Continued...
I was on my way home from a multi-week visit to Colorado, following SR21 across
western Utah and US50 through most of Nevada. I was looking for mostly easy P2Ks
I could tag along the way, finding four that fit the bill nicely. The
combination stretched for 300mi across the two states with far more driving that
actual hiking. Two, in fact, were complete drive-ups, no need to get out of the
car at all. Still, I managed almost 4,000ft of gain in almost seven miles of
hiking on the other two, so it wasn't a completely effortless day.
Frisco Peak
Frisco Peak is the highpoint of the San Francisco Mountains in Western Utah,
topped by an array of telecom towers with a road reaching to the summit. An
excellent dirt road runs for nine miles off SR21, southeast of the range, that
can be driven by any vehicle. The road grows increasingly rough after this,
the last three miles requiring high-clearance and perhaps 4WD in the steepest
parts. I had driven to the summit the previous evening after sunset with a
spectacular lightning storm lighting up the night sky. The storm had kept to
the west of the range during the drive such that I had no rain at all, but it
moved overhead shortly after I had bedded down for the night in the back of the
jeep. I slept snuggly inside, smug in the knowledge that I was dry and warm
while it was raining outside on and off, sometimes quite strongly. Rather than
keeping me awake, the flashes of light and sounds of thunder seemed to help me
drift more quickly off to sleep. In the morning the storm had ended but the sky
remained mostly overcast as I got out to inspect and
take a few pictures. The storm kept mostly hazy and dark and
there was really little to recommend of the summit with all the utility
buildings and towers. The storm more
as I was making my way back down the mountain, leaving partly cloudy skies for
the rest of the day and clear skies by evening.
North Wah Wah Mountains HP
14mi to the west of the San Francisco Mtns, across Wah Wah Valley, rises the
much larger (though lower) Wah Wah Mtns. The range has a pair of P2Ks, one to
the north and one to the south of SR21. The
is only a few miles
north of where SR21 goes over Wah Wah Summit and an old dirt road can be used
to make the effort about 1.5mi each way, with about 2,000ft of gain. Hardly
what can be considered a drive-up, but not all that much work either.
High-clearance is needed for the extra mile of dirt road from the highway, but
it's not much harder if one simply starts .
Despite at least one TR on PB describing difficult bushwhacking, there were only
a few places, all quite short, that had any sort of brushiness. Maybe this
depends on your route-finding choices and I got lucky, so who knows. Most of the
cross-country travel here is through dotted with junipers
and is pretty easy at the start. On the ascent I headed in a NNW direction,
on the SW Ridge that looked to avoid the cliffs on
the more direct approach from the south. Once at this ridge, I found
too steep and difficult, so I moved to the left
(northwest) side of the ridgeline and made my way up through various breaks I
could find. It turned out to be more difficult than the alternatives and I
wouldn't recommend it to others, even if it had a few occasional sections of
interesting scrambling. to close in on
me as I made my way up and the views would be marginal for the remainder of the
hike. Once I reached ,
the gradient eased off and the
scrambling turned to easy ridge walking as I made my way along it towards the
summit, about 1/3mi further north. It took about an hour and ten minutes to
reach
where I found a red can (probably courtesy Richard Carey) holding a register
originally placed by MacLeod/Lilley . The sixteen
pages of entries were almost all taken up by the usual prominence suspects, mine
was the second entry .
For the descent I decided to take the more usual, direct route off
which I found far easier. It was not hard
to find a way down through with some easy
.
The gullies held more brush than other places, so I simply moved out of these
if I found myself working extra to get around stuff. The return took less than
50min, getting me by 9:40a.
Mt. Hamilton
I had done well to claim two P2Ks before 10a, but so far I hadn't done much
driving towards California at all. Now seemed a good time to start. I ignored
closer objectives as I drove into Nevada and past Great Basin NP on US50,
finding Mt. Hamilton located in the center of the state. It's found south of
US50 between Ely and Eureka, a fairly long drive from the highway. Dean Gaudet's
driving track from PB was quite helpful, allowing me to use the eastern
approach on the way in and northern approach on the way out, saving some
extra miles. Most of the roads are in
that any car with moderate clearance can manage. Beyond an
, the road and
rougher, with several forks that make it helpful to know where to go ahead of
time since it wasn't obvious just from ground observations.
I had high hopes that the jeep would allow me to drive further
than others had managed, but came up short. I ignored the suggestion to park
lower and endured some moderate to heavy brushwhacking. Eventually I found
small aspens blocking portions of the road, possibly due to an avalanche back
in the winter. Rather than futz with a handsaw cutting them back, I
below
where others had managed and hiked up from there, less than 4mi roundtrip and
about 1,800ft of gain. I followed the remaining
up to its end,
then scrambled up the ridge to the main crest (called Pogonip Ridge) and the
slightly lower .
From there it's an easy walk to about half a mile away,
along the class 1-2 ridgeline. I found some
on both summits, not sure if they're still being used. The highpoint
had another busy register left . Gordon & Barbara were a few
years late getting to this one, recording their own entry .
I spent an hour and a
half on the hike, returning by pretty much the same route. The road out to the
north was better than the eastern approach, for what it's worth.
Fairview Peak
Several more hours got me further west along US50 where
is found
about 25mi southeast of Fallon. This one is a drive-up, though
lasts only as far as the base of the mountain, after which high-clearance is
needed and probably 4WD. It then becomes rough and steep as it climbs the east
side of the mountain before following to
the summit at the far end. There are two other easy
on this ridge
with more than 300ft of prominence and with more time I would undoubtedly have
visited them. As it was nearing sunset and I didn't want to do the drive back
down the mountain in the dark, I skipped them. The road leads to a collection
of telecom towers and utility sheds with easily
accessible
without the need to jump any fences. In hindsight, I probably could have added
the bonus peaks and still gotten down before dark, but I think I was pretty
tired by this time and hungry, too. I drove into Fallon where I got dinner and
worked out a plan for a last summit before driving home in the morning. I then
drove part of the way to Fernley before pulling over on quiet dirt spur to
spend the night...
Continued...