RPC's Sawtooth Climbs

Overview

Continuing with my efforts to organize our SP submissions...This will be the presonal logistical center page for our climbs in the beautiful Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho.

Shirley & I have been climbing here since 2003 when we did Warbonnet over the Labor Day weekend. It's a solid grade III+ driving push from Portland (~10+ hrs to Redfish Lake). We've had a few more successful outings since then as well as a few failures. Every time we did manage to climb here we were never disappointed! A true alpine gem in the heart of Idaho.

Warbonnet - South Face (5.7)

Photo Album. We did this early enough in our climbing career so that we enjoyed the route. Looking back on it, I think the best parts were (1) the handcrack high up and (2) of course the unforgettable summit ridge! Think we might have screwed up the lower raps a bit as we needed to fight our way up a very loose gully.
Beta Pages:
Warbonnet Peak
South Face

Elephants Perch - Mountaineers Route (5.9)

Photo Album. A very fun route! Don't let the name kill the desire for you, as there's much fun climbing on it. I recall we had to do much hiking & scrambling at the top to circumnavigate large snowfields.
Beta Pages:
Elephants Perch
Mountaineers Route

Elephants Perch - Sunrise Book (5.10 C1)

Photo Album. Few years earlier, as we were hiking out from our Warbonnet adventure, we ran into a father & son team who just came off of this one and were raving about it. Though on that outing we went in planning on Astro Elephant, we ended up climbing this amazing little gem. Think you'll remember the chimney on the final pitch of this thing for a long time (& not in a bad way either)...
Beta Pages:
Elephants Perch
Sunrise Book

Elephants Perch - Astro Elephant (5.10-)

Trip Report. Stout lower 2 or 3 pitches (which apparently can be bypassed). We swapped leads with Shirley & I fell off on the crux pitch (on TR! ...photo on left). An interesting face traverse pitch up high and just a great mixed bag of stuff all around. I screwed up route finding near the top (yes, I know an unlikely place for a f..k up but oh well - I'm retard) and we had to do some C1 & penji shenanigans to regain the route. A GREAT day though.
Beta Pages:
Elephants Perch
Astro Elephant

Baron Spire - Southeast Face (5.9 A0)

Trip Report. A somewhat remote and definitely a beautiful formation! The horror stories of the ancient bolt ladder followed by some bold climbing above had my attention...not bad at all but go find out for yourself :)
Beta Page:
Baron Spire

Super Slab - Bacon And Legs (5.9)

A nice small slab climbing crag about 30-45 minutes hiking time from the farside Redfish Lake marina. So far we did one route there as a consolation prize (if I recall) after being stormed off elsewhere. Fun stuff, a touch run out in places of course but this one wasn't too bad.
Beta Page:
Super Slab

Idaho The Beautiful!

Images

View RPC's Sawtooth Climbs Image Gallery - 12 Images