East Warrior Peak

In January I made it up West Warrior Peak, located just west across Black Warrior Creek. Looking across the drainage, the ridgeline leading to East Warrior looked really cool, and I love ridge walks. So when Dylan said he was game, we set the date.

I knew this would be a long day. Here you can see the summit, and to get to this point we had already been walking two and a half hours.

At several points up the ridge, I was wondering if the ridge even connected. Perhaps this picture shows why?

But we soldiered on, and soon enough we were on the major false summit directly opposite the top. Too bad the weather wasn't better.

On top, there was barely a breath of wind, and we were getting baked in the sun. We had a gourmet lunch and soaked it all in. The snowy ridgeline on the horizon behind us is West Warrior. Looking the other direction, you see the Sawtooths up close. East Warrior is about the last peak heading east before you are actually in the Sawtooths.

Dylan was impressed with this evil fang, Raker North. To really get the full effect, you should click on the picture and see the larger version.

The rocky teeth to the left are part of Monte Verita ridge, which includes Warbonnet.

Earlier I commented on the devious nature of this ridgeline. You can't see the whole thing here, but the red line shows our route. Sorry, the camera wouldn't shoot any wider of a shot, and we ARE on the summit here. Also, you can't see the lower 1500' of the ridge that is below the snow line. But you get the idea...

Note that if you try this route, follow the top of the ridge the entire way. There are a few false summits, but it's easier to just go over them (at least it was in snow- the sides of the ridge are generally very steep and provide inadequate traction for snowshoeing).

We were surprised at how long it took to get down: 3 hours. But this fits with my guess that the ridge is somewhere between 6 and 7 miles long. Here Dylan tops the final large false summit on our return. East Warrior's summit is just to the viewer's left of his head.

After a long, long way we finally had to take off the snowshoes. Then there is this 800' drop to the river. We were pretty tired, but knew that the truck was down there in the trees, parked by the Middle Fork of the Boise River.

Grimacing over the steepness of this hillside and what it was going to do to our knees, we reminded ourselves that we had wisely cached some beer in the truck.

We finally got back to the truck, and over our celebration beers noticed the front tire was flat. sigh

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