Trip Report
I had sat at work looking at glorious days on the mountain web cams long enough. I picked a date and started talking with John Fadgen and John Platt about getting out. I wanted to do Jerry Peak in the White Clouds. Not only would it allow us to get over 10,000' in the winter, but I figured the access was reasonable (we could view a web cam a few miles away to ascertain snow depth) and the views would be splendid. Platt was also interested in that peak. We emailed back and forth a lot, but stuck with plans.
We took off from Boise at 4:30am. We drove right to Howell Canyon, which we thought would be our route, without issue. There was very little snow on a nice gravel road. However, at the end of the road was a "No Trespassing" sign. Platt pulled out the Idaho Atlas. The atlas is about useless for anything like this, but he mentioned Burnt Creek having a road that could get us closer. These things rarely work out, but what else do you do? I honestly thought we would go peak-less on this glorious day.
We headed up Trail Creek, found Burnt Creek and followed it to a fork. We took the left (uphill) fork and followed this rocky road to about 7800 feet. Due to an inversion, it was a balmy 40 degrees at 7800 feet in late December!
I remember doing research about the Jerry Peak area and remembering Jerry Peak wasn't the highest point on the ridge, but rather an un-named peak at the southern end of the ridge was. So we were very near "South Jerry". I informed the guys, explained that this was good news (South Jerry has 1200 feet of prominence).
We dropped down into Garden Creek and hiked to about 8000 feet, then started up a steep southeast facing slope toward Point 9550. This route was snowless, except for a few areas where 3 or 4 inches had accumulated.
When we got our first views of South Jerry, we were all impressed. This wasn't a lame, sage-brush covered hill. It was a rocky peak with a nice drop off on the east side.
We proceeded to the top on steep rock, short walls, and nice ridges to conquer.
The top was marked with a cairn. Despite my memory, the elevation readings, etc... I still was not 100% sure this was South Jerry. That is until we found Rick Baugher's note in a film canister identify the peak as South Jerry and claiming first human ascent.
The day was great. We were having fun and the weather was perfect. We were only 3 hours into the hike and a return to the vehicle would have been an easy 2 hours.
But we just all started heading toward Jerry Peak, 2 miles north of our location. We stopped several times to debate it, but nobody said yes, but nobody said no.
The ridge between the 2 peaks is a large, flat plateau. It was very neat walking. As we neared Jerry, Dylan injected with the final "Let's do it" and we were off.
Jerry was quite fun. It was a neat ridge walk for the final 300 feet. We snapped photos and enjoyed the views of the Lost Rivers, Pahsimeroi, White Clouds, Pioneers, White Knobs, and Salmon River mountain ranges.
We then started the descent. We retraced our steps to the plateau and then dropped on a ridge into Burnt Creek. The initial quarter mile was on deep powder snow up to our thighs in places. Eventually we hit dirt. The descent seemed to last forever. The sky darkened. Luckily the temperature was warm and it was wind-free. Toward the end we gained a few hundred feet and arrived at the car.
It was a great day. I was impressed with our ability to find a new way to access the peak. Then everyone toughed out the long miles and long drive. Great day with great friends!
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