Elephants Perch Conditions - Summer 2014

I have been going to the Sawtooth Mountains near Stanley, ID, since summer 2009. My wife and in-laws have vacationed there for close to a dozen years now, and we typically spend a week in the area annually. During my first visit, my wife (who was working in the area at the time) took me up to"Shangri-La," better known as Saddleback Lakes below Elephant's Perch. We made an ill-fated attempt at climbing the Central Gully of Super Slab on the approach to Saddleback [that trip is covered here].

It's steeper than it looks. Free-soloing to the first tree was ill-advised.

As a young climber, I was amazed by the towering golden face of Elephant's Perch above me. I hoped that one day I would be able to measure up. Five years later, my brother-in-law and I established plans to highjack one of the vacation days to attempt Mountaineer's Route. I watched mountain project like a hawk and contacted The Elephant's Perch shop in Ketchum for recent updates. Due to the nature of our trip (a family vacation), we were opting for a single day attempt. We would catch the earliest 7am boat shuttle across Redfish Lake, hike the 2-3 miles in, climb the route, and hopefully catch one of the last shuttles back. We figured that would give us adequate time for the nine pitches of the route. If not, we could suffer the slog back to the parking lot around the lake.

Obligatory shot. One cannot resist capturing the beauty of this place. MR is around to the left.

We would be there during the last week of June. Knowing that was pretty early in the alpine season, we expected some snow on the approach and summit, along with potential for higher water levels and potentially cold temps (40s + shade). In preparation, we borrowed two ice axes just in case.

What Conditions Did We Find?
The boat ride is wonderful and the hike is mellow until the traditional creek crossing. In the past, I had crossed on a natural log jam (shown below). This time, however, the heavy runoff had washed out the logs leaving no way to cross. I had read about a potential crossing farther down, so we walked a few more minutes around some bends until the woods opened up some and approached the creek for a look. At this point, the creek was deeper and slower moving. Someone had strung a hand line between trees above a partially submerged log (shown below).

So much for the crossing.

The new, slightly damper, and more adventurous crossing.

We ultimately decided to not risk falling in with packs. The low lying position of the log plus the wobbly hand line wigged us out, and we were thrown quite off guard by the situation. Later in the morning, I successfully and quite easily crossed the log without a pack, confirming my suspicion that we simply wimped out. In fact, we saw several backpackers coming out from the lakes via that crossing.

Scouting Mission
Our plans were foiled and we enjoyed a nice hike into the valley instead. The hike is probably my favorite of all the Sawtooth hikes I have done and reminded me of the Tetons. The trip was not a completely waste as we had fun and were able to take some photos of the route from a rarely captured angle. From the lakes, most of the route is not visible.

This Year
We are headed back this year and hope to make another attempt. Unfortunately, we will be there even earlier, but it seems like snowfall has been a little lower. Perhaps we'll luck out. At least I will feel confident using the hand line this time!

Route Photos Below:

Topo of the route from http://web.stanford.edu/~clint/eperch/mtneer.gif

The whole face, with the MR going up the left side of the diamond.

The top of the route. Click and zoom for more detail. There seem to multiple options next to the diamond: easier but looser in the gully (in the shadow) or harder, more direct cracks on the face.

Lower/Middle route below the diamond. The triple roofs appear to be in the big triangular shadow down low followed by going around the corner and then up to the base of the diamond. The first 3 pitches are not really visible due to their right-facing nature. 

Creek crossing with hand line and partially submerged log. The creek may be fordable just upstream but don't be fooled by the clear water. It is actually probably 5-6ft deep.

Informative trip reports:

https://www.kuhl.com/borninthemountains/portfolio/trip-report-elephants-perch-mountaineers-route/

http://chossclimbers.com/testing/us/idaho/sawtooths/mountaineers-route-on-the-perch/