Geographic Regions of Idaho While Idaho is famous worldwide for potatoes, there is an abundance of quality climbing throughout the state some of which is world class like
City of Rocks or
Elephants Perch or newly on the radar,
the Fins.
City of Rocks and its neighbor,
Castle Rocks, are the main destinations for out-of-state climbers. Both feature fantastic cragging in a beautiful setting. More recently,
the Fins , with it's high quality vertical limestone, is attracting a lot of interest from climbers due to the large number of stellar 5.12 through 5.14d routes.
Also of significant interest are the rest of
The Sawtooth Range near Stanley, the limestome climbing near
Riggins, and the basalt climbing of
Massacre Rocks near American Falls.
There are many,many more excellent places to climb in the state worth a visit if you are in the area. You can find everything from high quality sport climbing, to multi-pitch trad, to wild wilderness adventures and often you'll have your adventure to yourself and your party!
For ease of navigation the state is divided into 5 regions. North Idaho (Sandpoint,
Q'Emiln Park), West Idaho (
McCall Area,
Black Cliffs), Central Idaho (
The Sawtooth Range,
The Fins), South Idaho (
City of Rocks,
Dierkes Lake) and East Idaho (
Massacre Rocks,
Ross Park).
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Dear Friend,
As a long time outdoor enthusiast and rock climber I have been visiting and climbing at Massacre Rocks for the past decade. It is a relatively quiet, albeit excellent area for rock climbing. The individuals that equipped the climbing routes here invested countless hours and dollars into developing this area in to a regional treasure. Massacre hosts more basalt sport climbs than any other single destination in the world, as far as I'm aware. The unique features, geologic setting, and it's historical nature make it a favorite for climbers of all abilities. Please realize that there is a movement within our climbing commu nities to bring awareness to listing of Massacre on the National Register and the 30-day comment period. Please realize that I speak for at least hundreds of users in a multi-state area (Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Montana et al.), even if their voices are not to be heard in this short 30 day time-frame. My request is that Massacre remain open to the climbers and other user groups that cherish it.
Thank you for your time and consideration.
Sincerely
Brad Heller Sep 1, 2011
Pocatello, ID
There have been a number requests to re-organize the Idaho page on Mountain Project for easier and more intuitive navigation. I've been working on this off and on for a couple months and finally made the changes today.
I divided the state into 5 geographic regions - North Idaho (the Pan Handle - Sandpoint, Q-Emilin Park), West Idaho (Boise & McCall areas), Central Idaho (Sawtooths, the Fins), South Idaho (City of Rocks, Twin Falls area), and East Idaho (Massacre Rocks; Poky, IF and Driggs areas).
I approached the project by taking a map of Idaho and adding circles to the map for each climbing area on the Idaho page of Mountain Project. I sized the circles to represent the number of routes on Mountain Project. After completing this time consuming task it was relatively easy to divide the geographic regions. This working map of Idaho is on the Idaho main page on Mountain Project ( mountainproject.com/v/11296… ). In time, I will remove the climbing area circles leaving only the geographic regions.
Please review the regions and the relocation of the climbing areas to the new geographic regions. Look for mistakes and/or if you have a disagreement with where a particular area ended up. Small changes will be easy to make. Major changes (like re-defining the number of geographic regions will be more difficult). I am also looking for better/more text descriptions for each geographic region if you care to make suggestions.
Thanks for your review and input!
Mike Engle
Admin for Idaho May 26, 2017
Nice job on the organization, but there is one thing that is really confusing to me. Why is McCall area considered Western instead of central idaho? And where exactly is the seperating line between Western and Central Idaho? Does it follow a natural feature? This division isn't intuitive, IMO.
Did you group it this way more because the Boise climbers access this area more? Apr 8, 2018
Story, WY/Bozeman MT
Found a shop that will repair shoes if you need them. Its a shop in Coeur d'Alene named Lake City Shoe Repair Feb 26, 2020
Boise, ID