Website: idahoalpinezone.com/

Dave is an avid mountain climber who can’t get enough of Idaho’s mountain tops. He is an Idaho native who prides himself on the variety of Idaho peaks that he has climbed. This is evidenced by his climbing resume of over 275 Idaho peaks, spread across more than a dozen different mountain ranges. Dave is particularly fond of the White Cloud Mountains where he is the only climber known to have summitted all 50 of the peaks over 10,000 feet in elevation.

Dave has provided significant contributions to this website which can be found at the following link: Dave Pahlas Contributions

Dave also shared the following account of one of his more memorable Sawtooth experiences.

A Goal Achieved by Dave Pahlas

Mount Regan has been a long time infatuation for me. Long before the concept of mountain climbing began taking shape in my mind, Mount Regan had been calling me. The formidable North Face of Mount Regan creates an impressive backdrop above highly-scenic Sawtooth Lake. Sawtooth Lake was a favorite hiking destination in my youth and early adult years. My inaugural trip to Sawtooth Lake was made on my father’s shoulders during the Summer before my 1st birthday. The first visit under my own power was at about age 8. Many more would follow, including a couple of Boy Scout backpacking trips, hikes with family and friends and even a memorable outing with my own son on my shoulders during the Summer before his 1st birthday.

Beautiful alpine Sawtooth Lake is a popular Sawtooth day hike for good reason. Because of this popularity, Mount Regan has become one of the most photographed peaks in all of Idaho. There’s just something about the inspiring “ahhh-haaaa” view you experience as the trail crests the rocks near the outlet at the north end of Sawtooth Lake. The view of the massive alpine lake with the imposing mountain rising far above on the opposite side is nothing short of spectacular. To me, the big humbling view has a way of helping me understand how small we are in this world.

So who wouldn’t want to climb to the top of Mount Regan and look down on Sawtooth Lake to see what it looks like from above? Of course, the challenge with capturing the view is that most casual hikers are unlikely to ever reach the summit. Guarded by steep cliffs and sometimes loose rock, most routes up Mount Regan require technical climbing. The only non-technical route is the Southeast Ridge and it still involves some very exposed Class 4 moves.

It wasn’t long after I took up mountain climbing that Mount Regan moved up to the top of my wish list of summits to visit. With limited Class 4 experience, I knew that a solo climb wouldn’t be wise. So I began badgering experienced climbers to come join me for the climb. I was stoked when my friend Sean said he would accompany me. Sean is an excellent climber and a great guy. He had climbed the route before so I knew that we were in for a good day.

I could barely sleep the night before climbing Mount Regan. I was just way too wound up with the anticipation of climbing the challenging route to the summit of a peak I’d been captivated by for decades. Sean and I were on our feet and hiking from the Iron Creek trailhead by about 7:30AM. We made good time on our way up the trail. It was a nice, crisp October morning and we passed the time discussing our past climbs and the college football rankings. We made it to Sawtooth Lake in just under 3 hours and, as usual, Regan beckoned us from the far side of the lake. After another 2 miles of highly scenic hiking, we left the trail near the base of Regan’s Southeast Ridge. We contoured around to the start of the ridge through a boulder field (staying at about 8,300 feet) until we found an obvious gully. The gully is full of loose rock so we spread out to avoid kicking anything loose onto each other. We climbed until the gully became steep. Then an obvious route became apparent heading to the left. From here, we pretty much followed the ridgeline to the base of Mount Regan’s summit block.

To reach the base of the summit block, the climbing had been mostly Class 2 and there had been no technically challenging climbing up to this point. Based on our knowledge of the route, we knew that that was about to change. The summit block was pretty daunting with no obvious route. But we knew from Sean’s prior climb (and from the Tom Lopez book) that we needed to angle out onto the Northeast Face and then find our way up to the summit. My adrenaline was pumping knowing what was in store for us and the route didn’t disappoint. There was plenty of exposure but the rock was generally stable. We climbed a moderate angle face, traversed over to a gully, climbed for awhile, descended a bit and then climbed some more. After a couple tricky spots of low Class 4, we were on the home stretch once the angle eased off and were soon on the summit.

I had been looking forward to looking down on Sawtooth Lake from the summit, reversing the view I’d soaked in so many times over the years. It was an awesome feeling to be perched on this fantastic summit after the challenging scramble that brought us here. But all good things must come to an end, so after a bite to eat and numerous photos, we reluctantly began the descent. The down-climb wasn’t to be taken lightly. We took our time and carefully chose the safest route back down the face.

 

 

Deb Rose grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and has lived in Idaho since graduating from the University of Oregon. She experiences the geographic diversity found in the Idaho outdoors through backpacking, hiking, skiing and mountaineering. Deb came to peakbagging late in life, proving that one is never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream (C.S. Lewis). The views are always worth the climb; the company always superb.

George and his friend Johnny Roache were the first climbers to climb all of Idaho’s 11,000+ foot peaks. George reports that back in June 2006, he crawled off his couch to climb Lost River Mountain with Dave Pahlas (his co-worker), Johnny Roache (long-time friend) and Pat McGrane (John’s co-worker). During the climb, he got bit by the climbing bug somewhere between the snow climb up and the glissade down the Super Gully. Afterwards, he set a goal to climb all of the Idaho 12ers which he completed 6 weeks later. That September, George and Johnny attended their first Idaho Summits outing and unknowingly began their 11er journey on Hidden Peak and Wet Peak in the Lost River Range. They completed the Idaho 11ers 6 years later.

