Me and my buddy Scott made it to the winds this summer, which was no small feat.
My kido's are 2 and 5 and it'll about like pulling teeth with the wife to get a kitchen pass, especially for 3 or more days.

So we left from eastern Idaho on a Sunday, I had driven back from Spokane Washington the day before (500 miles). We made it to the trail head in 4 hours from eastern Idaho. Big sandy parking lot was very crowded and not inspiring in terms of the crowd levels.


The first 6 miles to big sandy lake flew by and were unremarkable, at out first view of the lake we saw the amazing haystack mountain, and hiked about 1/2 hour beyond the turn off for jack ass pass. we ran in to a dude doing the great divide trail over 3 months or so.


Jack ass pass was re-named suck ass pass and kick my ass pass. It was totally brutal. On the hike in we met a dude from california who first climbed on a gold line in the 60s, who told us about his recent divorce.



The views were worth it when we made it over the pass.



The cirque is like a temple to me. Absolutely world class beauty. We crashed and awoke at 5:40 to climb Wolfs head the next day.

Wolfs head went well but the grassy ledges approach was wet and snowy in early august, so we did the tiger tower approach and Scott had to cut snow steps in a heroic hand freezing effort, as we had no pons or axe.

We simul climbed for 800 feet and made two quick raps down to the side walk in the sky pitch, which was very cool.


We made a route finding error and counted a minor tower as a major tower, but climbed on and had no problems.

After the piton traverse



The whole afternoon there was a lighting bearing storm that was off in the distance and threatened to hit us at any time, we were simuling and placing pro every 50 feet in the easy parts to beat the damn thing.


On one of the crux towers I said to Scott, you got this. His reply was: "shut the f#ck up Ezra". It was a smidge stout for a 5.6, if you know what I mean.

We made it to the top and wrapped very quickly down the 6 or 7 rapells, which were mostly strait forward. A summit post over view of the route is the only beta you'll need.


We made it back to the tent just as the showers started, and were so glad to not have been stuck in the lightning storm.


I remember eating a bagel and nutella for a snack, and that nasty hamburger helper and salmon for dinner. Scotts stove failed and he had to use mine, I made him have luke warm dinner to save fuel.


I was so relieved to have not gotten hurt on the route and not hit by lightning. Funny how I felt so invincible 11 years ago when I started climbing. I should mention the first night before a big route I usally sleep like sh*t, out of fear of the unknown I guess, not sure exactly why.

That 2nd night I slept like a baby!

The next day we climbed the south buttress of Pingora, some of the finest granite I have ever laid eyes on. Each pitch was a well protected stellar joy and absolutely fantastic. We did the K cracks on the last pitch. We made it to the base by 11:30 am and saw a party of 4 or 5 old duffers just starting the east ledges route, I guess they didn't worry about lightning.

Looking up P1 of the route (our 2nd pitch)

Looking up p2


Looking down p2

K-cracks


We made it back to the camp site by 12:30pm and were at the trail head at 4:50pm and home by 9pm. We manage not to hit any wild life that trip, which was nice!!!

There were few crowds there in the cirque, maybe 5 tents but we went in on a Sunday admittedly.