When we were in Idaho last summer we decided to attempt Mount Heyburn. It's a peak that Charly and I have been eyeing for years, and after doing the Grand we finally felt ready to attempt it. It's actually much easier than the Grand, but requires a wider skill set- the route is hard to find at times, in fact so hard that it's the reason we didn't summit. We were about 20 feet from the top, realizing we had chosen the wrong route to climb, and knowing that there wasn't the time to reset and try again when we decided to head back down. Thunderstorms were in in the forecast later that day and we wanted to be out of there before then.
Redfish Lake up above. We hiked with Richard, with the plan of him fishing the second day while we made the summit.
The lake at where we camped. We didn't know it, but if we had kept going we would have found a cool place to camp that was right by a gushing waterfall. The night we camped, though, there were so many annoying mosquitos. That night, it didn't matter if you had bug spray on and they didn't bite you, the mere buzzing and constant landing on our faces kept us awake. Somehow, we actually managed to get decent sleep with it all.
The next morning we hiked around the last two Bench lakes, across this snow, and up the side of the mountain that was filled with scree and more sections of snow. It really pushed me out of my comfort zone at times, and that section of scree was arduous and easily the worst part. Well, making the decision to come off the mountain before summiting was slightly more defeating, but only because it meant facing the scree again.
We made it to the first saddle and the view was gorgeous! The rest of the way we put our cameras down for the most part and used the go pro more, but here are a few pictures of us heading down from the point above.
Making our way down and finally getting off the last of the snow, which had started melting and falling into the lake near the bottom. Kind of sad that we didn't take any picture closer to the top, but it was more technical hiking and we honestly though we'd summit so we didn't stop to think about it. I've contemplated adding videos to this blog but I think it would just be overwhelming- I can already barely convince my stuff to get this stuff down in the first place, so let's not add more work to it. (I mean, I use to edit all the photos before posting, but now I just throw them up here, for the most part.)
It was a long trudge back to the car. It felt longer then the Grand, in my opinion. We were so ready to be home at this point. Finally we made it back, and barely mustered up the strength to drive over and take our yearly photo by redfish lake. I'll have to find the one of us! Below are a couple of shots I took on my film camera. There were a few more that I liked, but blogger is being weird and posting them sideways, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix it.
All in all, it was a really good day. We didn't find the right route and summit, but the route I led on trad instead was much harder and felt like my first real trad climb since it wasn't just a walk in the park. That made it worth it all... and I wasn't saying this on the way down, but I am excited one day to go back and finish the climb. When we got back we did some digging on the internet and are pretty sure we figured out where we went wrong and what to do next time.
Also, here are some photos of us packing and Eliza pretending to be a little mountaineer:
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