Backpacking Idaho's Lost River Range ： The Politicians Loop

This is a three-day and two-night backpacking trip in Idaho's Lost River Range. This whole loop I'm deciding to call the Politician's Loop, as it's all based around corruption. Mount corruption, that is. The highlights of the trip were first night's camp in a beautiful meadow, very akin to the Bob Marshall, and the high pass on the second day. This is a beautiful trip in the Lost River Range. Enjoy. We're here in the Lost River Range. Our three-day, two-night loop. Let's see what we get ourselves into. Facing our branch and all, and heading up to the pass now. So far, so good. Most of the pass is behind those trees, that low end of the slope. All right, we're at this pass. It doesn't have a name, but uh, down there is where we're headed. And we're gonna go over that bump there, down into the dry creek drainage. Then we're gonna hike up into the cirque. One of my favorite mountain ranges in the world. And it's about to lose protections. That's great. That's our next stop. All right, we're on our last stretch of down. It will be forested for this section, so hopefully it's not too bad. There's a very light trail, or game trail, here. Should help with the descent. Nice, you just saw a baby bunny, but it bounced too quick for me to film it. It's a little guy. Still heading down. Trail's becoming easier to follow. And we've made it down to the valley floor, which we'll head west. A lot of willows right now. Dry creek. Lacy and I are heading into the cirque, and uh, oh, it got hot. This little thing of shade's nice. We're almost to camp. Looks like we got a crossing. May have to get wet, we'll see. Lacy and I made it to camp. Get some water, and then rest and relax. This is our view from camp. The camp is set up. Test run time lapses with Lacy's camera. So far, so good. Looks peculiar right over there. I'm gonna go check that out. Old horse hitching line, looks like. I wonder if we're camping where horses used to get, usually get stored if people do come up here. I wonder if the human camp's over there. Walking over there barefoot right now. Um, there is horse crap in here. Not a lot, and it's very old, so I can't imagine the last time this place was used. We didn't see anyone today. That's usually how it goes with our forays into this range. Usually pretty lonely. Oh, a fire pit. Might actually be having a fire tonight after all. Some poles over there. I wonder if this is an outfitter camp in the fall. Here's their tent. It's like a grizzly camper. You have a food area so far away from your tent where you're sleeping. No grizzlies here though. Very beautiful. Good workout today. Not used to that. We're kind of out of shape because we've been really busy. So I'm at that point where if you ever did a cardio exercise so good and you breathe in too hard you cough, that's where I'm at right now. Beer. It is already very hot. All right, we are packed up and about to tackle a mountain pass. Cross without getting wet. Apparently there's a log down there. We were just too tired yesterday to look around. But here we go. That's our mountain pass right there. Got some work to do. Some flagging or garbage or something on a rock over there. At least he's gonna go check it out. We're definitely on a boot path or game trail heading up to this. It's not really well worn. I wonder if there's a better trail over there and that's what that's marking. We'll see. Come across this trail. It's a bit more well worn. I haven't really seen any human tracks this elk. That boot path vanished again. I see a cut of trail right there. I think we're gonna cross and start angling up in the forest to make it to that little section of trail there. Made it to the pass. We took break up here for about an hour. Took in the views. Beautiful pass. Now it's time to hike on down that valley below Mount Corruption. That last section there is a little narrow with some exposure. Starting to widen out now though. Pretty rotten trail though. That was a steep section. We've reached the end of the one trail that just led out into a steep meadow and we found it again in the forest. It actually cuts back towards this big guy and there's an old big cairn that's mostly knocked over and an old fire pit. That big cairn marks this kind of trail that's disappearing and it's going to take us down into the valley here and we're thinking we're going to be camping in the meadows. That looks pretty. We found camp spot. Only flat spot down here. Not a whole lot of flat but views are pretty epic. The avalanche has wreaked havoc over the years. There are some mosquitoes here though. We're just surrounded by massive peaks. This is awesome. All right good morning. We are packed up and going to be heading out. A little wash out on the trail here which will lead to a nice little tumble. The trail's getting better and better the further out we get. We've made it to the road. We're going to walk on this for about a mile before we branch off. All right branched off from the main road. That grassy slope we're going to take up and over a small pass and it's all downhill to the truck. It's a little game trail that's helping with this ascent. Hopefully it goes the whole way. I'm going to keep a slight angle up contouring around. Pass is like right over here. Pass you'll probably just beeline straight for that trail there then take it and head downhill. Some pronghorn antelope over there. We're on the trail and the pass is right there. Almost done with uphill for the day. We made it to the pass. Not as scenic as the other two but completes the loop. Time to go downhill and there's our truck. The loop is complete.