Bingham County Highpoint Trip Report
Date: October 13, 2005
Authors: Jerry and Betty Brekhus
We hiked to the Blackfoot BM at 7550 feet in sunny autumn weather. The start of
our hike was at Miner Creek, just before the empty house mentioned by Ken Jones.
Look for the house and also a major power line close to the Blackfoot River Road
at this point.
The BLM map shows this as state land but the gate was locked and posted
nevertheless. We saw a man at a sheepherder wagon near the house and talked to him.
We had a little difficulty with a language barrier but eventually got
permission to the best of our understanding.
We crawled under the gate and hiked up the Miner Creek Road. A mile or so
upstream, we turned off this road and hiked ATV tracks along a fence line
getting ever closer to Blue Ridge. When we were within a mile of our goal,
we picked terrain that looked reasonable and headed for the top.
The west slopes were snow-free.
We were rewarded with a distant view of Grand Teton at the ridge crest.
A few tiny patches of snow were present in shady spots. We signed the register and
took a different way back to our vehicle. We made our way back to Miner Creek
and got on the Miner Creek Road most of the way back.
At the gate, we met the rancher, who had learned we were hiking. He was very
friendly and even apologized for us having to walk so far (8 or 9 miles round trip).
He said he would have opened the gate for us to drive in part way had he known.
The locked and posted gate is to keep out ATVs. Turns out he climbed
the Grand Teton some years ago.