The Hungry Hundred: Backpacking and Foraging from Boise to Redfish Lake
In 2008 I proposed an adventurous plan to my small group of outdoor inclined friends: Over the course of 2 weeks walk from the City of Boise to Redfish Lake in the Sawtooth Wilderness, and eat only what can be found along the way. After enlisting the aid of a professional naturalist and published primitive skills expert, we spent the next 2 years preparing for the trip. In August 2010 we embarked on our journey. This page/slide show documents the trip route, skills learned in preparation, local edible plant species, stories of our most challenging moments and lessons learned along the way.
All photos were provided by my friends (much thanks and credit to these guys for their keen eyes)
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| *If a dog has to be carried up a mountain, its probably going to make for a good story. |
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Inspiration
Chapter 2: Training
Chapter 3: Disaster Strikes!
Chapter 4: Glory
Chapter 5: The Heart of Darkness
Chapter 6: After Thoughts
Chapter 1: Inspiration
I've told this story a couple times to live audiences in a slide show format. One time the audience really seemed to enjoy the story. They were interested in learning about edible plants, laughed heartily at our groups' glorious defeats and at the end of the talk a couple people wanted to know if I would do it again and if they could come along. The other time I gave the slide show everyone stared at me silently like I was trying to introduce them to jaguar wrestling. In a way both reactions make perfect sense to me. There are plenty of reasons to pursue a wilderness adventure...and plenty of reasons not to. This story highlights both.
I grew up, like many people, with a group of friends. Our experiences together were defined by all the typical things facing children and teenagers the 80s and 90s... With one exception- wilderness. We all seemed to share a mutual attraction toward open space and undiscovered country. As teenagers backpacking, climbing, mountaineering, skiing and whitewater kayaking became the means by which we proved ourselves worthy of the mountains' company. As we've grown older friends have moved away, married, taken on careers and started families. Each year however we try to make time to get together to have one of our outdoor adventures like old times. There are about 7 of us, give or take a few. Nobody makes all the trips but most of us make quite a few. Its hard to get a shot with everyone in it but here's a photo from a seven day mountaineering trip in the Lost River Range in August 2008.
On that trip the goal was to climb seven 12,000 foot peaks in seven days. We climbed 6 in 6 days and got stormed out on the last day of the trip.
Some of us, have bagged significant peaks such as Mt Rainer (I missed this one):
Another major inspiration for the trip was the view from our local ski area, Bogus Basin. On an exceptionally clear December day in 2008 I stood near the top of Deer Point Chairlift and looked west and saw Boise and the greater Treasure Valley below. Glancing east I saw the tips of the Sawtooth Mountains miles in the distance. Growing up the Sawtooths had been like a backyard to me, but the vast expanse of National Forest that stretched between Boise and the Sawtooth Wilderness was relatively unknown. I hadn't ever heard of anyone walking there, which made it sound even better.
Later that winter I sent an email to my friends with the proposed route on it.
It seemed to be about a hundred miles, give or take a couple. The route was a patchwork of hiking trails (green), dirt roads (blue), atv trails (orange) and bushwhacks (red). The crux and finale of the route, I told everyone, was the 40 mile crossing of the Sawtooth Wilderness area. At the time my thought was that it would be pretty easy to backpack this route. I'd backpacked a hundred and ten miles on an Outward Bound trip when I was 15. I was bigger, stronger and wiser now, 14 years later. I wanted to do something that deepen our connection with the forest. So I proposed that we forage our way there. This proposal led to an intense debate and strong sense of anticipation (apprehension) among the group. We talked about it constantly, I thought about it endlessly. We called it The Hungry Hundred.
There were six who committed to going:
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| Us at the trailhead: Toba the Dog, Ian, Sir Naps-A-Lot, Jerry, Rick, Kerry, and Clay |
Chapter 2: Training
A year and a half before embarking I knew we didn't know what we need to know in order to be successful. Thus I came to embrace the first lesson of the trip: Find a mentor. My friend
Survival Guru Ray is an accomplished outdoorsman and a published naturalist. One of his specialties is primitive skills. I couldn't have made the trip without his help and inspiration.
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| SGR relaxing on the trail |
After enlisting SGR's help and taking a couple practice trips we learned the following:
Over 30 edible plant species including-
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Stone Crop
Sedum integrifolium
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The ancient art of "Ash Cakes"-
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| Mix forage (berries, currants etc) with a bit of flour and water... |
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| Cook in ashes! |
Ash cakes provided a means of preparing food in a manner that made energy intake and transportation possible.
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| Fish would be abundant and high in protien but low in calories (not ideal) |
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| Hoppers are fast moving and crunchy but an ideal meat of sorts. Low in fat and high in protein a 100grams of these buggers equals 200 calories! You gotta cook em though or you will get intestinal worms. |
After 3 training trips and much discussion we decided on the following parameters for the Hungry Hundred:
Participants
•3 “Going Hungry”
•1 Forager/Carry Food
•2 Carry Food
Goals
•Fun
•Safety
•Get to Redfish Lake
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“Going Hungry” Means…
•4lbs flour (for ash cakes)
•Spice
•Forage for everything else
•Carry Emergency Food
Chapter 3: Disaster Strikes!
In August of 2010 we departed on our journey. On a late friday night after work we started hiking.
