[Sadie's Driver]

SUN Valley???

False advertising!!!

Trailhead crossing Trail Creek

Well, I guess since this IS the first full day of Fall, we should expect a little different weather - - - but snow??? Jim K is visiting his brother and sister-in-law in Sun Valley and I've got a conference at the Sun Valley Inn - so it seemed logical to hit the trails. In preparation for a 3 or 4 day backpacking trip into the Sawtooth Mountains, we took a little warm-up hike to Proctor Mtn.

Trailhead to Proctor Mountain

Supposedly 5 1/2 miles and 1700' of gain. Well, we decided to take the longer route and add a few additional "bumps" along the way. We got a Noonish start and it was a blistering 47 degrees and drizzling. Oh well, we're not going to melt. So off we headed - a little misguided in finding a way to cross Trail Creek, but we managed. Immediately we noticed a recent burn and the remnants of that

Recent burn

Large burn site

Heading towards Proctor

Trail with burn behind

There are several trails that cross and converge - but we basically just kept heading towards what we thought was Proctor. The trail directions were a little sketchy - but they did talk about the first chair lift in the area - which actually is on Round Mountain and not Proctor.

Round Mountain ski lift remnants

Zoom on lift

We actually saw a few other crazy people out on the trail!

Another unstable hiker on the trail

And, on occasion, we would get some views

Dividing point between burn and color

On we continued - not really knowing where Proctor Mountain is - but the trail continued up -

A smallish trail marker

At one point we reached a fork in the trail - one, a lower trail that seemed to head off into the trees, and another one that headed up - so up we headed! We reached a saddle between two bumps - it wasn't really clear which was the one we actually wanted - so we kept heading west/southwest and saw a cairn on the top of this one bump - must have been the viewpoint that the trail description mentioned. We did see what appeared to be a "summit" - but there was no obvious boot path - so we decided to create our own, by finding a ridge a little farther to the east and heading up. Easy enough - minimal rock scramble and a summit-looking point.

On top of Proctor Mountain

No summit register - and since the weather was so delightful, we decided to keep the visit brief. There were no views. We somehow were reminded of Bob and Kolleen!

Another Trail Pair Summit

Down we headed, back to the saddle, where we saw this trail we hadn't noticed on the way in - it went UP a hill to another high point, so up we went - and then up we went another 100' to another "summit" - Jim was afraid I would keep following the ridge bumps. But we stopped here, having gained about 300' or so from the saddle - then is when the weather really turned

Just another sunny day on the trail - note the snow falling!!!!!!

OK - now it was snowing!!! We headed down, figuring we had experienced enough of a "warm up" for the backpack. We did stumble across a woman sitting at one trail junction (still raining/snowing, mind you) and she was on her cell phone! We figured that perhaps the reception was better here!! Continuing down, we reached another trail junction.

Heading towards Boundary

In all, we figured we did about 7 miles and 2300+' of gain. The good news is, it's supposed to warm up by Tuesday when we head out for the Sawtooths! Stay tuned for more next weekend!!!

[yew]

Wow, the weather really changed. We were out there 2 weeks ago and it was bone dry, windy, sunny and dusty!

[Grizzy]

I've been there many times at this time of the year....it is a glorious time to be there! Few people around, great foliage, and usually some good weather! Cold nights and warm days....MY favorite! I hope the weather takes a turn for the best for you

[Sadie's Driver]