After finishing my fourth summit of Borah Peak last year, I decided to take a look-see at the trailhead for Leatherman Peak for a possible attempt this year. It’s the 2nd tallest peak in Idaho so, why not? I also wanted to try something new as we trekked out for the Armstrong Family Reunion in Mackay again.
Notice the clear blue skies from last years pictures compared to this year’s smoky haze from wildfires.
I started from Sawmill Gulch, since that was the shortest drive from Mackay.
This route from the west appears to be much less popular in comparison to Borah. It begins on a rough road that is best traveled with higher clearance vehicles. I crawled along between 6 and 8 mph.
At 1.3 miles up this road, you pass through a fence opening. This pic was taken looking back at where I just came from.
A quarter mile beyond the fence is the last “easy” place to park if your vehicle has reached its limit. The parking area here, with only room for 3-4 cars, is right before the road narrows at an outcropping.
Driving a Toyota Tacoma, I pressed on. The road definitely turned worse before it got better. I finally called it good right before this loose rock area, 2.5 miles in. My concern grew about finding a place wide enough to turn around as the road narrowed, so I parked in what looked to be a primitive camp spot.
Once I started hiking, I could see my truck could have made it up another quarter mile… which is as far as you should go. Looking back at this highest place you could park, there is plenty of room to turn a vehicle around. Pushing beyond this point would take a serious offroad driver to navigate.
Then again, only a quarter mile above this upper parking area is a fallen tree that blocks the road. So driving further up really doesn’t do you any good anyway. Plus, you missed the trail if you see this tree.
My biggest mistake was to follow the road to the end, thinking it was part of the “trail” to Leatherman Pass. Turns out that was an incorrect assumption. Luckily, it wasn’t more than a mile before I realized this can’t be right. I backtracked and looked for something that followed the gulch in the direction of the pass. When I couldn’t see anything obvious, I just did the goat worthy thing straight up this gully.
There was an Unnamed 11k peak to my left that felt more realistic and tempted me to go there instead.
But I resisted and just kept climbing this boulder field in the general direction of Leatherman Peak.
When I reached 10,000′, I could see that I had a long way to go, still off-track and running out of time.
This is where I decided it just wasn’t worth it and turned around. I started too late, lost the trail, underestimated the time it would take and hiking alone in a less popular area. I did locate the actual trail coming down, but didn’t see it on my digital maps.
What is disappointing was using Backcountry Navigator with CalTopo maps…
…not quite showing the same level of detail as CalTopo.com.
Oh well. Guess it’ll have to wait for another year.