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| Homestead Trail #12 with City of Boise in the background |
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| As night closed in a wind storm blew across the Boise Front Range |
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| Darkness on the trail. That night we hiked too late in to the evening. One person (who shall remain nameless) got lost and ended up sleeping in a ditch by the side of the road. A search began during which Eman and Toba were sprayed by a skunk. The light of morning couldn't come soon enough.... |
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| We got just a few hours sleep near Lucky Peak reservoir |
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| Reunited in the morning light we set out at a quick pace. But things really started to heat up when we began the 4 mile bushwhack section |
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| Straight up and very exposed. Temperature were recorded around 100F that day. |
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| The story with this picture is that apparently chocolate labs don't mix that well with 100 temps + steep hiking. Without the ability to sweat and having to wear a fur coat I can't say that I'd be able to regulate my temperature that well either. So Eman hoisted Toba on top of his already 45lbs pack and blasted the whole 95lb package up the mountain. That's one lucky pup in my book. |
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| Sir-Naps-Alot: napping |
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| About sundown we gained the ridge...and cell phone reception |
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| Exhaustion, dehydration, chaffing and hunger made further progress unlikely for some |
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| Blistahs! Very painful. Game over. |
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| Arrangements were made for a car to meet us at a trail head the next morning |
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| In the meantime we still had to bushwhack down the other side of the ridge...in the dark. |
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| Here's what the descent looked like in the light the next AM |
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| Not many places to sleep on a hill like that |
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| My Chokecherry recliner that worked out ok for a night |
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| We made it to the evac spot. People and gear exploded everywhere. |
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| And then there were two (plus Toba). Ian and I would go on and try for Redfish! |
Chapter 4: Glory
Shortly after the rest of the group's departure we arrived at the banks of The River which, compared what we'd just been through, felt like the valley of shangri la. And speaking of paradise I don't want to accidentally slip into a fit of "last-best-place" syndrome here. In other words I'm not going to spell out exactly where all this is. Some of the papers around town have a habit of point a finger at the great Idaho getaways only to have that same pristine spot mauled by RVs the very next weekend. I mention Redfish Lake because its already a paradise lost, if you go there on a Saturday in the summer it feels like you're waiting in line to buy cotton candy at the state fair. So if you look at the maps I've provided you can figure out where we were and if you cross reference those with a few topo maps you can figure out how to get there...but if you can do all that then chances are you've already been there. The bottom line is these are public places, accessible to all who wish to visit them.
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| Toba- recovering nicely from doggy heat exhaustion |
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| Honestly I think Toba was the best equipped organism on this trip. |
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| The hiking was easy in this section so it gave us time to focus on catching a little grub |
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| Berries combined with flour made for plentiful ash cakes |
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| We are happy in this picture because we'd just decided we would go ahead and eat Toba (joke). |
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| Sun sets on the river |
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| Close up map of the river section |
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| As we neared the Sawtooth Wilderness the river valley narrowed into an amazing gorge |
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| Eating some currants along the trail |
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| Storing up the plentiful currants for the miles ahead in higher less fruitful country |
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| Had this meal a lot. Was starting to get sick of trout. |
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| We'd planned the trip so that a resupply car would rendezvous with us before we entered the road less Sawtooth Wilderness Area. My wife met us here and we discussed how the trip was going thus far. Though I felt pretty good, after "weighing-in" I discovered I'd lost 5lbs in the first 5 days of the trip. I was at a weight I hadn't been at since the 8th grade. Losing any more seemed like it could be hazardous to my health. So I let Brunilda cook me up some food she'd brought from civilization. She made fish sticks. At the time I didn't laugh. |
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| Back on the trail we weathered a brief storm |
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| When the sun came back out we sent Toba to investigate conditions |
Chapter 5: The Heart of Darkness
On every map I looked at the trail up Johnson Creek was clearly labeled.
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| Yet as we approached the trail head it became increasingly clear that no one had been there in a very long time. |
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| Our first clue was the old burned tree that had blown down crushing the trail head sign. No one had bothered to replace it. |
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| There had been a significant fire in the area... |
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| Followed by a significant wind... which led to a significant amount of logs to climb over (700 we counted) |
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| Scrubby Ceanothus grows thick in areas that have been burned. The trail was nowhere to be found. |
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| Sometimes the best route was in the creek bed itself |
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| A natural dam of sorts |
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| Eventually we stumbled upon this |
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| Trail signs like this are hard to trust |
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| This day was physically exhausting. But on the positive side at least our heart of darkness up-river trip didn't end with a tribe of cannibals led by Marlon Brando (see Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" and Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation "Apocalypse Now" for that reference). |
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| Finally we entered the Sawtooth Wilderness and regained the trail |
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| Our first huckleberries. Didn't even bother to take off the pack. |
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| Our day ended with an incredible sunset at Arrowhead lake |
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| The golden hour, actually started to get cold |
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| Abundant fish |
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| The next day we awoke and began a 10 hour tour-de-lakes that would take us nearly all the way across the Sawtooth Wilderness |
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| The addition of a cleared trail raised our spirits |
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| A beautiful sight |
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| Toba agrees |
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| Camping near Hidden Lake |
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| Final meal of fish and berries |
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| Cramer pass. 9,600 ft. The highest elevation of the trip. Boise sits at 2,700 ft |
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| Victory loomed near |
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| A classic shot |
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| Finally a trail sign with our destination on it. The final 6 hours of the trip all we talked about was food. To put it into perspective, we spent 1 hour just talking about soup. |
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| A familiar sight to those who know the Redfish Lake area- Elephants Perch |
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| We arrived and dove in. For those who are familiar with the area this is obviously not Redfish Lake, but I forgot to take a photo of this moment, so I used a photo from an earlier trip. Apologies for lack of authenticity here. |
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| Back in civilization we feasted on victory |
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| The End |
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