Scotchman Peak, ID 05-16-2020

After months of staying at home, one activity remained on my calendar that I hadn't canceled.  I had planned on hiking Scotchman Peak in Idaho with my son and his girlfriend.  Having been isolated except for weekly masked grocery store visits, I felt I could make this trip still with no/minimal risk to myself or others so off I went.

We left the Spokane area Saturday morning and got to the dirt roads leading to the Scotchman Peak trailhead where we had our first big win for the day - a moose!  A lone cow moose suddenly appeared in the road ahead of us, maybe 50 ft away.  When we moved she moved ahead on the road, but when we stopped she just started munching brush.  We didn't want to seem like we were chasing her, so after easing forward a few times she finally moved off through the bushes, vanishing as fast as she had appeared.  For such huge animals, they sure are quiet and graceful.

We felt we had taken a wrong road at one point, despite having both All Trails and Idaho Trails Association directions.  We stopped the car at a heavily rutted area that we didn't have the clearance for, and checked it out on foot.  It was definitely the wrong way, but while there, we met 3 other vehicles of people that also had gone that wrong way.  The biggest issue I think with finding the trailhead is that the roads are not marked, or not well-marked, so you're guessing.  Once reaching the trailhead, there is a large stream bed to go through, so if you don't have high clearance or are nervous, definitely be prepared to park on the near side and use a handy log to cross to the trailhead on foot.

I had never hiked this trail before, but was told it was steep.  After weeks of no conditioning but my indoor treadmill and walks around my yard, I was really feeling it in no time!  At first the trail was snow-free and there were glorious flowers all over - woodland star, Indian paintbrush, glacier lilies, blue-eyed Mary, calypso orchids and more.

After about 1 3/4 miles we started getting into patches of snow, and as we climbed further up, the snow got deeper and completely covered the trail.  It was fairly mushy, which was great most of the time because you could easily kick in footholds for the steepest bits, but also the occasional unexpected posthole would happen - usually around stumps and logs.  It was HARD work, but actually really fun.

The views were stunning, and though we didn't make it all the way to the peak, we had a great workout, wonderful company, and perfect weather.  I would like to go back and try this one again when I'm back in trail shape and there is less snow.
Apple Watch Stats:  6.45 mi RT, 2871 ft of elevation gain

The way down was much quicker as we glissaded where possible.  Cold on the backside, but super fun!

Thank you to Bradley and Jessica for some of these photos!