Ridge above Coverdale
Friday, August 8
I had done a little bit of exploring across the road from camp on two of the mornings before camp officially opened. So when Mark Slipp showed interest in climbing up to the ridge, I offered to go with him. Leaving camp in Jan’s most capable hands, John Jacobsen decided to join us too.
A short distance up FS 3925 at the 9 mile marker (it starts at Lick Creek CG, and ends at Coverdale CG), we headed off the road on the right side, up through a treed meadow. Before long it got steep and rocky, and the pines were replaced by a thicket of service berry and cherry. Then it got steeper yet with not much more than a few clumps of grass in the rocky soil to hold on to.
About half way up we stopped to check out a shallow cave in a band of rock. Finally, after an hour and a quarter (or so), we reached the ridge, about 1200 feet above camp. Down below us we could just barely make out a few tents and cars, to the east we saw the Sawtooths, and to the north-east the Seven Devils, and to the west stretched the upper part of the Imnaha valley.
We climbed up the ridge to the north-west. It broadened out into a gently sloping, green meadow. As we leisurely strolled along, we saw peaks in the Eagle Cap Wilderness to the north-west. Not finding a less-steep way down anywhere, we decided that the known was better than the unknown, and so returned to camp the same way that we had come.
— Wayne Deeter
Cave half way up
Looking up the Imnaha
Camp Nelson from above
— photos by Wayne Deeter