Find Nearby Peaks

This peak is not in the book. Published May 2020

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Dog Mountain is located southeast of Trinity Mountain at the south end of the Trinity Mountains crest. I had a clear visual of Dog Mountain from Granite Mountain the previous weekend and determined that it was a prominent summit that would have great views. Additionally, it was mostly snow-free in early May! USGS Featherville

Access

Access starts in Pine, Idaho. Google Maps provides good directions to Pine. Take FS-128/Lester Creek Road south from Pine. This road runs south along the reservoir and eventually turns west, climbing up Sloan Canyon. FS-128 then turns north running past the Lester Creek Guard Station. Stay on FS-128 until you reach Camp Creek. The turnoff for the Camp Creek Trailhead is signed. Although some maps identify the spur road (FS-128BA) as a jeep road, I had no problems driving it slowly to the trailhead in a passenger car.

Southwest Ridge, Class 2+ (with Class 3 summit block)

FST-177 is in great condition and is half shaded, much to our delight on a hot day.  While the official trail map shows it going west of Camp Creek up to the 6,520-foot saddle, the trail has been rerouted to switchback up to the east. At the saddle, the trail descends about 100 feet and deteriorates briefly with quite a bit of downfall to pick through.  At about 3.75 miles from the trailhead, the trail starts to veer sharply west. Leave the trail at this point and bushwhack northeast up the peak’s southwest ridge to Point 7706 and finally northwest to the Dog Mountain summit.

As you reach the crest, the long summit ridge begins near a small shed with solar panels.  The ridge itself extends NW for a ways, with fairly large north-facing drifts and a few talus blocks to high point. The 7,762-foot summit is a rocky outcrop at the far Northwest end of the ridge.

On the way down, we found it a little easier to sidehill west around Point 7706 on a faint game trail and from there avoided the worst of the brush by making our way more south than southwest to return to the trail and follow the same route back to the trailhead. Round-trip stats: a little less than 10 miles with 3,000 feet of elevation gain. A very enjoyable day!