Idaho 12ers
August 19-21, 2016: Taking a shot at the second-fastest known time for climbing all nine of Idaho's 12,000+ foot peaks.
This particular challenge began six years ago, in 2010, while I was working for Idaho Wilderness Company as a rafting guide on the Middle Fork of the Salmon river. I was a relative newcomer, and eager to earn the older guides' respect. It came up that one guy had climbed Mt. Borah — Idaho's highest peak — in 2 1/2 hours, and he regaled us with stories of rushing past awestruck tourists on the way up. Naturally I thought beating his time would be a great first step in proving I was worthy. By the end of the summer I'd beaten his time up Borah, stumbled across idahosummits.com and the 12ers challenge, and kindled a new, larger ambition to beat the existing speed record for climbing the 12ers. At that point, the record was 38 hours and 50 minutes, set in 2005 by Dave Bingham and Rob Landis.Idaho has nine peaks that rise over 12,000 feet, though the next earthquake or two could easily add to the list. Hyndman Peak sits alone in the Pioneer mountains outside of Sun Valley, Diamond Peak by itself in the Lemhis to the east, and then there are the seven in the Lost River Range (from north to south): Borah, Idaho, Leatherman, Church, Donaldson, Breitenbach and Lost River.
The project slowly took shape over the next few years. I was based out of Challis while working the raft trips, which provided a great central home base to get up on the peaks during days off from the river. This is when the Lost River range earned my respect. I've had four or five scouting trips up in the range that ended badly; either bailing out of the mountains early due to weather, terrain, or just realizing that I wasn't fit enough to cover the distance I'd planned for the day. These aborted scouting missions always seemed to get worse once I was down out of the high country, even though I was usually bloody by the time I got back down to treeline. Thrashing around in creekside stinging nettle, "shortcuts" that lead to cliff-outs in the dark, getting lost in the sagebrush flats up off highway 93, hitchhiking back to my truck at 2 in the morning; it all became the standard fee for accessing the range. But I was hooked. I loved the mixture of running and scrambling through rocky ridgelines, the full-body experience of moving light and fast through class 3 and 4 terrain. Something about moving that way through areas that were just shy of requiring a rope did the trick for me.
In 2013 I thought I was ready to take a crack at the record. I took it on solo, with my saint of a mom providing moral and transportation support. Starting at Diamond, I made it through Borah and Leatherman before running up against the difficult traverse to Church and my own exhaustion. I made only three peaks over 26 hours, and it was easy to see I wasn't near prepared enough, mentally or physically. I knew if I made another attempt I wouldn't try it alone.
I had met Paul Lind and his son Cody the summer before, when Paul organized a runner's trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon with my rafting company. The trip was an exhilarating, slightly crazy mix of high athleticism and debauchery — kind of like everything the Linds do. Both of these guys are top-notch endurance athletes, and getting hooked in with them just as I was starting to run ultras was good for me, to say the least.In the summer of 2016 I found myself fit, running races well and primed to take another attempt at the 12ers. Cody had started dating Brittany Petersen, another super-fit sponsored runner, and plans took shape through the summer for the four of us to go after the second-fastest time, the 2005 Bingham & Landis record. Luke Nelson and Jared Campbell, two world-class ultrarunners, had broken that record in August 2014. Their time was an out-of-my-league 28 hours & 18 minutes.But it wasn't like shooting for the second-fastest time was going to be a sure thing. The challenge is predominantly off-trail, and most of that off-trail terrain is shifting scree fields and crumbly, sharp ridgelines. A running adventure, this is not. More like a gritty slog through uneven, difficult rock. Paul likes to call it the Lost River Fuck Rock, so poetically named because it is crumbly, untrustworthy, and yet puppy-teeth sharp. Durable gloves are a must, and the average pair lasts less than two trips.
We started up Hyndman at 5pm Friday, August 19, into a beautiful late summer evening. Spirits were high with our awesome crew chief Lynn, and good friends Sam and Molli who came up from Hailey to run part of the peak with us. We settled into a good pace that worked for everyone, and the jokes flew when the terrain wasn't too steep.
2 hours and 29 minutes after leaving the TH we summited and spent a couple minutes soaking in the view and taking pictures.
