Putting in at the Take Out

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August 31, 2009

I read in the paper a couple weeks ago that some people had tried to float Idaho’s North Fork of the Payette River from Zimmer Creek down to Banks—a hideous stretch of water that is not rafted. Rarely has a kayak ever gone through this 3 plus mile stretch. Boaters often float the North Fork above this section and take out at the Zimmer Creek camping area. The people that attempted this lower section were from out of state, and had little experience with the Payette. Rumor suggests that 2 different, experienced rafters had warned the tourists to get off the river and not float the treacherous lower section. They floated; they flipped; one person drowned. As I read this story, the thought sprang to mind that they had “put in at the take out.”
Mt. Borah is a 12,662 foot peak in the Lost River Mountain range. It is the highest point in Idaho. My wife, Sue, has desired to climb Mt. Borah for a while. She says it’s been on her “bucket list.” It wasn’t on mine. Around July 4th, she talked over the proposal with her brother Mark. Mark--an experienced climber and canyoneer—has scooted up better than twenty of Colorado’s fourteeners (peaks over 14,000 feet). He was all in. Sue’s nephew, Billy, (as in Mountain Goat), is a 26-year old who, at 6’ 6” and 225 pounds, was also up for the trip. Both had summited Borah in prior years. Brodi, a friend of Sue’s, was also interested. The trip was set: Mark would fly in on Aug. 7th, Bill would pick him up at the airport, and we would all meet at the base of Mt. Borah that evening ready to climb early Saturday.
I began researching Borah and how to climb it. I talked to several people who had climbed it and whose kids had climbed it. The road to the trail head was suitable for cars, trucks, and even camp trailers. Start early, avoid the lightning, enjoy the views, and Chicken Out Ridge is the only difficult part.
I read some reviews on the internet, and looked at some hiking guides. Mount Borah was called a “very strenuous” hike, as the trail gains over 5,400 feet in about 3.5 miles. I read about some scrambles and again about the infamous Chicken Out Ridge. Chicken Out includes a bit of vertical climbing and a crossing of the “Knife Edge” or there’s an optional route lower down that traverses a steep snow field. I learned that many people climb Borah every summer and it’s often accessible to both young and old. The best time to climb is mid-July through mid-August. The internet contained several differing accounts, from hikers who made it sound easy, to people who took one look at Chicken Out Ridge from the trail below and promptly turned around and went back down the mountain. The prevailing wisdom seemed to be to know your limitations, go at your own pace, and avoid unnecessary risks.
Sue and I are in decent shape for our respective ages. I’m 49 years old and she is not (self-preservation demands ambiguity at this point). We run in the foothills, and I kicked my weight lifting up a little in preparation. The biggest problem I’ve found in lifting weights is that they’re heavy. We both bought new boots and broke them in prior to the big day. Our biggest obstacle seemed to be that we’re afraid of heights. Luckily, we were going during the day, because I’m afraid of the dark too.
My preparation had motive: my reading of accounts on the internet, talking to people who had experienced Borah, and adjustment of my physical training were measures to keep me from “putting in at the take out.”
In the days prior to the trip, Idaho experienced record rainfall for August, and unseasonably cold temperatures. The weather station forecast showed the system moving out on Saturday with partly cloudy skies and cool temperatures. Friday, August 7th, began with heavy rains falling in the Boise valley. However, the storm appeared to be breaking up as we packed the car for the drive. We drove to Arco and then up the valley to Mackay and the Borah trailhead camp ground. We arrived around 3:30 pm to partly cloudy skies with some sunshine and a few short rain showers. There were 6 rigs in the campground. By 10:00 pm everyone in our party had safely arrived at our camp, along with 70 or 80 other people. There were over 30 vehicles there and space was getting tight. We threw out tents and the night was calm and dry.
We woke up around 4:30 am to people stirring around in their campsites. The moon was shining, the stars were out, and the thermometer registered 33 degrees. As we got ready to go, I could see flashlights going up the lower trail just outside the campground. I looked at my watch with my first steps on the trail. It was 5:35 am. There were people ahead, and many more to come behind. We quickly spread out on the long initial ascent. Mark and Bill headed up the trail quickly to burn up some early energy. Brodi fell behind with complaints of nausea and lack of conditioning. We left her behind after the first half mile or so, thinking she was too sick to hike. During our climb, we could see across the valley to the west. The skies were clear and the sun was beginning to shine through to the valley floor. A few clouds were hanging around and the wind was relatively calm. After about 2 ½ hours of steep climbing, Sue and I found Mark waiting for us a couple hundred yards below the first scramble. It had clouded up some, but there was no wind or rain. We figured we had gained about 4,000 vertical feet.
We hiked up to the first obstacle. It required us to climb with our hands and feet, or scramble, up a steep rocky climb about 50 or 60 feet. We then had to traverse a rocky ledge to get back on a narrow trail leading up to a small knoll. Sue struggled with this initial scramble. Mark showed her handholds and footholds and got her through the first problem area. It was slow going and Sue appeared a bit scared. Her confidence seemed to grow, however, as we dropped to the right of the knoll to get to a small saddle. We then started out on a side hill path to the left of the next rising ridge. The weather began to fog up a bit as we worked our way through rocks and scree. We reached a junction in the so-called trail as we saw the end of this second ridge up above us. The trail either climbed steeply up a rock gully to the top of the ridge, or went along the side hill down to a snow field crossing at a very steep angle. Mark set out forward instead of climbing up. He climbed off the rock and onto the steep snow traverse. Mark walked out onto the snow field on the narrow trail to check the footing, and decided the trail was probably our best option, as climbing up the rocky coulee would be very time consuming and then we would have to make a vertical climb down the ridge. We climbed down onto the ice trail and used holes in the snow on the uphill side of the trail as finger holes to help stabilize our traverse. The holes were made by an ice axe and were frozen solid. It was at this point that we met up with Bill again. He had been to the summit and had come back to join us. We could see him on the trail above us as we crossed the ice. We made it across the snow field successfully and made another steep climb up to the trail where Bill was waiting. We looked back behind us and realized that we had gotten past Chicken Out Ridge. The snow traverse went under the climbing portion of Chicken Out. We could see the flat snow crossing at the base of the vertical climb down from the top of the ridge. I watched a climber on his way down from the summit cross the flat ice field and climb up to the top of Chicken Out. He made it look easy but the ice crossing on the side hill worked for us and was definitely faster for our group.

