Spring Nevada trip

On the road again.

Tom had a list of peaks to try, and I was my usual blissfully-ignorant and unprepared self. But I 'remembered the Alamo' from previous trips. So I knew where I was, and even remembered that you can't get beer there.

Badger Peak

The next morning dawned clear and cool. After looking for Tom's allegedly missing glasses for 30 minutes (this getting old stuff is increasingly painful), we headed up the long dirt road, which then turned to a mostly snow floor.... Tom was brave enough to drive all the way to the trailhead, where we successfully turned around. With a downhill escape established, we were ready to try our peaks. Originally, there were two on the list from this location. But first, let's try Badger Peak, which was showing dry slopes above.

The snow was supportive, and then we were on classic steep, desert baseball hiking.

It wasn't really all that warm, maybe 45 or 50, but Ruby wasn't used to this.

When we got to the top of the ridge, we found the topo had not lied; we could either go left around this drainage in snow the whole way, or drop down and ascend the mostly-bare ridge on the other side. Our summit is on the far right.

Oh, what's another couple hundred feet of elevation gain? Twice, of course.

We post-holed our way down the snowy hillside, me wishing I had left my gaiters in my pack (instead of the car). As we finally approached the summit ridge, we were once again in the snow.

Top.

It had been a lot more work than we expected, and we had that snowy return posthole ahead of us. After some discussion, we decided to skip our second peak, Tikaboo, and instead lounge in the sun and soak up the views.

All good things must come to an end, so we did eventually head back. Approaching the car, we found calm air and warm temperatures. Ruby took frequent breaks. And the hillside, with melting snow patches all over, was like walking in pudding. I wonder how the road will be?

Map

3.0 miles, 1928' gain, 3:47 car-to-car

Red Ridge

As it turned out, the road was a little gushy. We left some tracks, but mostly not deeper than an inch. As they dry out, we think they'll disappear. We hope.

Tikaboo, our other peak on the list, would have been one endless session of postholing, so we opted to instead try this peak, which we dubbed Red Ridge. It was redder-looking in real life.

Our route started way off on the left (north) in an alcove of boulders. It wasn't clear we could get through, but it was a place to try and looked interesting.

Ruby led us right through the Class 4 stuff.

There was probably easier terrain, but that would have involved attacking some pretty stiff and prickly vegetation.

Above the boulders, the hillside opened up to more boulders.

And then we were atop the ridge proper. Here, the walking was pretty good except don't try to walk in a straight line.

The summit is the far end of the farther bump (of course!).

We went straight up the nose of the first bump, enjoying classic desert foreshortening: what appeared to be a very steep and tall ridge was Class 2 and maybe 60 feet tall.

Then do something similar to get onto the second bump.

Tom standing at what we think was the highpoint. Note the old survey stuff.

I made Tom do a silly loop on the way back to the car. He had some choice words for me.

Map

2.7 miles, 933' gain, 2:26 car-to-car

Peak 6176

When he decided to drive to this summit, and I got out to claim my summit without any climbing, I responded to his previous comments about my loop by proclaiming "I feel so dirty."

Then we jumped back in the car and headed for our room in Boulder City. It was dark before we got there (it gets dark early here, like about 5:30), but we avoided the really bad traffic through Vegas. And the motel guy made an excellent suggestion of the local brewpub for dinner.

Map

0 miles, 0' gain, 0:00 car-to-car

Northshore Peak

The next morning we used our old-fart passes to gain free entrance to Lake Mead National Recreation Area. The weather was near perfect; clear, warm, and just a light breeze. Up higher we found the stiffer wind welcome to help us deal with "the heat" (it was something close to 70°).

From the trailhead, there's Northshore. With the summit on the far end, of course.

Summit.

If I look a little red, that was from yesterday's grilling on the snow.

Map

2.3 miles, 1019' gain, 2:17 car-to-car

Glyph Peak

We were both in the sight-seeing mode, so we drove further east on the road, visiting several arms of Lake Mead and a load of rock and dirt.

Then we returned to try Glyph Peak. Steep and loose, with several options. We went for the gravel tongue right of the middle cliff band.

Ruby's feet were a little sore, but she was still having fun playing on the summit rocks.

Then we drove back to Boulder City.

Map

0.9 miles, 481' gain, 1:00 car-to-car

Red Mountain

This peak sits right above town. So close and obvious, in fact, that I forgot to take a picture of it.

So here we are after parking at the upper trailhead. The road continues to the summit, but it's gated and locked. We opted for the trail.

Map

0.8 miles, 282' gain, 0:34 car-to-car

Cima Dome

We had several options for Friday, but our choice was affected by the change in the weather prediction. Instead of sun, there was rain on the way for Saturday. With now somewhat limited time, I pushed to go see the Mojave Desert. This required a longer drive, but was full of interesting stuff.

So today, we were going after Cima Dome, which is supposed to be the most symmetric dome in the US, or something like that. 10 miles across, too. You couldn't really tell we were hiking to a highpoint except that it was uphill. We started out bushwacking across the hillside, heading for what the map showed as a trail.

Summit. Not exactly sharp and pointy.

But actually, pretty good views.

Map

4.5 miles, 632' gain, 2:17 car-to-car

Teutonia Peak

This picture of our next objective was taken during our return from Cima Dome. Looks cool- let's do it!

Then we were supposed to follow a "trough". I didn't see anything that met the definition of trough as I understood it.

We eventually chose a gully that looked like it would get us to the ridge top. Just short of the top it got un-Ruby-friendly, but we were able to traverse to the next gully over. That worked. But once again put us in terrain that was not Ruby-appropriate.

From this point, there was no further description of the route, except that it was "involved". Not very helpful. 'Trough', indeed!

So I tied Ruby to my pack, told her to stay, and started exploring. After one wrong turn, I followed Tom down this notch.

At the bottom of the notch, a broad flat area offered routes to several possibilities. Tom went left and I right. After a few minutes of inspection, I decided that the only thing on my side of the mountain would require some very scary downclimbing. No go.

Tom found another possibility, but didn't like the exposure. No wonder. But I gave it a go and got most of the way.

Too bad. If I had crossed the gap, this is all that was left to the summit.

Oh well, it had been a fun explore.

In retrospect, I think there might have been a way across the narrower end of the gap off to the right. More exposed climbing, but I didn't fully inspect it. With regrets we started back.

When we got back to her after maybe 20 minutes, Ruby was laying patiently in the shade. She's such a good dog.

As we made our way back, it occurred to me that the reason the guide book was so vague (and I'm pretty sure here) was that the author had never done this climb!

Map

2.6 miles, 747' gain, 2:11 car-to-car

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