Brittany, Paul and myself made it back to the car at about 9:15, just before dark. Cody had stayed back to make sure one of our crew made it off her first 12er safely, though the two of them pushed the downhill pace more and made it back to the TH only a few minutes after we did.We spent a quick ten minutes packing gear for the Lost River traverse, as we knew that we wouldn't want to mess with things once we hit the Borah trailhead. And then all five of us crammed into Cody's four-seat Jeep Cherokee for a mad dash in the dark back to the highway and over Trail Creek road. There was an indelible moment here for me as the Jeep bounced along the ruts and potholes of Hyndman road. We had gear stashed everywhere, under our feet, behind knees and under elbows. And we started passing around homemade food in big tupperware containers in the dark, everyone sharing the same forks and same comaraderie and a strong sense that we were in the middle of doing something special.Another 10 minutes at the Borah TH double-checking packs and trying to make sure we didn't forget anything we'd need for the next 24 hours, and we were off at quarter after 11. One guy was trying to sleep directly next to the trail start, and I'm sure we pissed him off a good bit with our talking and closing car doors. Sorry man — don't sleep right next to the trail next time!We broke out of the treeline to a sky full of stars and an almost-full moon that made headlamps unnecessary. To everyone's consternation, something was obviously not alright with Paul; he was climbing more slowly than usual and clearly not feeling right. He stopped the train and told us that he was going to bail, he had some kind of sickness going on and was going to slow us down if he continued. I think this hit Cody the hardest because they both were looking forward to this as a father-son adventure, but if anyone knows his own body it's Paul. He's run ultras his whole adult life (including the Tahoe 200) and has likely spent more time in the mountains than the three of us combined.
We summited Borah at 2:14am Saturday morning with high spirits. From here it was a quick scree-sliding descent to Cedar creek so we could bypass the inefficient ridgeline between Borah and Idaho. We weaved our way through the trees over the creek several times, and worked up a large scree field to a saddle at the head of the canyon, a couple thousand feet below Idaho. From there it was more rocky ridgelines and scree chutes to the summit. We topped out at 5:53am, just as the first hints of day started coloring the sky. This was a high point for me and ultimately my favorite peak; I'd felt sluggish on the climb up Cedar creek and the daybreak was rejuvenating.
The project slowly took shape over the next few years. I was based out of Challis while working the raft trips, which provided a great central home base to get up on the peaks during days off from the river. This is when the Lost River range earned my respect. I've had four or five scouting trips up in the range that ended badly; either bailing out of the mountains early due to weather, terrain, or just realizing that I wasn't fit enough to cover the distance I'd planned for the day. These aborted scouting missions always seemed to get worse once I was down out of the high country, even though I was usually bloody by the time I got back down to treeline. Thrashing around in creekside stinging nettle, "shortcuts" that lead to cliff-outs in the dark, getting lost in the sagebrush flats up off highway 93, hitchhiking back to my truck at 2 in the morning; it all became the standard fee for accessing the range. But I was hooked. I loved the mixture of running and scrambling through rocky ridgelines, the full-body experience of moving light and fast through class 3 and 4 terrain. Something about moving that way through areas that were just shy of requiring a rope did the trick for me.In 2013 I thought I was ready to take a crack at the record. I took it on solo, with my saint of a mom providing moral and transportation support. Starting at Diamond, I made it through Borah and Leatherman before running up against the difficult traverse to Church and my own exhaustion. I made only three peaks over 26 hours, and it was easy to see I wasn't near prepared enough, mentally or physically. I knew if I made another attempt I wouldn't try it alone.I had met Paul Lind and his son Cody the summer before, when Paul organized a runner's trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon with my rafting company. The trip was an exhilarating, slightly crazy mix of high athleticism and debauchery — kind of like everything the Linds do. Both of these guys are top-notch endurance athletes, and getting hooked in with them just as I was starting to run ultras was good for me, to say the least.In the summer of 2016 I found myself fit, running races well and primed to take another attempt at the 12ers. Cody had started dating Brittany Petersen, another super-fit sponsored runner, and plans took shape through the summer for the four of us to go after the second-fastest time, the 2005 Bingham & Landis record. Luke Nelson and Jared Campbell, two world-class ultrarunners, had broken that record in August 2014. Their time was an out-of-my-league 28 hours & 18 minutes.But it wasn't like shooting for the second-fastest time was going to be a sure thing. The challenge is predominantly off-trail, and most of that off-trail terrain is shifting scree fields and crumbly, sharp ridgelines. A running adventure, this is not. More like a gritty slog through uneven, difficult rock. Paul likes to call it the Lost River Fuck Rock, so poetically named because it is crumbly, untrustworthy, and yet puppy-teeth sharp. Durable gloves are a must, and the average pair lasts less than two trips.We started up Hyndman at 5pm Friday, August 19, into a beautiful late summer evening. Spirits were high with our awesome crew chief Lynn, and good friends Sam and Molli who came up from Hailey to run part of the peak with us. We settled into a good pace that