Unquestionably the leading American female alpinist of her time, Miriam O-Brien Underhill and her husband, Robert, brought modern mountaineering techniques to the Sawtooths in 1934 and 1935. In the process, the couple made many first ascents and wrote the first mountaineering articles on the range. You can read about her Idaho exploits on pages 17 and 18 of Idaho A … Continue reading
Kelly Lance, a 49-year-old endurance runner from Pocatello, climbed all of Idaho’s 12,000 foot peaks, known as the 12ers, in a 119 mile, 78-hour push starting on September 2, 2017. Unlike the others who have climbed the 12ers in a single push, Kelly did it without resorting to mechanized transportation, the first traverse of its kind and perhaps the most … Continue reading
I first saw the North Face of Mount Borah in the summer of 1972 while working under contract with the U.S. Forest Service. We were flying helicopters near Horse Heaven pass in the upper Pahsimeroi Valley, where our daily flights offered unrivaled views of the north and east sides of the Lost River Range. But one face in particular stood … Continue reading
Fatal mountaineering accidents are rare in Idaho, but they do occur. Rarer still are fatalities from summertime avalanches. Most people associate avalanches with wintertime, and winter is when most avalanches do occur. However, for climbers, it’s the summertime avalanche that can be an overlooked risk. Stanley, Idaho, resident Jared Spear died on Castle Peak in a rare summertime avalanche. His friends discovered that he … Continue reading
Andy Hennig was the author of the first Idaho backcountry ski guidebook, “Sun Valley Ski Guide,” which was published in 1948. Unfortunately, the guide is long out of print and hard, if not impossible, to find. (There is a preserved copy at the Ketchum library.) Henning moved to Sun Valley prior to WWII to work as a guide for the … Continue reading
Wayne Boyer was a compatriot of Lyman Dye and one of the founders of the EE DA HOW Mountaineers an eastern Idaho climbing club. Boyer, along with Dye and Art Barnes, climbed many difficult routes in eastern Idaho including his first ascent of the East Face of Mount Borah in 1962. … Continue reading