Red Mountain
The Ridge Fire destroyed the entire forest in 2013
When most people come back from vacations that are centered around a specific activity, they've had enough and are ready to move on to something else. I'm just the opposite. So when we returned from our two week hiking trip in the Alps, I was fired up and ready to do more hiking at home.
The month preceding our trip had not been a good one for hiking. The smoke from forest fires had been bad through late July and August. It's become the new normal. Abby and I only did one hike during that stretch. It was early September when we returned from Slovenia and temperatures had cooled and fire season was winding down. Monday was the last hiking day on our Slovenia trip. Tuesday and Wednesday were travel days. Thursday was a do-laundry-and-put-things-away day. Friday Sandy had plans to go to Art in the Park with friends (it was her friend Laura's birthday). The weather forecast was good and the smoke from distant forest fires was light. Abby and I decided to head for the mountains. Only four days after hiking in the Alps, I was doing a hike in the Idaho mountains.
A pretty cascade along Clear Creek
The hike that I picked was the Red Mountain Trail in the Boise National Forest. It's in the Salmon River Mountains near the town of Lowman. The range is centered on, wait for it...the Salmon River. Usually I hike in the Sawtooths or Pioneers. These are the most alpine mountains in Idaho, with dramatic scenery featuring Glacial lakes and sharp, rocky peaks. The Salmon River Mountains are more rounded and forest covered, often all the way to their summits, but they are a remote and wild range. They contain the River of No Return Wilderness, at over 2.3 million acres it is the second largest designated Wilderness Area in the lower forty eight states. Only the Death Valley Wilderness is bigger. It's country for long distance backpacking, one of the few places in the continental US where you can be twenty miles from any road. While I have never backpacked in the River of No Return, I thought that it was time to at least get a sample of the area on a day hike.
Besides, the Red Mountain Trail goes all the way to the summit of Red Mountain and I felt like getting to the top of a mountain, even if it wasn't a spectacular peak. It's 8,740 feet high and provides views into the huge Wilderness area to the north and even to the Sawtooths far to the east. The distance was moderate, nine miles round trip, but with 2,560 feet of elevation gain it would be a good workout for Abby and me.
Abby waits patiently for her slow human
Although Red Mountain is ten or twelve miles from the River of No Return Wilderness, it's still quite remote. I started by driving to Lowman, which is on the standard route that I use to get to the Sawtooths. From there is was seventeen miles along various dirt roads. To be fair they were pretty good dirt roads but I still had to drive slowly and it took a long time to go that far. There were no other cars parked at the trailhead where the road finally ended and the trail started. Abby and I had the mountain all to ourselves.
Unfortunately just before reaching the end of the road we entered an area where the forest had been destroyed by fire. The hike we did was completely in the devastated area. Instead of the pretty wooded area which I was expecting, we started out hiking through a forest of blackened dead trees. The damage seemed recent and at first I thought the fire might have just occured the year before. I later learned that the Ridge Fire had been in 2013 when it burned five thousand acres. After five years the trees had not even started to return yet. Aside from looking desolate, the dead trees and even the ground were scorched and blackened which meant that through the hike Abby got covered in soot, gradually changing from a yellow lab to a black lab.
Flowers are part of the forest recovery
The one good thing was that with no forest canopy, there was a lot of green undergrowth including quite a few wildflowers still in bloom. By far the most common was fireweed which I guess was appropriate. That's probably how it got it's name. Most of it had gone to seed but there were still quite a few flowers in bloom, which was surprising considering it was the end of the first week of September. I also saw lupine, wild geraniums, a few Indian paintbrush, and lots of other flowers that I didn't recognize (Sandy wasn't with us and she's my expert on flora). It was the beginning of recovery, although I think it will still be another twenty five years before it will be a real forest again.
It was about quarter to nine when we hit the trail. It was only forty three degrees though so I started out wearing my jacket. The forecast for Lowman was for high eighties though so I didn't bring much warm clothing. With a lot of elevation to gain I wanted a light pack.
The hike started by following Clear Creek. Even if the dead forest was ugly the stream was pretty. It climbed gradually for a while, crossing some side streams. I was able to cross easily on stepping stones while each time Abby went right into the water. Since the trail was very dusty, each time she came out soaking wet she would end up covered in dirt a few minutes later. Then of course she would brush up against my leg so my pants got wet and muddy. I swear she was doing it on purpose and thought it was funny.
Abby enjoys the view from the summit of Red Mountain
Even though the forest had burned there was a lot of wildlife. I heard it as much as I saw it. Every so often Abby would dive into the brush and I would hear the chittering of a chipmonk or squirrel as she chased it.
