Sawtooth Mountains

Fishing at Lake 8522, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Photo Gallery: Father-Son and Father-Daughter Adventures

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By Michael Lanza

The annual tradition began when my son, Nate, was five years old, and we hiked about a mile up a trail in the Boise Foothills, starting at a trailhead a 10-minute drive from our house, and camped beside a creek small enough to step over. It was the most mellow trip we’d take, and the closest to home, on the annual father-son outdoor adventure that we’ve come to call our “boy trip.” My daughter, Alex, two years younger, adapted that name and gave me a pass for my inferior gender when we began taking an annual “girl trip” together. Now it has grown into something bigger than any one, individual outing.

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Skiing below Mount Heyburn, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Photo Gallery: Backcountry Skiing Idaho’s Sawtooths

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By Michael Lanza

At a pass just below 9,400 feet on the north side of 10,229-foot Mt. Heyburn, in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, the wind that had been steadily turning the dial upward reached full volume. Another snow squall burst upon us, spraying white bullets sideways and dropping a veil over the rocky, snow-spattered, serrated ridge just overhead. Six of us had labored 2,000 feet uphill on skis in search of a doorway into a secluded mountain paradise of sorts, a high basin known in some circles as the Monolith Valley, though not marked as such on any map. A slender gash between Heyburn and another 10,000-footer, Braxon Peak, the Monolith exists in the topographical shadows, easily overlooked. Most of our group have only seen tantalizing photos that revealed legions of rock spires towering above untracked snow.

As sometimes happens, we had found something in between what we had hoped for and what we expected.

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Horstman Peak, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Climbing Horstman Peak in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

Unless you’ve done a fair bit of peak scrambling in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, or have looked up at the seemingly infinite row of granite teeth rising above the Sawtooth Valley, or you are a local in one of the few, scattered little towns in the area, you’ve probably never heard of Horstman Peak. But for my friend Chip Roser and me, Horstman had developed into a mild obsession by the time we set out at first light one morning last September to make another attempt on its 10,470-foot summit, which had eluded us a year before.

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Monolith Valley, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Hiking to the Stunning Monolith Valley in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains

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By Michael Lanza

Our day’s primary goal—reaching the 10,470-foot summit of Horstman Peak, which had eluded us on a previous attempt—was already behind us when my friend Chip Roser and I descended south off Horstman to hike across a valley that lies just a few miles as the crow flies from the busiest spot in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, and yet probably sees no more than a handful of hikers a year. We’d gotten distant views of the Monolith Valley before, but those glimpses hardly did justice to the spectacle of this stunning paradise of water and granite.

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McGown Peak, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho.

Climbing McGown Peak in Idaho’s Sawtooths

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By Michael Lanza

Early on a sunny but freezing October morning, my friend Chip Roser and I set out from the trailhead at Stanley Lake, in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, hiking in the direction of the peak that forms the picturesque backdrop to the lake: 9,860-foot McGown Peak—not only one of the most-photographed peaks in the Sawtooths, but one of the most exciting, one-day hike-scrambles in the entire range.

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