Elephants Perch
On Monday I drove out to Stanley, Idaho and met back up with Cedar to head out to the Elephant’s Perch. It’s a 1200 foot granite cliff in the Sawtooth Range with supposedly good climbing and beautiful scenery. We really didn’t know what to expect, and upon arrival we were completely blown away. The zone was gorgeous, the approach mellow (with a motor boat ride to take us in the first 5 miles), and the climbing was by far the best of anything either of us had touched all summer. The first day, we climbed 4 routes on the perch in full day light including a 1 hour ascent of the 7 pitch Mountaineers Route. We climbed 34 pitches that day and a bunch more the next day until we ducked out early due to incoming rain. We dubbed our trip to the perch “vacation alpine climbing”.