At one point I heard a strange sound. I couldn't tell if it was very rapid tapping on a tree or just a dead tree creaking as it started the process of falling over. I watched carefully as I walked. I remembered that while we lived in Singapore someone walking in the park had been killed when a tree fell on them. I would hear the noise about once a minute, for only a second or two. I listened carefully as I walked and finally decided I was standing next to the tree where the sound originated. Sure enough, when I heard it again it was coming from somewhere high up in the tree. Then a minute later a bird flew out of the tree and after that I didn't hear it again. I think it was a woodpecker although I'm not sure. I have to admit that anything I know about woodpeckers I learned from watching Woody the Woodpecker cartoons when I was a little kid.
Dirty dogs have more fun
As we got high up on the mountain I heard a shrill whistling call and looked up to see a big hawk gliding overhead. I watched it for a while. I have to admit that I was envious at how it was soaring effortlessly on the light breeze. A little later as I walked Abby was about fifty feet ahead of me on the trail. Suddenly the hawk zoomed by me only a few feet over my head going straight toward Abby. It was barely five from her when it suddenly swerved and climbed away. I think it was considering making off with Abby and didn't realize till the last second that she was five times bigger than the hawk was. Abby didn't seem too worried. She looked at the hawk as it went by with a "just go ahead and try something" expression on her face.
The higher we got the steeper the trail got and the slower I climbed. But slow and steady gets the job done going uphill and eventually I reached the former site of a lookout tower, now just a flat concrete platform with no structure remaining. It took me two hours and forty five minutes from the trailhead.
Abby after her mud bath
The top of Red Mountain was a long north-south ridge, with the lookout site at the far southern end. On the topo map it's identified as 8722 feet but it was clearly not the the highest point on the ridge. There was a high point about fifty feet further along the ridge that was probably ten feet higher and I climbed up to it to "bag the summit". The ridge extended for another half mile or so and I didn't have the ambition to hike the whole ridge to make sure that I got the highest point. I guess I'm getting old. Even afterwards I wasn't able to figure out where the true summit was. It's not marked on the USGS fifteen minute map. Idaho, A Climbing Guide by Tom Lopez lists the elevation of Red Mountain as 8,733. I've always found Lopez to be very reliable but I can't find where he got that number. When I enter "Red Mountain Idaho height" into Google it comes back with 8,740 feet, but I can't figure out where that number comes from either.
At least she rinsed most of the mud off in the creek
It didn't matter. There was a reason that there used to a lookout at the south end of the ridge. The view was expansive. To the south I could see the Clear Creek drainage that I had hiked and driven up today. To the east I could see the Sawtooths in the distance. There was a little smoke from a forest fire that looked like it was near Granjean. To the northeast though was the best view. Red Mountain overlooked a basin with a chain of five high alpine lakes. There are no trails into the basin but it's an easy cross country hike to reach the lakes.
At the lookout site there was a tin can which contained a summit register. I was surprised to see that there were only two recent entries, one in June from the Boise National Forest trail crew, and one from two people and their dog in August. Considering the good trail I would have expected a lot more people to have reached the top. The summit register was pretty obvious so I wouldn't think there had been many people who missed it. That's one of the great things about hiking in Idaho. Even on a day hike starting from house in Boise I can reach a summit that only two other parties climbed all summer.
Abby finds a giant bone beside the trail
As we headed down we passed a boggy areas where there was a small pond. There wasn't much water on the upper part of the mountain so on the top I had shared my water with Abby so she wasn't thirsty. She must must have been hot though because she was in the water immediatly.
Calling it water was generous. It was really just mud - sloppy, wet, gooey mud and she was in it up to her chin. They say that dirty dogs have more fun. If that's true, then Abby was really having a blast.
When she came out she was completely covered in mud. Earlier she had been covered in soot and looked like a black lab. Now she looked like a chocolate lab. She hit the Lab Trifecta on one hike.
At one point I noticed something white beside the trail. Abby seemed very interested. She was giving it a really good sniff. When I looked closely I saw that it was a large bone. Maybe we should have taken that hawk a lot more seriously.
Red Mountain Lakes from the summit
We took our time the rest of the way back. It had warmed up and it was very pleasant coming down. When we started it was 43 degrees. When we reached the car at 2 pm it was 82 degrees. A forty degree change in five hours. Impressive.
Amazingly, Abby wasn't that dirty. She had been in the creek which washed off some of the mud but mainly her fur seems to be like teflon - nothing sticks to it. That was good! This was the first trip to the mountains with my new car. The outside was dirty enough from the long drive on the dirt road. I didn't want the inside trashed too.
Abby jumped into the backseat and slept most of the way home. It had been a good day of hiking.
