Mt. Borah

Mt. Borah is the tallest mountain in Idaho, at 12,668 ft. The route ascends 5,262 vertical feet in just over 3 1/2 miles. That's pretty steep! A teacher friend of Cathy's invited her to climb it with him this summer, and wonderful sister that she is, she invited me!

On the left you can see the teeny tiny tip of Mt. Borah (also known as Borah Peak) as it fades into the skyline. On the right is our camp, with Steve and me. Notice Steve and Cathy's cool new Big Agnes Seedlight 3 tent. (It's the one in the foreground.)

Here we are at the trailhead, 6:30 am on August 7th. We started off with a group of 6--from left to right: Kyle Jenks (Cath's friend), Tom Bugbe (Kyle's brother-in-law), Gary Jenks (Kyle's dad), me, Cathy, Steve.

These two just show parts of the trail. After a couple of hours Tom and Steve went back to camp. Tom was having altitude sickness and Steve was the nicest one of our group and was willing to forgo his climb to take Tom back down. They went into the nearest town (Mackey) and had burgers & fries while they waited!

This is the very beginning of Chickenout Ridge--aptly named. It involved Class 4 climbing, and none of us were experienced climbers. It was super scary and had Cath and me wondering if we really wanted to do this! The really freaky part of this was when we were up on top of this razor-edged ridge.

Here's the ice field. Kyle started out and decided no way could we safely make it across without any proper equipment. So instead we ended up climbing up the rocks on the side of the ice field. It was quite strenuous and also pretty scary. On the right you see a great butt shot of me. Thanks, Cath (official photographer). Once we reached the top we easily walked across the top.

Close to the top in the left pic. Beautiful lake valley in the middle. Gorgeous purple flowers growing practically right in the rock on the right.

Victorious at the top! On the left Cath and I are holding a banner that she made for the occasion. On the right is just me with the flag.

Coming back down the mountain--obviously on a not-very-steep part. The fog was moving in and out and it was also snowing off and on. It was windy and COLD!

Here we are coming back across the ice field. We decided no way could we safely make it the same way we had come up. Climbing down the rocks on the side of the ice field would have been super dangerous. Cath and I each had 2 walking sticks. So each of the 4 of us took one, we pounded the walking stick into the ice, and then held on as we toe-kicked footholds across. Then if we slipped (which we all did) we would be hanging onto the pole. It worked very well.

On the left we are continuing to walk down. Here we are only about an hour from the tree-line. We were excited to reach that point (the tree line) because from there on out it was a fairly easy hike. The right pic just again shows part of the trail. I guess we forgot to take a pic back at camp, so these are the last photos. The whole thing took 14 hours--6:30 am to 8:30 pm. Long! Steve had hot dinner and Postum water waiting for us upon our return. What an angel! A great time was had by all. For those of you who are interested, here is a link to Cathy's blog of the same trip: http://catiemom.blogspot.com/ She's fast! She also has already posted our Uinta backpacking trip which we just got back from!