Trip Report
It was hella smoky in Idaho due to fires burning all over the west. Therefore I postponed the fall outing. Still wanting to get some exercise in, I looked for some ideas close to town. I thought about Stack Rock. Since I don't have climbing gear, I mentioned climbing it to John since he and his son were into rock climbing. John got back to me that Dylan his son was interested. I figured that meant the 3 of us would go up. Well, when Dylan called it was just us since it didn't really make sense to have 3 on the rope. I took his word for it!
We met at Albertson's at a leisurely 8am and headed up towards Bogus Basin. When we reached what I thought should be the trailhead, Dylan didn't like the hike down we'd have to do. He thought access on the road on the ridge to Stack Rock was open. I was sure it wasn't, but I am a nice guy, so I drove him up there. Sure enough, it was gated shut and posted. The eagle scout in Dylan came through and he decided against trespassing and we headed back down to the 5,000 foot level on Bogus Basin Road and parked.
We weren't sure what to expect for a trail. I had heard there might be one the whole way. So when we popped over the concrete "guardrail", sure enough, there was a nice trail there! So far, so good.
That trail dropped us 300 feet into the drainage below the road, where we met a nice trail that would take us up to the ridgeline containing Stack Rock. On the ridge, the trail meets up with an old road. We turned left and were now cruising toward the rock.
We eventually reached Stack Rock after 1 hour and 10 minutes of hiking. We took off our packs, put on our harnesses, and headed over to the base of the east ridge/face. Without any beta, we were going to simply go up the rock.
Dylan led a really easy first pitch that we could have done un-roped, but it was nice to warm-up. We then stashed the camera at the belay station and Dylan headed up on pitch 2. Other than the initial move on pitch 2 (an awkward move requiring a wide stance), the rest of the pitch was just a traverse to the south side of the rock. The next pitch was a bit trickier... Dylan called it "Dylan's Traverse". He actually even got in 2 pieces of pro that he was confident in. This pitch required a traverse across a slab with no handholds and decent footholds. The bothersome aspect was the overhanging drop-off below the traverse. I had to think about this one for a minute and then while shifting my feet got in an awkward position, which forced me to go for it. Turned out it wasn't so bad. The rest of the pitch was cake and we were now about 50 feet below the summit.
The next pitch had one tricky move... a 6 or 7 foot climb up an "L" shaped area where 2 rocks met. I watched Dylan push his back to one side and his feet to the other and skooch up this wall. Shortly after he let out a "whoop" indicating he was on the summit. It was my turn to come up. I tried skooching up, but it was a little troubling for me. So I went Sylvester Stallone and jumped up and wrapped arms around a rock above the wall and pulled myself up. Then I could see Dylan on the top.
On the way down, we found the route we should have taken on the way up. A short rappel off the north side got us to a bench. On this bench, we couldn't free the rope. So Dylan threw on his rock shoes and free climbed back up to free the rope. We then followed the bench over to the east side of the rock. Here I down climbed while roped. It was easy and I didn't stop until the bottom. When down, Dylan hollered down that he would free climb the route down and that I could pull the rope. After a few minutes, he joined me at the bottom.
After Dylan ate PBJ's and I ate GU, then we headed down. It turned out to be a longer day than planned, but we had a lot of fun. Thanks for leading Dylan!
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