thompson peak |
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| intro
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this is a
weekend trip i took the first weekend of october, 1997. after doing a little
research on climbs in the sawtooths, i settled on thompson peak--the highest peak in the
sawtooth range at 10,751'. although it's the highest sawtooth, it is by no means
the toughest to climb. it is a class III climb which signifies it is climbable
without technical climbing skills (i.e. using ropes and a belayer), but is the
highest class before those skills are needed. basically, this meant a lot of
scrambling over boulders and a fair amount of handholds. so i thought it fitting for
a first summit attempt. i started out, as usual, returning from work on friday afternoon, going over my packlist and systematically stuffing my gear into my pack as i checked it off the list. then, after rechecking the list, i threw my pack into my van and i was off... a 2 hour drive took me up through the payette river valley through idaho city, lowman and around the northern edge of the sawtooth range into stanley. another 5 miles from stanley put me at the redfish lake trailhead (6,558') where i parked for the night and camped in the back seat of the van. i woke up at 7am to a frozen water bottle, but i had stayed quite toastily-warm in my bag. a little reorganizing of the gear and i started up the trail..... |