Griswold Peak / Cougar Peak Climb

Life has been so busy lately and my hiking adventures have taken a back seat.  Dan noticed this and invited me to get out for the first time this summer.  We decided upon Griswold Peak, an "11er" near the headwaters of the Lost River.  While up there, we would visit nearby Peak 10727.

We left Boise a little bit after 6am and began the long drive to Ketchum, over Trail Creek, and up the headwaters of the North Fork of the Big Lost River.  Though the drive was long, the time flew by as Dan and I caught up on everything.  Soon we were at the Hunter Creek trailhead and moving around 10am.  We didn't follow the trail very long before we headed straight uphill toward the ridge leading to Griswold Peak.  Gaining the ridge also proceeded pretty quickly and soon we were on the ridge with great views of Griswold Peak and the surrounding area.  The ridge was an easy and enjoyable class 2 climb to the top, where we found a small cairn, a register, and a horde of flying ants.  Fortunately, we were able to stay about 20' from the summit and avoid the ants for the most part.

Since the bugs were kind of annoying and the clouds were starting to build, we didn't spend too long atop Griswold before heading over to Peak 10727.  The descent from Griswold was pretty steep, probably class 3+ but it was fun downclimbing due to the generally stable rock.  Once off the rock, it was easy slopes up to the summit of the peak.  A cairn and summit register were atop the peak, placed by Rick Baugher in 2011.  He chose the name "Coog" for the peak but we decided "Cougar Peak" sounded better.  After spending some time enjoying the summit we decided to get back to the car.  The descent was a little bit challenging because I forgot my map and we had to dead-reckon our way through the forest and back to the car.  Descending the open slopes was fun, the wooded slopes were a little less fun, and it was a little bit of a slog following the bottom of the drainage back to the trailhead.  Dan did a great job navigating as always!

The biggest event of the return trip was the Escape's "check engine" light coming on (it went off mysteriously a couple of days later).  We did stop at the Burger Grill in Ketchum for some tasty burgers before finishing the drive back to Boise!

Griswold Peak / Cougar Peak Pictures!
GPS Track
Dan's Trip Report