My husband and I don’t typically camp or backpack over the 4th of July weekend. This year, the holiday fell on a Tuesday, so we didn’t end up going anywhere at all that weekend. Instead, we did a day hike on the day itself.
Conveniently, we now have Cuddy Mountain to hike, with its trailhead less than 40 minutes from home. Much easier to get to than it was to drive from Boise to the Mount Heinen trailhead. This trail doesn’t quite have Heinen’s steepness, but it does have a good chunk of climbing involved. I used MapMyRun to track my hike, and it’s really an excellent training hike.
It clocks in at a bit over 7 and a quarter miles round trip (probably get up to 8 if we include the Brownlee peak). And we get a nice healthy 2700 feet of elevation gain, starting out right around 4900 and topping out at the peak a bit over 7600. We could add to the elevation by starting at Brownlee Campground instead of the trailhead, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that regularly. You have to pay to stay at the campground.
This was our second attempt at this trail, but the first one that we were actually aiming at the peak (last time, we only went about halfway, looking for camping spots). Ambrose admitted to me afterward that he absolutely did NOT think he was going to make it to the top. He figured he’d run out of steam somewhere and either turn us back or let me go on to the top while he remained below.
Boy, was he ever wrong!
We made good time to the junction where we had turned off last time. This time, we took a right, directly up a hill. It wasn’t too long after that turn when we started getting some good views of Cuddy and Brownlee. I pointed these out to Ambrose, but only in passing. I was trying to be a good rabbit for him, to be ahead, but not too far ahead.
When we reached our next junction, I stopped to make sure he caught up. One of our hiking rules is no hiking past a junction without the other person (lesson learned the hard way). Also, this junction was situated high on a ridge where it met Cuddy Mountain, and it has absolutely breathtaking views in three directions (of two states!). We both took a moment to soak it all in.
Then I pointed up, pretty much right above us, and told him, “that’s the mountain. We’re almost there.”
He was gob smacked, but I didn’t notice. Too busy leading the way up, which was along a switchback, not straight up, thank goodness. We continued along the trail until the terrain gave us a chance to cut over to Cuddy where we found the peak.
And there was a peak register! I signed us in, of course, and looked at some of the other entries. I realized that most of them had driven up here on ATVs or motorcycles from Council, so I went back to my entry to specify that we had hiked in.
Then we found a spot where the wind wasn’t too bad and ate lunch. It looked like we could have followed the trail over to Brownlee, and then taken trail back to Cuddy, but there’s a very steep section on that trail that we weren’t interested in checking out. So, we retraced our steps and headed down the mountain. I was going to go at my speed, get some training in, while Ambrose went at his own speed.
Now, I had to stop and pee three times, but other than that I kept moving. I even started jogging on some sections of the downhill, because I realized that this is my hometown mountain. I can see it from my office window, and now I can hike up it. It really won’t be long before I’m running up and down this mountain. . .
I only saw Ambrose after my first pee break, when he nearly caught me. I couldn’t let that happen again! All was quiet back at the car. I settled in to wait for him, and he didn’t take more than 20 minutes to show up. An excellent pace, was my first thought.
A foolish pace! was my second thought, after he told me he had not only fallen twice but also messed up his left ankle on the second fall.
I just hoped and hoped that that ankle would be sound enough for our trip to the coast, scheduled to start in a mere 8 days. A good reminder that hiking downhill is more dangerous than hiking uphill. I’m looking forward to continuing to get to know Cuddy.