Website: www.splattski.com

John passed away while crosscountry skiing near his McCall home February 2022. The last time I climbed with him was in late Fall 2021. John, like always, was unstoppable. We descended through 500 vertical feet of nearly impenetrable alders with John leading the way like a bull moose. One of his nicknames was the “Alder King” because he dragged so many of us through alder patches. Another was “Lick Creek Johnny” because of his prowess at exploring the Lick Creek Range. Over the years he climbed 666 Idaho peaks and mentored many climbers. He was the most competent climbing partner anyone could hope for.

Additional Links

Steve Stuebner Tribute

Idaho Statesman

Obituary

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Bob Boyle’s Remembrance

I first met John in the early 70s when he was still in high school and climbing at our local bouldering mecca, the quarry on the south side of Table Rock. We didn’t climb together at the time but saw each other quite often at the quarry and Black Cliffs where he partnered with Tom McCleod. The climbing community was quite small back then so everyone knew each other directly or by association. The first real conversation I had with John came after we had climbed Heyburn and were sitting at the upper Bench Lake (drinking a sixer of Bud that we had stashed in a snowbank) when this guy came tearing up the hillside below us. We watched in amazement until we could recognize who it was. It was John who had run up to the lake for a quick afternoon get away from a family reunion down at the Redfish Lake area. We offered him a beer but he politely refused at the time.

Several of my friends took up cycling after George’s opened on Broadway and like Sawtooth Mountaineering, it became the hangout for the hometown athletes. Like everything he did in life, John took to cycling and quickly became a local legend after winning the Bogus hill climb three years in a row. I was a cyclist, but didn’t care for racing so I knew John well by association but not personally. The same held true through the 80s when a bunch of us took up windsurfing. John sold sailing boards through IMT and I still have my board hanging in my shed that John helped me carry out of his shop. We saw each other and spoke regularly at Barclay Bay after we discovered “morning wind” but windsurfing is actually a solitary sport where you might pass someone a few feet away but never really participate in together like climbing. It wasn’t until 1996 that I took John up Borah for his first time that we actually climbed together. It was also John’s first Lost River climb and like everything else he did, he went on a spree throughout the range. We went on many adventures after that and became best of friends. I will miss him for the rest of my life.

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John’s Bio

John misspent his youth at Table Rock, Slick Rock, and the Sawtooths where he focused on rock climbing. In the early 1970s, there were no guidebooks and, in some cases, no maps, so there were as many misadventures as successful climbs. This honed his ability to find the hard way up easy peaks and the wrong way to the trailhead. Since then, John has occasionally been distracted by other pursuits, but has always returned to the mountains. He is a skier as well as a climber so he enjoys the mountains in the “off season.” He is also a family man and he enjoys climbing and skiing with his wife and two daughters. Although these days he focuses mostly on hiking or scrambling up peaks, he still occasionally gets out the rope.

After moving to McCall, John extensively explored the area’s many known and unknown peaks. His many contributions statewide can be found throughout this website. Use the following link: John Platt Contributions

John has also shared some of his early Sawtooth climbing memories.

Sawtooth Memories by John Platt

We started climbing in the Sawtooths around 1971. Our group of high school kids (!) had been practicing rudimentary climbing technique at Table Rock near Boise, using the Goldline rope provided by Jerry’s parents after they found out that he had climbed the Finger of Fate without one. We had a handful of pitons and we were climbing in Norwegian-welted mountain boots with one ancient ice axe (about 90cm long). We thankfully adopted new gear as it became available.

Our first outing as a group tried to follow Jerry’s previous line up The Finger. We turned around without a summit yet still it was too dark to return to camp that night. We lived through that one and progressed to visit many areas in the range. In those early days, we mostly tried to climb things that others told us about: “Go up this trail, over this saddle then follow the ridge to the obvious chimney.” With nothing more than a Forest Service map available, we tried to interpret these cryptic instructions on the ground. If more information existed, we were blissfully unaware of it.

Most of the time, we simply followed our noses. No map, no compass, no GPS. In some cases this worked out well; in other cases, not so much. In hindsight, I remember climbing the wrong pinnacle on Mount Heyburn. Getting off route and, consequently, shut out on the Perch. And some off-color exclamations one afternoon when a hard-earned view from a summit revealed that our goal (Warbonnet Peak) was on the opposite side of the valley. Our misunderstandings added to the fun. Some of it was simple spelling: is it McGowan or McGown? With others, it was location. Despite what one heard, Warbonnet Peak is NOT above Baron Lake (that’s Baron Spire). And it was confusing to find out that two peaks were actually one: Old Smoothie is also (or more recently) Baron Spire.

As our group got older and out of high school, we dispersed and sometimes climbed with others outside our group. Jerry worked for Outward Bound when they had a Sawtooth Section, exploring more remote areas of the range including climbing South Raker. Art and Frank climbed the “chimney” on the face of Thomson Peak, finding that not all Sawtooth granite is suitable for climbing. I followed Tom up harder lines, such as The Arrowhead. Tom was the strongest climber of our group, eventually joining up with other top Boise climbers and making it up all sorts of hard routes.

As a group and separately, we went into the Sawtooths in all seasons and loved the range for hard rock, backpacking, scrambling and even skiing. And we keep going back. From more recent explorations, I have found that there are lots of places in the range that are virtually untouched if not totally unexplored.