Earlier this year, John Platt had thrown out the idea of a multi-peak traverse in the Salmon River Mountains. He sent the route and said we could get 6 or 7 peaks. I noticed he had underestimated the peak total... there were 11 peaks on the ridge that he suggested! I was excited. After weeks of back and forth, we finally set a date.

As the date approached, John dealt with who is camping where, when we were meeting, what the road conditions are, weather, snow levels, etc. For once, I was relieved that was someone else's problem ;-)

Carrie and I departed Boise late Friday afternoon headed for camp at Ponderosa Campground along the Secesh River. To our surprise, we got the last "improved" site at the campground. About 2 hours later, John and Dave arrived. After a short visit, they decided to stay at a nearby horse camp.

We met John and Dave at 6am, then Tom joined us at the Parks Peak trailhead. Here we did a vehicle shuffle and 5 of us and John's dog Ruby piled into John's truck for the drive to Profile Gap.

We were on our feet at exactly 7:30am, which was John's plan the whole time.

Our biggest gain of the day was the 1400 feet to the top of Crater Peak. Turned out this was also the most snow we'd be on as well. After an hour and 15 minutes, we were on top of the peak with views of the ridge we'd be walking.

I can't say I really knew what peak was what after we got going. We had good humored joking, lots of stories, and views galore to occupy our time. The weather looked iffy at times, but turned out perfect for someone that runs warm like me... cool and breezy.

Around the 7th peak of the day (Peak 8569), my water ran out. With 600 feet of gain to go and a long hike out, this worried me. However, as we traversed the base of Parks Peak, I found a spring shooting out of the rocks. Problem solved!

We finished off Parks Peak, our 8th summit. After we caught our breath, decisions had to be made. We decided Dave would continue on to peaks 9-11 and the rest of us would descend. After picking up the shuttle vehicle, John would pickup Dave at the trailhead.

I would love to say the descent was pleasant, but it was rough dropping 4200 feet (7000+ descent for the entire day).

Both Carrie and myself were sore and exhausted once we reached the truck. However, we'd just pushed ourselves hard physically, climbed 8 peaks, saw some incredible terrain and got to hangout with great friends! What a day!!!

The Parks Peak trailhead is located about 2 miles west of Yellow Pine along the East Fork South Fork Salmon River (yes, that is not a typo). Profile Gap is accessed via Big Creek Road (just east of Yellow Pine).

The road to Yellow Pine is car accessible. The road to Profile Gap will likely require high clearance and good tires, as it gets rocky in a few spots.

Basically, we followed the ridge from Profile Gap all the way to Parks Peak. We then descended the Parks Peak trail. This required a vehicle shuttle.