Mount Everly looms above a marshy meadow fed by Benedict Creek.

The second day of my backpacking trek across the Sawtooth Wilderness would get me to the high country and, eventually, out of the long slog through the thick vegetation and fallen trees that marked the previous “forgettable” day. It would also be a day during which I would see more bears than people.

I would start this day — August 13 — about four miles short of the previous day’s goal, Smith Falls. The South Fork Payette River Trail made one of its rare visits to the namesake river at a place I dubbed “Waterfall Bend,” and it was here I had set up camp. In the predawn chill, I returned to the rocks overlooking the dozen-plus cascades to drink a protein shake. As I sat there, listening to the singing waters, a small black bear trotted along the other shore. It glanced in my direction once, then did a double-take before bolting away from the river. I didn’t have my camera handy — and it wouldn’t have mattered as it was still fairly dark — but this was otherwise a perfect bear encounter.
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Tags: aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, boise national forest, campsite views, clouds, creeks, fords, lakes, mount everly, mountain vistas, rock slide lake, rock slides, sawtooth wilderness, south fork payette river, stormy skies, waterfalls

My campsite for the third night on the trail was located on a high point between Vernon and Edna Lakes. A short walk down to Vernon Lake provided a stunning view of Pt. 9105 and Pt. 9941 at sunset.

The trails in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains are designed to provide access to dozens of beautiful lakes nestled beneath the craggy peaks. I hear the fishing is terrific, though I did not cast a single line. In fact, I got lots of strange looks when I answered “Do you fish?” in the negative, as if their unasked follow-up question were, “Then what are you doing here?”

This post highlights most of the named lakes I visited during the second and third days on the trail, plus the first lake of the fourth day. I add this last one because it was the last lake before the first major mountain pass. There were no lakes seen on the first day, but there are plenty more where these came from.
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Tags: ardeth lake, aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, clouds, edna lake, lake ingeborg, lakes, reflections, rock slide lake, rock slides, rocks, sawtooth wilderness, spangle lakes, stormy skies, sunsets, tenlake basin, vernon lake, wildflowers

This sign marks the boundary of the Sawtooth Wilderness, which I first entered about 1.5 miles up the South Fork Payette Trail from the Grandjean trailhead on August 12. I would spend most of the next 10 days in this wilderness.

It may be helpful for me to list out each day’s portion of the trip so that my unfolding tale can be tied to specific points in the journey.

The trip broke into three distinct phases: the drive up, the backpack, and the drive back. These took 7, 11, and 8 days, respectively. The backpack itself broke into two phases, pre- and post-resupply, plus a dayhiking day originally intended to be last day of the backpack.

Here is the day-to-day sketch of the trip:
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Tags: aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, sawtooth wilderness

STANLEY, Idaho — How to sum up 10 days of backpacking through the wild Sawtooth Wilderness, following a 2,519 mile drive to get here? Epic, for Epic’s sake.

I got off the trail this morning and am now in the little town of Stanley (Pop. 100), which is the gateway to the Sawtooths. I’m currently doing laundry at the laundromat, which doubles as a deli and pizza joint. I’m spending the night in the Stanley High Country Inn, which used to be the summer getaway home of Bill Harrah, the casino mogul. I’m in the Cowboy Room, where a nicely framed photo of John Wayne is the primary decoration.

My first real food was at the Stanley Bakery, a fantastic grilled sandwich with smoked turkey, bacon, avocado, and tomato, served with a salad, a freshly baked snickerdoodle cookie, and copious iced tea, all the more wonderful since I’ve been drinking nothing but water since last Wednesday.

Tonight, I’ll enjoy Stanley’s finest fine dining and then a highly recommended live band playing at the Kasino Club, one of Stanley’s two night spots.

Tomorrow, I will do a dayhike to Goat Lake, a place the locals who know these mountains describe as “magical.” This is possible because I cut off the last portion of the loop I had planned in order to come into town today (More on that later.).

