Hi Andrea,

No, you’re likely to encounter a solid snow cover before you get very far up trails in early June, especially after this past winter’s unusually high snowpack.

In most Western mountain ranges—the High Sierra, Yosemite, Tetons, Sawtooths, and Cascades, to name a few—you’ll typically find the ground solidly snow-covered in June and early July, at least above 7,000 to 8,000 feet or so. While it’s melting quickly by then and there’s a lot of variability throughout the month—depending on the previous winter’s snowpack, spring temps, elevation, aspect, and sun exposure—even late June is usually still quite snowy. Mid-July is normally the beginning of summer in bigger Western mountains.

In a normal June to early July, you might start up trails that are initially snow-free but, once higher, eventually find yourself postholing in deep snow. I’ve done that in too many places and it’s often miserable.

I suggest you wait until at least later in July.

Hi Dolph,

Thanks for the compliment and question. Yes, late July through August is a prime time to backpack in Idaho’s Sawtooths. The snow melts out even at the high passes often by around mid-July. Good luck.

Hey Jared,

Thanks for buying my e-guide “The Best Backpacking Trip in Idahos Sawtooth Mountains,” I think you’re going to love that hike and want to explore more of the Sawtooths afterward.

You ask a good question, I’d be happy to clarify that because I know many websites and other sources or even digital map programs only display total elevation gain. My e-guides (and many stories at The Big Outside, as well as my custom trip plans) provide cumulative elevation gain and loss—the total vertical feet you hike both uphill and downhill, not just uphill—because hiking downhill also fatigues your legs.

I calculate the cumulative elevation gain by looking over the entire route on a good printed or digital map to add up the amount of uphill and downhill between high and low points along the route. So I think that figure of 6,500 feet of uphill is low, it’s around 8,000 feet, and I think you’d find that if you employ my method and simply add up the differences in real elevations between high and low points along those trails. It’s not difficult to do and get a total that’s accurate because Sawtooth trails generally are going from valley bottoms to passes without a great amount of up and down in between.

I’ve hiked thousands of miles in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and western Maine as well as most of the Appalachian Trail through New England—it was where I first started hiking and I get back there almost every year—and I’m sure you’ll agree with me after your Sawtooths trip and after exploring more of the West that the Whites are, step for step, steeper, rockier, and harder than trails in mountains like the Sawtooths and others in the West. I don’t think you’ll find this hike in the Sawtooth as hard as Grafton Notch, which I have hiked.

Enjoy the Sawtooths! Thanks for the question and get in touch anytime.

I do have one question that I hope you can clarify. You’ve listed the approximate cumulative elevation gain/loss as 16,000 feet. I have found nearly the same trail on a different site and it has the elevation gain of around 6,500 feet. Is there a difference in calculating the cumulative elevation gain/loss versus what the other site labels as just elevation gain? I’m asking because we took a backpacking trip through the White Mountains of Maine (Grafton Notch Loop) that had an elevation gain listed by that website of 11,000 feet that we considered to be pretty difficult. If this trail is 16,000 feet of elevation gain then it may prove to be too difficult for us.

Thanks in advance for any clarification you can provide.

Thanks for sharing that, Don. I certainly agree with you.

Scenery is unparalleled. Now live in Arkansas. Nothing seems close to Idaho’s mountains. Husband hiked, fished &amp camped in Sawtooths many times. We think about that area a lot.