Screw the Idaho Potato, Give Me Mountains!

It's kind of funny... no matter where I go in the world, people relate Idaho to the "Idaho Potato". Even while traveling throughout Asia in 2019, whenever I mentioned that I was visiting from Idaho they almost always came back with something about the "Idaho potato". Most people are actually surprised to find out that the majority of Idaho is covered with mountains! Whoever was in charge of marketing the "Idaho potato" must have done something right.

The Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho holds a special place in my heart. I truly cherish the time that I have spent there. The views are amazing, there's tons of wildlife around, the trails aren't typically overpopulated, and you're never far from a crystal clear alpine lake or mountain stream. 

Another big benefit that the Sawtooth's have is the way all of their trails seem to strategically connect at just the right place. It makes it easy to carve out a loop or through-hike so that you don't have to double-back over the same trail twice.

The video above will give you some idea of what the area has to offer. But in reality, it doesn't do it justice compared to taking it all in for yourself. If you notice that some of the views in the video are kind of hazy, that's from smoke which blew in from a forest fire not too far away from there.

If the trails and beauty isn't enough, there's also some truly awesome rock climbing routes to be had as well at Elephant's Perch, which is shown around the 32 second mark in the video above. Below is a breakdown of the climbing routes at Elephant's Perch. They are mostly trad climbing, where you place your own protection as you climb using nuts and cams, as opposed to sport climbing where you clip off to bolts which are anchored in the rock.

Route	Type	Grade
Astro Elephant	Trad	5.10
Boomers Story	Trad	5.13-
Chasing the Dragon	Trad	5.11+ A0
Direct Beckey	Trad	5.11b
Divine Guidance	Trad	5.11a R
E.P. Arete	Trad	5.11 A0
Fine Line, The	Trad	5.11+
Fish Ladder	Trad/Top Rope	5.12a
Mojo	Trad	5.12b/c PG13
Mountaineer's Route	Trad	5.9
Myopia	Trad	5.11-
Original Beckey	Trad	5.11+
Sideline	Trad	5.9+
Slipstream (first pitch)	Trad	5.10a
Splittgerber-March Direct	Trad	5.10b
Sunrise Book	Trad	5.12-
Thorn Bush, The	Trad	5.12d
Trunkline	Trad	5.10+
Wendy	Trad	5.10+