Obviously, I will have photos galore and a full report of my trek, but here are the high points for purposes of this field report.
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Tags: aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, sawtooth wilderness

In less than 30 hours, I will be on the road, bound for Central Idaho. The upcoming trip will be epic in every sense of the adventure. The most miles driven. The longest backpacking route. The greatest number of camping nights, consecutive and total. The largest number of consecutive days on the road.

Today, I received current trail conditions (Word doc) information from the Sawtooth National Forest via Jim Lootens, who appears to be the Forest Service’s Twitterer-in-Chief. Snow will be present above 8,800 feet and on the north sides of passes, but it doesn’t appear that any of it will be hazardous. The same goes for fords. There are no fires or closures in the forest right now. And the wildflowers are exploding on the hillsides.

I’ve rerouted a portion of the itinerary around my resupply, which will be dropped off-trail near Pettit Lake. I’ve added an off-trail (officially, anyway — there is an abandoned but usable trail and two old jeep roads) traverse to reach a prettier creek canyon and eliminate a second crossing of a potentially dicey pass. Since I will now be approaching from the north, I can see if the way is blocked by snow before I’ve climbed too far. The reroute also sets me up nicely for an ascent of Mt. Cramer (10,716 feet), which I will do as a dayhike.
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Tags: aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, hiking gear

Updated August 3, 5:30pm: Jim at the National Forest Service sent me a link to the latest trail conditions (Word doc) report, dated July 31. It looks like I’ll face some lingering snow on the passes and around the higher lakes but nothing hazardous.

My long-planned odyssey to the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho begins in a week. In between are an overnight work-related trip to St. Louis and an overnight puppy delivery to my parents’ house, where she will stay while I’m on the road.

I have some new gear to discuss once I return. Notably, the new arrivals are an improved tarp for better rain protection, a SPOT satellite messenger to communicate (one-way) my coordinates, a pair of Black Diamond trekking poles, and a new inline gravity-assisted water filter. The SPOT and trekking poles debuted in Colorado last month. It was the first hike I’d ever used two poles; typically I use one. The SPOT successfully transmitted accurate coordinates to my email list during the 2-4 times a day I was taking 20-minute or longer breaks, or was camped at night. Now, if only it was all packed and ready to go.

One thing that’s missing from this trip preparation is current conditions where I am going. I planned on writing about this last week, when I first went looking for trail, road, snow, stream crossing, and fire conditions for the Sawtooths. I hesitated because someone with the Forest Service reached out to me, via Twitter of all things, to see if he could track down the information I needed. (BTW, my tweet was, “Can the National Forest Service’s web site be any worse? More 404s than information, and most of that info is seriously outdated. #fail” It was almost immediately retweeted by another hiking blogger.) But, in the week since, nothing more has come from Idaho, so I will be flying blind.
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Tags: aug09 idaho trip, backpacking, backpacking gear, sawtooth national forest

My final miles in Yosemite delivered one more memorable moment, when I first heard, and then spied, a mama bear teaching her cubs to find yummy grubs in downed trees. One of the cub's little faces is just to the right of mama's head.

One year ago today, my epic hike in Yosemite National Park drew to a close with the final steps toward the Happy Isles trailhead. I left my final campsite in Little Yosemite Valley a little after 7 a.m. and reached the brink of Nevada Fall about an hour later. I didn’t linger at the fall for long as I was eager to get off the trail. Ten days earlier, I had hiked down the Mist Trail from this point. This time, I followed the John Muir Trail to the bottom.

While my brain reflected upon the whole experience of the hike, I was roused by the unmistakable sound of a bear just off the trail. A mother black bear was ripping into a fallen tree, teaching her black and cinnamon cubs how to reach the grubs and termites inside. They ate greedily. These same bears would cross the trail directly in front of me a few switchbacks farther down, and one of the cubs looked at me curiously.

Half Dome towered above the trees and lesser granite summits as the John Muir Trail continued its zig-zagging descent.
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Tags: backpacking, bears, half dome, john muir trail, jul08 yosemite trip, sunsets, yosemite national park