The trail where Bill waited was the best we had seen in a while. It was fairly flat for what seemed like a quarter mile or so. We made good progress and eventually crossed another wide flat saddle with no snow on it. I saw some goat manure on the trail and realized I hadn’t seen any animals on the whole hike. I hadn’t even seen a bird. I checked with Bill and Mark and neither one claimed responsibility for the manure, so I assumed there must have been other goats on the hill.
Bill told us that we were coming to the final ascent to the top. The trail quickly grew rocky and steep and there were many different ways to ascend. We scrambled through the rocks and ledges on the western face of the peak. A light but steady hail began falling through the clouds that had settled in on us. We could only see about 40 yards in any direction as the altitude began to slow us down.
As we plodded along, we passed a man and his son who were slower than us. In fact the man had stopped completely as we worked on past them on a very steep and slick section. Anywhere the trail had dirt on it, it had become wet and slick from the hail. When I caught up to the man and was going by him, he asked “How old are you?” I told him I was 49. He immediately replied, “I’m 51” and that was the extent of our conversation. The top of this slick climb led to the final the ridge and the final short and much easier ascent to the summit. The 4 of us reached the summit around 11:15 am. It had taken us 5 hours and 45 minutes to get there. We signed the logbook, took some pictures, ate a little and enjoyed the view of what was now about 30 yards through clouds. There was no hail or snow accumulating on the ground, but it was wet.
As we started back down the trail, the snow began falling in earnest. A hundred feet or so below the summit we ran into a logjam of people. There were about 30 people strung out on the trail and hanging onto the rock wall struggling to go up on the slick trail. Some of the people seemed ill-prepared in shorts and tennis shoes. A few looked wet also, but they were all moving up towards the top. We bumped into our camp neighbors, Ryan and Brandon. They were doing well and were getting close. Then the biggest shock of all: we came face-to-face with Brodi! I could not believe she was this close to the top. I didn’t think she would make it above the tree line as sick and slow as she had been. She said she had stopped after we left her and she threw up several times. After that she felt better and began climbing again. She met up with a couple guys and stayed with them all the way up. Mark decided to go back to the summit with Brodi and then go down with her. Sue, Bill, and I headed on down towards Chicken Out in about an inch of snow. Going down through this rocky section was a bit tricky in the snow, but we made pretty good progress. Snow kept falling and the accumulation on the ground was a growing concern.
The side hill approaching the snow traverse was getting slicker, and we had to slow down. A man and his 12 year old son had caught up to us on their descent and were following along behind us. They didn’t want to pass us, as they weren’t sure where the trail was. Sue was pretty wet and cold at this point, and couldn’t stop because she would just get cold. We moved on steadily. Bill and I had rain shells and stayed mostly dry. As we approached Chicken Out for the second time, we decided that the snow traverse would again be the fastest route for us. The vertical climb up Chicken Out and the long scramble back down to the trail would be very slick and time consuming, and the snow kept falling. We made our way down from the trail to the snow crossing, which had gained a couple inches of fresh snow. The snow obscured the ice axe holes we held onto on the way over early that morning.

