Mount McCaleb dominates the view eastward from Mackay, Idaho. J.D Martin made the first known ascent of the peak in 1884. The clipping below documents the first ascent by women. Unfortunately, their first name are unknown. … Continue reading
Category Archives: First Ascents
In this article Harry Curtis claims that in 1892 he climbed a peak at the head of Wood and Big Lost rivers that was a thousand feet higher than Hyndman Peak. Interesting he did so with E.T. Perkins of the USGS. While the story seems based on a confused recollection it does demonstrate how little was known about Idaho’s mountains … Continue reading
Thomas M. Bannon was also a self-taught mountaineer. Although his name is not widely known in mountaineering circles, during his surveying career from 1889 to 1917 he climbed nearly one thousand summits in the American West. More than two hundred of these summits were in Idaho. Bannon’s cryptic reports, supplemented by the rock Cairns, Wooden triangulation signals, chiseled cross-reference marks; … Continue reading
“Rugged country. Awful rugged country. Miles and miles of sharp jagged pinnacles of firm granite.” A painter-friend of Bob Underhill told him that about Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains in the early 1930s, when Bob was in the Tetons for a few weeks pioneering big new routes on the Grand Teton and other nearby peaks. Although the painter isn’t named, it almost … Continue reading
When Robert and Miriam Underhill first gazed from the top of Galena Summit in Idaho’s Sawtooth Wilderness, before them stretched a wild mountain panorama never before seen by mountaineers. It was 1934 and in those days the road past the future site of Sun Valley to the summit was little more than a rutted sheep wagon track. Approaching the remote … Continue reading
Editors Note: Appalachia Vol. 20, 1934. This article put the Sawtooth Range in the national spotlight. Use this link to learn more about the author: Miriam Underhill There is a bit of page 188 text missing at this point. I will add it as soon as possible. … Continue reading