Scotchman's Peak Day Hike

While I was living in Idaho last spring, I took one of the most amazing hikes I have ever been on. It was highly recommended so I piggy backed onto my friend Monica's trip for the day.

We were warned that this was a very intense hike, and it was 7-8 miles out and back (depending on who we asked and the website we looked at). The hike was to Scotchman's Peak and near Clark Fork, Idaho. It also raises 3,700 feet in elevation in those first four miles... There were a few blogs and websites that listed this hike as "moderate", and maybe it is in comparison to Mt. Everest. Otherwise, this hike required me to dig deeper than I had in a long while! I have done some hard day hikes, and I am in pretty good shape, but at 1.5 miles into this hike as we climbed in elevation, I literally thought "I'm not sure I can do this for 2 more miles..." But I did, and it was worth it (as always, right?)

First pointer if you are ever interested in doing this hike: Follow the directions you find online (I can try to find the directions we used and post them here in the future....sometime) and just KEEP DRIVING. The trail head was a lot further than I thought it would! And actually, when we went in Spring, we had one water crossing we couldn't safely drive over, so had about 1/4 mile walk to get to the trail head, and it was not very well marked like I had hoped.

Second pointer, this hike is not accessible during the winter months with heavy snowfall! Don't be a hero, wait til the thaw comes.

For our hike, we started off without any snow, and a couple miles in we had to literally climb on our hands and knees through ice/snow up steep parts (while trying to stay somewhat near the actual trail). So next pointer: dress in layers. Between working up a sweat, climbing in elevation and the light rain fall we had, we were constantly stopping to adjust.

As we got to the peak, we were blown away by the views we got to share together.

But, our FAVORITE part of reaching the summit...was when the mountain goats came to greet us and hang out. It was incredible and the perfect completion of our hike to Scotchman's Peak!

I hope you get to enjoy the sights, muscle burn, smiles and beauty that is Scothman's Peak.