I hiked the standard route up Borah Peak during late July 2024. Smoke emanating from Butte County California filled the sky throughout my brief visit to Idaho, so views of the surrounding Lost River Range were not to be had. Otherwise, I arrived at the Borah trailhead an hour or two before sunrise, taking note of the 1983 earthquake scarp during my drive in the dark. Sadly my trekking poles were confiscated by TSA at the Indianapolis Airport, so it was a truly unrelenting uphill slog during the first half of the hike. A rounded ridge was thankfully encountered after a couple of hours, and that led to the infamous Chicken Out Ridge, which was fairly mild...I only encountered one brief sketchy move, with most of the sketch avoided via thoughtful route finding. I also bypassed the roped downclimb onto the melted snowbridge section, then made my way to the final uphill ascent that led to the summit. It took me about five hours to reach the top, and then three from the summit back to the trailhead (assisted by downhill jogging).
Google map location of Borah Peak is here.
