Member Trip report

Climbing Cerro Ciento

11/10/2018

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It's 5AM, and I am straining to keep my eyes wide open as I drive up Highway 75 north of Ketchum. This is a transitional time for the weather, when falling temperatures mean that elk and deer migrate from the mountains to lower elevations. I have to stay focused on the road, and the flicker of eyeshine from animals crossing in front of me.

 

I've been cutting down trees for firewood every weekend for a month, and this marks my return to climbing mountains after my October hiatus. It's silly, but I am nervous. It took me a long time to overcome my fear of heights, and I worry that a month of abstention will somehow erase all the years of progress.

 

My target is Cerro Ciento, a great misshapen monolith of fractured volcanic and metamorphic rocks in the Boulder Mountains. I've been on its summit before: three years ago on a sun-kissed July day. My favorite mountain wildflower, Jacob's ladder, was blooming in abundance. No chance of any flowers today.

 

I turn off the highway onto Spring Creek Road, a rugged spur route leading toward El Cerro. I carefully negotiate the big rocks and washouts in the road. As I get higher, it is crusted with ice from frozen meltwater – on one steep section, my truck starts to slide sickeningly back downhill. I engage the low range, and creep forward.

 

The road deadends a mile and a half from the highway. I tighten my bootlaces, don my mountaineering mitts, and slide out of the warm cab into the single-digit cold outside. It is still dark, and the stars are blazing gorgeously. I swing my pack onto my back, turn on my headlamp, and head through the Douglas-firs toward my destination.

 

My headlamp picks up a lot of sign in the thin dusting of snow that covers the forest floor: elk, moose, and wolves. Busy, busy, busy. I find a game trail ascending the valley, and follow it uphill. Animals are lazy, and always find the easiest route.

 

A silvery light grows in the east as I climb, and as I break into the open, talus-strewn valley leading to Cerro Ciento, there is enough light that I can go without my headlamp. The cold is creeping into my boots: I once developed severe frostbite on my toes. Too stubborn to see a doctor, I cut off the blackened, necrotic tissue myself. The injury left me more vulnerable to the cold than ever. I wiggle my toes at every step, trying to keep the blood flowing.

 

There is just enough snow and ice on the talus to make for difficult going. I stick to the solid ground among the dwarfed Engelmann spruces and subalpine firs, but these soon peter out. The first beams of morning sun gild the crest of the ridgeline on the west side of the valley, and I hear the nutcrackers squawking in the forest behind me. I wish the valley floor could be bathed in warm sunlight, but that won't be for many hours. I just have to climb into the light instead.

 

The valley steepens as I approach its head, the saddle between Cerro Ciento and the next mountain to the west. Last time I climbed up here, I thought the ascent to the saddle was so intimidating. Now I just breeze up it. I've seen a lot worse terrain since then.

 

Not to denigrate you, mighty Cerro, I think to myself. Only fools disrespect mountains.

 

I reach the saddle, and scan the mountains stretching to the north. I spend several minutes fiddling with and swearing at my GoPro – their lousy batteries never work in the cold – before managing to shoot some video.

 

From the saddle, the snows become deep enough that I can, by taking a winding path for the remaining 800 feet of elevation to the summit, avoid the wobbly talus entirely.

 

I don't catch a ray of sunlight until I reach the summit, at 11,154 feet. The craggy peaks of the Boulders surround me – old friends, most of which I have climbed. To the north, a line of clouds is dumping snow on the White Cloud Range. The air is perfectly still, a rarity at this elevation. I sit in the snow and enjoy the kindly warmth of the morning sun.

 

The silence is perfect on the windless summit. I cast my eyes around, and see no trace of humanity: it's just me and the mountains, alone at the top of the world.


- The Trip Has No Photos -

fitnessgerard Posted Nov 11, 2018 at 12:09 PM

I enjoy reading your post so much. I live in the City, and reading this feels like I am to some extend right there. Thank you

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