North America, United States, Idaho, Mount Breitenbach, North Face, Lost River Range

Publication Year: 1983.

Mount Breitenbach, North Face, Lost River Range. From July 13 to 16, Bob Boyles, Mike Weber and I made the first ascent of the north face of Mount Breitenbach. Bill March has told me that some years ago his party was turned back by very severe rock climbing at the top of a large couloir. We easily identified the couloir and rock band. We also discovered a possible route to the west of that couloir but still east of the summit. We pieced our climb together. It consisted of small, steep snowfields intermixed with steep limestone. The crux was a short aid pitch next to a waterfall which led us into a 900-foot-long, 10- to 15-foot-wide hairline couloir that we followed to a bivouac on the skyline just east of the summit. In the dawn we descended the east-northeast ridge in two hours of fourth-class climbing. (Grade III, 5.8, A2.)

Curtis Olson, Mountain Guides Inc., Boise, Idaho