Bingham County Highpoint Trip Report

BM Blackfoot (7,550 ft)

Date: April 2004
Author: James Wedekind

I followed Ken Jones' direction to the (now) locked gate off of Blackfoot River Road. There is now a sparkling new "No Trespassing, Violators will be prosecuted" sign awaiting any future HPers. Therefore, visiting the aforementioned house in Ken's report is necessary. Nobody was home when I tried but I did run into some cattle ranchers on my way back to the Menassa Creek Road who didn't think it would be a problem (after I explained the situation) if I hiked out to BM Blackfoot.

So I threw my mountain bike over the fence and headed out towards the BM. Had a fun bike/hike through patches of snow and herds of elk/deer all while listening to hawks caw from above. The first gate is at the 2 mile point, and from there you can follow the fence line left or continue along the main track straight ahead. I went straight ahead but I imagine it may be slightly faster to turn left and take a more direct path to BM Blackfoot. Blackfoot is the northern point along the obvious ridge to your east. Bob Packard left a glass jar register on the summit and the only previous inscription were from Bob and Ken in 2001. There were also thousands of ladybugs swarming all over the summit cairn but I failed to notice them anywhere else on the mountain.

Hypothesis: Ladybugs are inherent highpointers. This being the second such instance of mass quantities of ladybugs on an ID CoHP I would hypothesize that CoHPers in general have evolved over the years from insects into summit-chasing humanoids. Thus our fascination for bright colors (maps) and fluttering around (the country in our case).