The Great American Eclipse occurred in The Sawtooth Wilderness in partial and full forms between 10:12:11AM and 12:52:19PM Mountain Time. Those anal astronomers had pinpointed the viewing period down to the fractions of a second, and we had traveled a long way to see it so we didn’t want to miss a minute of it. Frank was our timekeeper to ensure we were looking up straight into the sun to see it start to disappear.
LOOKING AHEAD
Several hours before we were standing on a mountaintop doing what our mother’s always told us not to do, we were waking up near Rendezvous Lake with great anticipation. We only had a vague idea of where we were going to witness the eclipse and unsure of how long it was going to take us. So our goal was to be walking out of camp by 7:30-8 to give us at least 2 hours to get to our viewing spot. We had to hike up at least one mountain pass then continue off trail up a ridge to find a nice flat spot to hang out and watch the eclipse. We either didn’t have that far to go or the adrenaline pushed us up the mountain faster than expected, but we found our viewing location a little after 9AM giving us an hour to hang out before the show started.
We climbed up the closest ridge after hiking up the mountain pass, reached a nice patch of land that leveled out enough for 6 guys to lay about and found 3 other men who had already beaten us up the ridge. We came up on them and asked to join their party. They not so politely pointed along the ridge and said we can get higher if we continue on the narrow ridge to its peak. While we may have been able to gain a few extra feet of elevation if we continued, the ridge narrowed where we would all have to stand in a line if we didn’t want to be slipping down the side of a mountain. I’m pretty sure all of us in the Fellowship were absolutely fine with viewing the eclipse with more people but this group had different ideas and thought we would ruin their experience. As the next group of people behind us climbed the ridge to join us, the three original guys picked up their packs to head back down the ridge to a lower point to be alone. We thought there was enough sun for all of us but apparently not.
We were not at the highest point in the Sawtooths but we were atop a ridge splitting two mountain valleys and we could look across to several mountain tops feeling like we did our best to get to a remote location. As the eclipse approached we could see more and more moving silhouettes across the valley climbing up neighboring ridges and peaks. We were all trying to ascend the Sawtooths to find our own private Idaho.
Over the next hour about 8 more people joined us on our ridge. Two couples from Idaho and a group of recent James Madison University grads from the East Coast. Frank, a JMU Duke himself, made the connection and the 12+ of us hung out, conversed, swapped camping stories waiting for the show to start. KT informed the group of the unique things we will be able to see during the eclipse such as Shadow Bands and Baily’s Beads. One of the JMU grads, we’ll call him Craig, responded by saying that he hopes he’ll be able to see the Moon’s shadow sweep across the landscape.
“I don’t want to miss that.” Craig said, “How do you think we will see that? What will it look like?” I think we all stood there a little confused then finally without trying not to sound too condescending somebody told him that I don’t think he’ll miss the moon’s shadow. Craig was still apprehensive.
LOOKING UP
When you look up at the sun with your ANSI standard certified eclipse glasses all you see is black with an orange dot as the sun. You don’t see any rays. It is a perfect circle. No halo of light surrounding the circle. It is a bizarre sight and you have to constantly take your glasses off to regain your sense of your surroundings. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE WITH YOUR ECLIPSE GLASSES ON. YOU WILL TRIP AND FALL.
Frank looked down at his watch, and relayed to us that the eclipse was supposed to be starting, but it was hard to believe anything was about to happen. Not sure what we were all expecting but it appeared to be a normal, beautiful sunlit Idaho morning. As soon as Frank voiced his disbelief of the impending eclipse, I looked up and on the edge of the orange circle, I saw the tiniest arc of black where orange should have been. As if an mouse had taken a miniscule bite out of wheel of cheese. Everyone looked up in amazement as we watched the black arc continue to expand and take over the circle. If you weren’t looking through the eclipse glasses, you would have never known what was happening. It didn’t get any darker. There was no shadow or anything. We watched the sun over the next 45 minutes turn from an orange circle, to a “Pac-Man” sun, to a crescent sun, to a banana sun then to a sliver of light.
The first thing everyone noticed was the temperature drop. For the first two hours on that ridge, we were basking in warm sunlight but as the moon covered the sun by more than 60% we all put our glasses down to grab our jackets from our packs. You still couldn’t tell by looking around an eclipse was occurring but you could definitely feel it. At around 95% coverage you could finally see the shadow of the moon overtake us and start to shade us. Then, looking through the glasses, everything went black. Where did the sun go? Everyone stopped talking. The animals went silent. I took off my glasses looked up at the sun and saw an awe-inspiring ring of diamond white completely encircling the black obstructing moon. The white ring burned against the sky as you stare in confusion of what exactly you are looking at. No sun, no rays, no light, just a white ring. It was mesmerizing, beautiful and confounding. For a couple seconds everyone stared in silence… Then, we all rejoiced at the unbelievable sight. Our ridge screamed out in celebration and we could hear the joyous screams carry across the valley from the neighboring mountaintops.
As you looked down on the valleys around us and out towards the horizons the moon’s shadow blanketed the Idaho landscape with just a hint of light far out on the edge of the horizon. Perched up on our ridge, we could see our 360 degree sunrise. It appeared as if the sun was rising up around us from all sides. Of all the sensations during the eclipse, the warm hue of orange yellow light touching the Horizon encircling us was the most bizarre.
The blazing ring burned above us for 124 seconds, from 11:28:16AM to 11:30:20AM (https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/map/2017-august-21#). Somewhere in between the dumb-struck staring, the celebration and being reminded by others not to stare at the sun for 2 straight minutes I was able to capture this image. I wish I had my longer lens with me but I don’t normally carry it with me on backpacking trips. Considering I wasn’t planning on taking any pictures during totality and it was a last second decision, I thought it came out pretty well.
We basked in the moon’s shadow trying to take everything in and capture it to our memory knowing it will soon be gone. Then just as it appeared, it disappeared again. We put our glasses back on and a yellow/orange sliver of the sun was visible and sunlight poured over the wilderness. First, in faint, shallow power as if behind a cloud then quickly the full power of the sun was on top of us. Again you wouldn’t realize an eclipse was even occurring.
As everyone started talking and packing up there things I could here Craig say he didn’t see the moon’s shadow. Did anyone see it? Where was it? Maybe he expected a shadow puppet of the moon projected on the ground in front of him. I guess he was disappointed. Sorry, Craig.
We stayed on top of the ridge watching the sun waxing (Not sure if you can use that term for the sun) for a little bit but as we still had several hours of hiking to do and it was approaching noon we had to get a move on.
(I stopped about 45 minutes later on the trail and watched the final silhouette of the moon disappear from the face of the sun)
LOOKING BACK
It was an amazing, beautiful and surreal experience. While the viewing itself was amazing, the entire experience was more than I could have hoped. In the middle of nowhere after several days of hiking with great friends made the eclipse exponentially more enjoyable and memorable. While frequenters of the Northwest wilds continued to say how crowded the trails were, it still seemed incredibly remote and intimate to me. It was way better than being on a rooftop or crowded parking lot or side of a road to view it. Thank you to KFisch for getting us all to the top of that ridge on a cloudless day to see that ring of fire.
Great post!