2018 End-of-Summer Road Trip Planning

2018 End-of-Summer Road Trip Planning

  1:26 PM    Ted Glick

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Last year, I thought it might be kinda cool to take a couple of weeks off to travel solo around to some of the western states and hike up some mountains that I normally wouldn't have the opportunity to climb.  I made a plan to visit Idaho, Utah, Colorado, and Nevada, and hike the highest peak in each state.  They're all non-technical walk-ups or scrambles, but they're also all challenging in their own way.

I planned my trip for early September for several reasons.  Kids would be back in school, vacation season would be over and summer traffic and crowds wouldn't be much of an issue.  Hopefully the summer wildfires would be dead or dying, and theoretically the weather would be cooler with fewer chances of summit thunderstorms, but still be good enough to get out there.  And after a full summer of hiking and climbing, I hoped I would be in good enough shape to be successful with these strenuous climbs.

Sadly, a family tragedy struck in mid-August, and I was needed on the east coast for a time.  I had deal with a very difficult time for my family, and unavoidably to postpone my trip.

For 2018 I've revised the plan a little bit.  I took Colorado out of the mix, mostly so I wouldn't be so rushed to get everywhere.  Now the plan is:

• Borah Peak in Idaho's Lost River Range. 
  Borah is Idaho's highest peak at 12,667 feet.
• Kings Peak in Utah's Uintah Range (via Henry's Fork on the north side). 
  Kings is Utah's highest peak at 13,534 feet.
• Wheeler Peak in Nevada's Snake Range. 
  Wheeler is Nevada's second highest peak at 13,065 feet.
• Boundary Peak in Nevada's White Mountains. 
  Boundary is Nevada's highest peak at 13,146 feet.

And the clockwise, 4,000-mile circuit looks like this (with a visit to Wyoming's Devil's Tower, and a day in Whittier, California to visit Mom):

Half the fun of a road trip is poring over Google maps, topo maps, satellite imagery, mountaineering trip reports, photos and youtube videos, figuring out what you want to do and how to make it all work with your available time and budget.  I love the planning and anticipation!

Wheeler Peak is my bonus peak for the trip.  If I'm too tired or my feet are too beat up to actually squeeze in all four of these peaks in such a short time, I will skip Wheeler and adjust the timing accordingly on the other climbs to have more downtime and recovery time.  But if I feel good, I will attempt all four.  If successful, this will be about 19,000 feet of climbing in 12 days!  Usually 19,000 feet is a pretty good month for me (I'm averaging about 15,000 feet a month so far this year, and August is shaping up to be a personal best 20,000-feet month).

I'm only really concerned about the gamble on early autumn weather.  Borah and Kings Peak could both be getting snow by the time I get to them in the second week of September.  If that happens with any significant accumulation, I may need to reroute and look for other peaks further south.  We'll see how that goes.

But this is the plan.  I am very excited about the trip and greatly looking forward to it.