I
have lived in Idaho pretty much all of my life with the exceptions of trips
away—a couple of extended trips to North Carolina and England. And just like I
love being able to say I’ve been in every state in the union, I like to say I’ve
been pretty much everywhere in Idaho.
But, of course, there is a lot of wilderness and roadless area that I haven’t
been to, though I have attempted to at least take a look at every spot. As much
as I have been to Lewiston, Idaho’s lowest point, I had never crested the
summit of Idaho’s highest peak, Mt. Borah, until I had turned 50.
Mt.
Borah, all 12,665 feet of it, is in the Lemhi Mountain range, a desert range in
east central Idaho with several peaks rising above 10,000 feet and a few over
12,000. It is the place of Idaho’s single glacier, though that may no longer be
true even as I write this. My good friend, Doug Richards and his son Devin (who
used to always want to be a mountain climber, but our Borah trip cured him of
that) decided they would climb the mountain with me. This was seven years ago and
just a little over a year after my heart bypass surgery. That little warning
that I was limited in time told me I needed to do the climb. So we did it.
I
can’t really tell you how long of a climb it is, but like most Idaho mountains
you just climb pretty much straight up the slope. At the base you are already
around 7,000 feet so the climb can be difficult if you haven’t been acclimated
to the higher elevation and we were all accustomed to 3,000 feet as an average.
As a runner I can’t say I noticed much until we got to the point known as
Chicken Out Ridge. This was the point that tested my fortitude because it is a
more complicated bit of actual rock climbing where you had to keep three-point
contact. A fall would definitely be fatal because the drop is probably close to
300+ feet. I’m terrified of heights. I took it one step at a time, never
looking down, only forward. The bad part for me was completing it, looking down
and realizing I would have to do it again to get down.
Near
the top after a snow bridge and the glacier, elevation started taking its toll
on Devin and Doug who got headaches. They were ready to call it quits when I
just took a couple climbs and realized I was at the top. Of course they
finished and it was a gratifying moment filled with excitement. It’s a climb I’ll
always cherish and I have to say I love Mount Borah.
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