There are 2 groups of people crossing the ice field in center of this picture.

We carefully got on the snow covered ice and worked our way across and down. A slip here would not end well. We successfully made it across the trail and to the rocks. Bill climbed up the rock to the trail, but Sue wasn’t able to climb up this section. The rocks were too steep and there were no handholds or footholds within her reach. Meanwhile, I stood out on the ice trail and couldn’t get to a rock to hold onto. Bill was up on the trail, and I threw him Sue’s pack. He set a body anchor, his heels firmly in the rocks, then reached down, grabbed Sue’s hand and dragged her up onto the trail. Sue was covered with snow and I noticed the huge icicles in her hair as I watched her bounce off of rock wall. She had her ears covered with a head band, but her hair was freezing up fast. After Bill got Sue up to the trail, I was able to move forward and to my relief, grab onto the rocks. Back up on the trail, we figured we had made it through the most dangerous part but we had a couple inches of snow added to the rocks and scrambles that we had struggled with in the morning’s ascent. Sue held onto rocks and footholds as we worked our way across some difficult edges on this side hill section. This area had the poorest trail of any part of the hike. Just when I thought we were doing well, Sue slipped above a slick sandy chute and went down. She self-arrested just below the trail. I sat down on the trail and grabbed her. Bill grabbed her from the other side and the man behind me grabbed the straps of my backpack. I looked down the chute and figured there were enough rocks and boulders to stop someone before sliding out of sight 50 yards further down. I was also happy that the clouds prevented any view of what lay beyond the chute. We worked Sue back up to the trail and over to the saddle that marked the beginning of Chicken Out Ridge, or the end of the ridge when going down. All that remained was the climb around the lower knoll, crossing a narrow ledge that led to the last scramble down to the main trail. This last section was uneventful compared to what was behind us. The ledge crossing was my biggest concern, as Sue had struggled there on the way up. Sue crossed it quickly and more easily than on the way up. Bill showed her the handholds and the big step to a good foothold. We made our way over a hump and onto the last scramble. We crab walked down the 50 foot section and got onto the trail. Sue was frozen, tired, and her pants were completely soaked through. However, it looked like the ice dread locks were beginning to melt off.

As we made our way down the slick rocky trail, the sun came out briefly and the snow eased up. We looked back up at the mountain occasionally, and at one point we could see people crossing the snow traverse just below the band of clouds. The chute below the snow crossing was very steep for about a hundred yards, and then it dropped off almost vertically. It would be a very dangerous place for a slip. We watched 15 to 20 people cross over on their way down the mountain. Mark caught up to us on these talus slopes and told us Brodi was out of the rock climbs and was on the main trail not too far behind us, but her knee was bothering her some.
We had at least an hour of remaining steepness, so Sue headed out ahead of us. After a picture or two, Mark ran my trekking poles up to Brodi. I caught up to Sue, who was beginning to dry out and warm up. It wasn’t snowing at this elevation and we could see down to the campground and out into the valley. Soon, Bill and Mark came running by. They were running down the trail to get this downhill over with. It turned into a bit of a race and Mark lost control and ricocheted off a tree and went down in the dirt. Sue and I made it down to camp at about 3:30. Mark and Bill had been down for some time. It had taken us 10 hours to make the round trip. We didn’t hear of any accidents or injuries from any of the rest of the climbers, so we assumed that everyone got off the mountain safely.
As far as the snowstorm goes, we know that the weather in Idaho is predictably unpredictable. But it was August 8th and we hadn’t given much thought to snow. Our group, and several others, was past Chicken Out Ridge prior to any snow falling. The groups that started an hour later than us reached the difficult climbs after the snow began to fall. These people stopped, or turned back rather than climb through the rocks and side hills in the snow. We passed several groups of people on our walk down that had not climbed Chicken Out Ridge due to the snow. They had stayed up high on the mountain to enjoy the view and wait on a weather change.
A couple of times during this adventure I asked myself, “Did we put in at the take out?” “Were we ill prepared and unsure of what we were doing?” I decided the answer to that was clearly, No. We had the proper equipment, food, and clothing, for the most part. (The exception being, I forgot my gloves, thanks Mark). I had done some research about the mountain, and the trail up it. I spoke to some people who had ‘been there done that’ as well as some who had ‘been there and hadn’t done that’. But the biggest thing we did right was take experienced hikers/climbers with us. If we had put in at the take out and had been headed for dangerous rapids, they would have pulled us aside and told us so. And I would have listened.