worked for everyone, and the jokes flew when the terrain wasn't too steep.2 hours and 29 minutes after leaving the TH we summited and spent a couple minutes soaking in the view and taking pictures.Brittany, Paul and myself made it back to the car at about 9:15, just before dark. Cody had stayed back to make sure one of our crew made it off her first 12er safely, though the two of them pushed the downhill pace more and made it back to the TH only a few minutes after we did.We spent a quick ten minutes packing gear for the Lost River traverse, as we knew that we wouldn't want to mess with things once we hit the Borah trailhead. And then all five of us crammed into Cody's four-seat Jeep Cherokee for a mad dash in the dark back to the highway and over Trail Creek road. There was an indelible moment here for me as the Jeep bounced along the ruts and potholes of Hyndman road. We had gear stashed everywhere, under our feet, behind knees and under elbows. And we started passing around homemade food in big tupperware containers in the dark, everyone sharing the same forks and same comaraderie and a strong sense that we were in the middle of doing something special.Another 10 minutes at the Borah TH double-checking packs and trying to make sure we didn't forget anything we'd need for the next 24 hours, and we were off at quarter after 11. One guy was trying to sleep directly next to the trail start, and I'm sure we pissed him off a good bit with our talking and closing car doors. Sorry man — don't sleep right next to the trail next time!We broke out of the treeline to a sky full of stars and an almost-full moon that made headlamps unnecessary. To everyone's consternation, something was obviously not alright with Paul; he was climbing more slowly than usual and clearly not feeling right. He stopped the train and told us that he was going to bail, he had some kind of sickness going on and was going to slow us down if he continued. I think this hit Cody the hardest because they both were looking forward to this as a father-son adventure, but if anyone knows his own body it's Paul. He's run ultras his whole adult life (including the Tahoe 200) and has likely spent more time in the mountains than the three of us combined.We summited Borah at 2:14am Saturday morning with high spirits. From here it was a quick scree-sliding descent to Cedar creek so we could bypass the inefficient ridgeline between Borah and Idaho. We weaved our way through the trees over the creek several times, and worked up a large scree field to a saddle at the head of the canyon, a couple thousand feet below Idaho. From there it was more rocky ridgelines and scree chutes to the summit. We topped out at 5:53am, just as the first hints of day started coloring the sky. This was a high point for me and ultimately my favorite peak; I'd felt sluggish on the climb up Cedar creek and the daybreak was rejuvenating.
The sun began to rise as we descended, and I think that, and knowing we were so close to the finish and primed to beat our goal time made the descent even quicker than we'd hoped. We all felt surprisingly good, and even managed a respectable jog through the lower sagebrush sections to the 4wheelers. Paul gave out a big whoop, the three of us crossed the imaginary finish line all holding hands high in the air, and just like that it was done. 6:44am, 37 hours and 44 minutes after starting.
Later, Lynn made the three of us some hot chocolate in the motorhome and there was this poignant moment where no one had taken a sip and we all were just staring at the steaming mugs. That moment captured the three of us all sharing the same exhaustion and reflecting on the same adventure, each in our own way. Funny how those little moments get indelibly burned in your mind.After six years of working towards this goal, it didn't feel real to finish. I guess it never does. It was hands down the hardest thing I'd ever done to that point. We only had a rough idea of the totals before starting, but we ended up covering 42 miles with 26,000 feet total vertical gain. As a contrast, the steepest 50-mile ultra in the U.S. covers 52 trail miles and 23,500 vertical gain.Gear:We all used durable work or leather gloves.Brittany and I used trekking poles and loved them. Cody would use them if he did it again.Cody's shoes (Scott Kinabalu Enduro Trails) were the only ones not to get destroyed. My Brooks Cascadias and Brittany's Saucony Peregrines had large holes in the toebox and sides.Brittany and I used Tailwind. Cody used VFuel.The weather treated us really well. It never got too hot or cold and we were able to get by with one baselayer, one light windbreaker jacket (I used the Patagonia Houdini) along with shorts & t-shirts.
Later, Lynn made the three of us some hot chocolate in the motorhome and there was this poignant moment where no one had taken a sip and we all were just staring at the steaming mugs. That moment captured the three of us all sharing the same exhaustion and reflecting on the same adventure, each in our own way. Funny how those little moments get indelibly burned in your mind.After six years of working towards this goal, it didn't feel real to finish. I guess it never does. It was hands down the hardest thing I'd ever done to that point. We only had a rough idea of the totals before starting, but we ended up covering 42 miles with 26,000 feet total vertical gain. As a contrast, the steepest 50-mile ultra in the U.S. covers 52 trail miles and 23,500 vertical gain.Gear:We all used durable work or leather gloves.Brittany and I used trekking poles and loved them. Cody would use them if he did it again.Cody's shoes (Scott Kinabalu Enduro Trails) were the only ones not to get destroyed. My Brooks Cascadias and Brittany's Saucony Peregrines had large holes in the toebox and sides.Brittany and I used Tailwind. Cody used VFuel.The weather treated us really well. It never got too hot or cold and we were able to get by with one baselayer, one light windbreaker jacket (I used the Patagonia Houdini) along with shorts & t-shirts.