Last year, 8 of us that post on the RockyMountainSummits.com message board got together for a climb of Bell Mountain in eastern Idaho. Since that went so well, I had many requests to set that up again this year. Several months ago, White Cap Peak was chosen as the peak to visit and the date was set for April 30th. As the 30th approached, it was obvious that this year's outing would not be the same, as winter continued to dump fresh snow on the Lost Rivers. The week before the outing, avalanche and general snow travel concerns were voiced on the message board. Several people chose the "let's get up there and see" approach and joined me.
Day 1 - Friday, April 28th
SummitDawg (Richard) and Eric - both of whom I have climbed with several times in the past - joined me on an attempt of Sunset Peak in the southern Lost Rivers. After a windy night with snow flurries, I awoke to sunny weather. Both Richard and Eric arrived promptly at 7AM and we departed. After an hour of hiking, we figured out we had made a mistake and were on a ridge that would not get us safely to Sunset. Being early, we decided to drop off the ridge and head over to a ridge that would work. During our descent, we saw obvious signs of avalanche danger that changed our tone for the day. We changed our minds and decided to descend a lot further down on a windblown ridge away from the trees. This put us below Mud Lake. We then followed the atv track to a saddle at 8343', above Wet Creek Basin and just southeast of Peak 9276. On our way to the saddle, we heard one small avalanche release somewhere on the bigger Lost River peaks, followed by a tremendous boom. At the saddle, we could see that we were too far away for an attempt on Sunset, and that several points on the ridge might be avalanche prone with the large amounts of snow. For a consolation prize, we decide to scramble up Peak 9276, which was only 900 feet above us and pretty neat looking. On top, we took in views of the southern Lost Rivers, Bell Mountain, Diamond Peak, and the backsides of Invisible Mountain and Mount McCaleb. After a summit nap, we headed down. On the way out, we visited Mud Lake, which is very, well... muddy. We then headed to Mackay for a quick bite and were off to Sawmill Gulch for the White Cap ascent the following day.
On the way to White Cap, we all noticed a couple of things. 1) White Cap was the least snow covered of any Lost River peak, and 2) the southwest slopes were going to allow us to get up to 11,000 feet without any avalanche danger. Mike F. (Mike 2) arrived and joined the 3 of us, followed by Mike H. (Mike 1), who also pointed out the planned route should be changed. Mike 1 also suggested we stay away from Leatherman Pass (the original plan) and climb up the southwest side. He also suggested an earlier start. So we headed to bed after some excelent stories and a spectacular sunset with a 6AM start planned and a note written for the other people expected to show up in the morning and expecting a 7am start.
Day 2 - Saturday, April 30th
I awoke around 5:10am and Brendon had arrived, followed closely by Jerry. The Mike's had already taken off and the rest of us piled in Eric and Brendon's vehicles and drove to around 8000'. We climbed steep, snow-free slopes up to the base of the peak. Here we crossed paths with Mike 1, who continued on to survey the route and get some pictures of us coming out of trees. I waited until Mike 2 arrived and after chatting with him and telling him our plans, set off with Brendon. I eventually caught up to the others at the base of a gully and they were putting on their crampons. Mike 1 had found a neat little couloir to scramble up. The couloir was about 700 or 800' high, around a 40° angle, and a blast. When we came out of it, the rest of the route to the peak was in sight and was doable!
Another neat thing I saw at this point, was that Earl, Larry, Nick, and Sean were not only in sight, but higher than I was, on a different route. We met them at the saddle at the base of the south ridge (final push to the summit). At this point, Eric and Jerry were nearly on top. After a fun final push, we all filed in over the next 15 minutes, until we had 10 people on top for the summit photo. Snow flurries were intermittent, but the clouds would give way from time to time for excellent views of the valley, and especially, Leatherman, Bad Rock, and Mount Church.
On the way down, we found a wider and lower angle gully to descend. Mike 1 gave a demo on self arrest and glissading. About 1/2 down the gully, most glissaded down. After that fun, we were at Sawmill Pass and fought a bit of post-holing, before arriving on dirt and eventually, our vehicles. It had been a tremendous day!
Many thanks go out to everyone. Thanks to Mike H. for the snow school. Thanks to Eric and Brendon for driving us to the trailhead. Thanks to Earl, Larry, Nick, and Sean for not beating me up for leaving an hour early. Thanks to Eric and Jerry for the finding the final route. Thanks to Richard for putting up with me for 2 days and for having such a motivating attitude in the mountains. Thanks to Mike F. for showing up and allowing us to put a face to the name. Jeesh, sounds like I won an Oscar or something... Can't wait to do this again!
