Summit Attained: 12 p.m.,  08/05/08


If you've never been to Idaho, you probably imagine a landscape consisting of miles and miles of gently rolling potato farms, cows, and the odd piece of irrigation equipment.  While this isn't a totally inaccurate picture for some of the state, it falls far short of capturing what a truly magnificent place Idaho is.  Much of the land is rugged wilderness, full of winding rivers, alpine forests, desert canyons, and range after range of beautiful snow-capped mountain peaks. 

The Lost River Range typifies the wild beauty of this great state, a place where you can drive for fifty or sixty miles and see few or no signs of civilization.  The nearest big city is far-off Boise, Idaho, which isn't really all that big (it's more like an overgrown town) and the lack of ambient light makes for one of the best night skies on the planet.  I used to think the sky above Vermont or New Hampshire was awesome.  Trust me, it doesn't hold a candle to Idaho.  The Milky Way is painted across the sky like some sort of strange heavenly highway, and the masses of stars are so densely layered that they take on an almost three-dimensional quality.  It really puts things in perspective.

After spending too much time crawling through the lava tubes at nearby Craters of the Moon National Monument, Dave and I arrived at the remote Borah trailhead well after dark. A brief reconnaissance mission revealed that the two most obvious campsites were already occupied by climbers, but a bit more searching yielded a nice spot not far from the small wooden outhouse. 

With the help of the car headlights, we soon had the tent up and a good fire going.  We even found a pretty good log to sit on, which we dragged some fifty yards before discovering that it was infested with angry ants.  Thankfully, the trauma of having their city dragged through the brush, along with the smoke and heat from the fire, proved to be too much for the ant colony, and we pretty much owned the log after about an hour or two. 

As a useful aside, excellent firewood can be obtained by ducking the fence beyond the outhouse and hiking a short distance up the hill to the sparsely wooded area just above camp.  The short, scraggily trees are called Mountain Mahogany, and their branches put other firewood to shame.  They will burn hot and bright for long periods of time, with barely more than a spark needed to get them going.

Anyway, Dave and I realized the next morning that we were going to run out of water before the end of the climb, so we reluctantly left the tent and drove back down the long dirt entrance road hoping to find potable water somewhere.  After about an hour of driving, we ended up about fifty miles to the north, in the charming little town of Challis. 

Having traveled this far, we figured we'd make a day of it, so we stopped in at the local mining museum, where we were possibly the first people to ever see the museum's short video about the area's rich gold prospecting history.  After Dave failed to find any gold in the panning area out back, we headed into the center of town to get a quick meal and enough drinks to last us through the next 24 hours.  We then made the long trip south back to base camp, and spent the rest of the day exploring and resting for an early departure the next morning.

We awoke just before dawn and set out shortly thereafter, hiking quickly through the forest that covers the lower flanks of Borah.  The Borah trail is relentless, climbing steeply almost from the start.  It doesn't help that you spend most of your time fighting off swarms of what must be the world's smallest type of mosquito.  Other than a lot of cursing and a few really fast pee breaks (they really get you when you stop), the climb was uneventful until we reached the bottom of the infamous Chicken Out Ridge.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Chicken Out Ridge is a lengthy section of class 3 and 4 scrambling and climbing that puts Borah into a class above many of the other U.S. highpoints.  If you don't like the idea of rock climbing, or if you are even slightly uncoordinated, take a rope for this one, or maybe stay at home.  The exposure is wild (just days after Borah, I climbed the Grand Teton, a mountain that is legendary for its exposed sections, and I felt right at home after having tackled Chicken Out Ridge). 

It gets better too. After some terrifying scrambling, we reached a spot where we were forced to carefully descend a short (15 ft. or so) section of class 4 rock in order to get to the permanent snow bridge that marks the end of the difficult scrambling. Again, a slip or fall, either on the downclimb or while crossing the bridge, would probably be fatal, and an ice axe is a good idea for this reason.

About a quarter mile after crossing the snow bridge, we reached the bottom of the final slope that leads to Borah’s summit.  While it is certainly not as technical as Chicken Out Ridge, the loose talus and potential rockfall hazard from other parties, along with the altitude, makes this section the most difficult part of the ascent to negotiate.  Sticking to the more firm rock when possible, we managed to make good time up to the ridge, reaching the summit about 6 hours into the climb. 

The views of the Lost River Range are quite breathtaking from the top, and we spent about 45 minutes taking in the scenery and chatting with a handful of other climbers who had topped out around the same time.  Like most highpoints, there is a summit log to sign, and there are flags and other fun things that help to provide some cool photo ops.