, etc. But we still coulda (shoulda) called the local Ranger Station! I don’t recall why we didn’t think of that, but we didn’t. Painful lesson learned!
After scouting around we finally found a small, snow-free plot of ground near the lake where we made camp. At least we could enjoy this beautiful lake which we had all to ourselves.
The lake was simply spectacular as evening rolled in...
The next morning dawned cold and clear.
Alpenglow on the neighboring ridge...
Our campsite in the morning sun...
That’s my old Moss 4-season tent. When packed, it was basically like carrying around a 10 pound sack of potatoes. But that thing was bomber in ugly weather!
Jeff attempts to fly fish in spite of the ice...
Rather than stay here another night, we opted to break camp and head home. With plenty of interesting places to car camp between here and Portland, and lots of country neither of us had seen before, it was an easy decision to make. Plus a beer sounded good already!
Heading down the switchbacks toward the canyon bottom...
A cool stretch of trail...
Grand Mogul comes into view as we head down...
Elephants Perch reappears...
According to SummitPost, this massive chunk of rock presents climbers with “the most dramatic granite faces in Idaho (up to 1200 feet in height)”. Its summit sits just shy of 10,000 feet!
We get another gander at Grand Mogul on the way out, along with its chunky neighbor to the right which is actually the NE face of Elephants Perch...
Back at the boat dock, we did a little fishing and had lunch while we waited for the afternoon shuttle boat...
Looking back wistfully at the Sawtooths from the road...
All in all, it was a great trip in spite of the stupid snow snafu!
I'll have to take another crack at that trip one day after the Corona bug passes.
Gordon
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