Pioneer Mountain Range, Idaho

Pioneer Mountains

The last switchback. I kicked a rock and swore under my breath. My legs just wouldn't cooperate. My thighs were burning and my feet moved in slow motion. Everything I was doing in slow motion except for my lung activity. Sweat dripped into my eyes because I didn't want to wear my bandana and get a tan line across my forehead. The sun was relentless, the trees were thin and sparse. Shade was a luxury you searched for and rationed. Keith sat perched at the top of the pass, drinking from his water bottle and enjoying my misery. I had 8 beers and 5 nights of food in my pack and gravity was pulling on it with a vengeance. At 9,500 feet, I could feel the thin air flooding into my lungs. But my lungs weren't oxygenating the blood going to my legs because when I tried to step over a rock, my foot didn't clear it and I had to try again. Small, choppy steps up the steep trail.

Some people wouldn't know the above paragraph came from a vacation excerpt. I call these trips "vacation" just because at work we don't have a category called "training". The down time was beautiful and relaxing, but every day on this trip there was a significant amount of strenuous hiking. Day after day we were climbing with heavy packs at very high altitude.

Some statstics:
7 - nights sleeping on the ground
96 - ounces of Coors Light in my pack
4 - high mountain lakes I swam in
27 - shooting stars I wished on
11,000 - cumulative ascended vertical feet over 6 days of climbing
1 - fish named Melvin that I spent an afternoon hanging out with
0 - tents that we carried during the trek
11,300 - highest altitude (feet) we reached on this trip
3 - rainbow trout that we cooked
$700 - amount of free stuff Keith and Ellen score from the Outdoor Retailer trade show in SLC
8 - teenage couples getting married at the LDS church temple in SLC on Sat 11Aug07

Upon arriving in SLC on Saturday, Aug 11, my pack hadn't made it onto the plane. We would have to wait 4 hours for the next flight from Philly to show up so I could get my pack. Keith's pack hadn't arrived the day before either, and he spent a chilly night in the mountains with some complementary United Airlines blankets. While we were waiting for my bag, we crashed the Outdoor Retailers expo at the convention center. We happened upon it by accident; and like moths to a flame, we slipped past security and infiltrated the show. Ellen scored a GPS from Delorme and Keith scored a day pack from Eureka.

We got to the mountains very late Saturday night and I hadn't slept in 48 hours. I was tired and finally overcoming the hangover I had from Friday night. I slept well. We spent Sunday night at Boulder Lake, elevation 9,500 ft. Monday we hiked 6 miles out of Boulder to our food cache at 7,500 ft. Then 6 miles into Moose Lake again at 9,500 ft. Sunday and Monday were my two worse altitude days. Our packs up to Moose Lake were very heavy and we were still acclimating. We made it to about a mile shy of Moose Lake Monday evening and we camped along the right fork of the Falls River. We hung our bear bags about 2 feet off the ground, partly because Keith says there are no bears in the Pioneers, and partly because there are no trees big enough that a bear couldn't knock down if he really wanted your food. We primarily hung our food to keep the rodents out. Wednesday we hiked the rest of the way to Moose Lake to have breakfast. Then Keith and I attempted to bushwhack to Angel Lake, elevation 10,300 ft. We ended up climbing the wrong pass (10,500ft), and while it was high and beautiful, I was tired and bored and didn't feel like climbing the correct pass to get a glimpse of Angel. I went back down to Moose and took a nap. Thursday morning we hiked down from Moose to Falls River (7,500), up to Surprise Valley and all the way to the tarn at the head of Surprise (10,300 ft). Friday we hiked over the pass (11,000 ft) to Betty Lake and then down to Baptie Lake, where we stayed Thursday night. Thursday was the only day we had any adverse weather. Friday was the hike out to the car. It was a little rainy at first, but cleared up.

We stopped Friday in Ketchum for some shopping and some dinner. We stayed just north of Ketchum Friday night and Saturday morning we stopped at Russian Johns' hot spring. Then I spent the rest of the day at the airport.

It was a beautiful trip, a lot of fun. The nights were my favorite because it was so quiet and so warm and the stars were bright and it was great sleeping out each night without a tent. No bugs, no humidity, no bears. It was the perfect backpack. Keith and Ellen put a lot of effort into it and I would go back to this area again in a heartbeat. I got a great workout. The only thing I would do differently is wear a lot more sunblock on my face. I didn't burn, no I rarely burn, but I know how bad the sun is, especially at that altitude. We were out in the sun so many days in a row, for so many hours a day, I've probably completely depleted my face of collagen. I worry about stupid stuff like that, and I should have worn sunblock every day on my face. But I didn't because it was so dry and dusty that I didn't like the feeling of sunblock sticking the dust to my face. That shouldn't have been any excuse. Next time I'll wear sunblock.

Shout out to Frank for the high-end french manicure before I left. They held up great, even in the rock scrambling. See after-hike pic.