Scotchman Peak

Yesterday I hiked to the summit of Scotchman Peak Idaho for the third and almost certainly the last time. Scotchman Peak is the tallest mountain on the Idaho side of the Cabinet Mountains, the highest summit in Bonner County and one of the highest points in the Idaho Panhandle. The trailhead for this hike is located about seven miles outside of the town of Clark Fork Idaho.

The summit of Scotchman Peak is listed at 7009 feet above sea level. The trailhead sits at 3300 feet making the total elevation gain a little over 3700 feet. Scotchman Peak is in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and the official site includes directions on how to get to the trailhead.

From close to the trailhead, you can see what appears to be the summit. It isn’t. This false summit is hundreds of feet below your final goal. So let’s get started.

Since your in the Cabinet Mountains your also entering Grizzly country so take the proper precautions. Brown bears do range through out these mountains but I’ve never heard of an encounter on this specific trail.

The first half of this 4.2 mile hike to the top climbs a heavily forested ridge using short steep switchbacks. The grade is tough. I did the math and gaining 3700 feet over 22176 linear feet gives you an average grade of a little less than seventeen percent. Some stretches were less and some more, a lot more. Ouch.

Every once in a while the view opens up and you find yourself looking up towards the top of nearby mountains. By the time we reached the summit this hill looked like a pimple below us on the valley floor.

The area around Clark Fork gets the greatest amount of precipitation in the state. This accounts for the lush growth and the moss covering the trees.

After a couple of hours of zig zagging up the forested ridge we finally came to open subalpine slopes with expansive views.

Most of those views are dominated by Lake Pend Oreille, the largest lake in Idaho and a favorite kayaking spot of mine.

After the open meadows and then another band of subalpine forest the final destination was in sight and involved walking on a trail through loose rocks and shale.

At the summit we enjoyed the views of the rest of the Idaho Cabinets to the west. It’s a little humbling to view a true wilderness like this. Then we turned around only to discover we hadn’t actually made it to the real summit.

From up here we could see one last patch of snow at the base of the cliff below us on this late September day. At the top of this cliff was the real summit.

The real top was still hundreds of feet and maybe another quarter of a mile up an imposing ridge, which may account for the discrepancy between the listed distance of the hike and the distance we actually covered. By the way if you zoom in there’s a tiny dot at the very peak. This turned out to be another hiker giving you a scale of the terrain.

We had hoped to see mountain goats above the tree line. There are two signs on the way up that inform hikers about goat etiquette. A few years ago they had to close this trail for a hiking season due to knuckleheads’ feeding the goats and causing them to become aggressive.

We did get to see the goats! Just below the false summit a family of mountain goats were hiding out. This photo shows four of them. We counted six in this group all together.

After watching the goats and enjoying the views we made one final push to gain the true summit. By now we were hurting. The trip up to this point is strenuous and the last part was even tougher. Also some of the drop offs were awfully intimidating.

After a good four and a half hours of hiking we finally made it to the top. A marker told us so.

At the summit someone has built a shelter out of stone and left over lumber from an old fire tower. It looked a little sketchy.

At the very top this is the view back to the false summit we saw at the beginning of the hike. The pimple of a hill is in the background.

While we rested and ate our lunch three big male goats decided to drop in for a visit. Never trust an animal with rectangular eyes.

These guys were looking for handouts and had to be discouraged from getting too close. I thought for a minute that I was going to have to use my bear spray. It would be bad to have one of them push you off a ledge.

From the summit there are outstanding views to the north and east of the Montana Cabinets. A couple of peaks in the range top out well over eight thousand feet above sea level. There is a wilderness area covering part of the Montana Cabinets. A group called the Friends of the Scotchman Peak Wilderness have been lobbying for the creation of another wilderness area to encompass this peak.

On the way down we stopped at the false summit again to savor the views of the lake.

On the way down we saw more mountain goats. Some might have been repeat sightings but we saw ten to twelve goats all together during the trip.

Below is the Delta of the Clark Fork River were the river enters Lake Pend Oreille. I kayaked this place a couple of months ago and highly recommend the trip.

So after eight and a half hours of some of the toughest hiking I have ever done we made it back to the trailhead and started the two hour drive back home. Reviews of this hike list the average time needed to complete it as six and a half hours. I guess having to stop every couple of hundred years on the way up to catch my breath ate up a lot of time.

I had done this hike twice before and wasn’t sure if I wanted to tackle it again. It is one of the most awesome hikes I’ve ever done but also about the hardest. The grade up is unrelenting and and the way back steep enough to hurt your knees and feet. The views and the mountain goats are both highlights of the trip. I’m glad I did it one more time but can say with a lot of confidence that I’m not trying it again. After all the years do catch up with everyone.