Continued...
I awoke soon after 5a and had trouble getting back to sleep. I had gone to bed
early the night before, around 9a, in my quiet camp spot in Lake Mead NRA. I was
to meet Zach at 7a a few miles away and it seemed too early to get up. For 45min
I tossed and turned and then fell asleep again. The next thing I knew it was
6:50a and I bolted upright. Aackk! I'm late! I raced to get my act together and
drive to the TH, arriving in my PJs exactly at 7a. Zach had been there earlier
and was just driving back after checking another parking area up the road when
I arrived. I apologized profusely but Zach took it in stride. I hate being
late. We were here in Nevada east of Las Vegas to tag a handful of summits in
an area neither of us had visited before. I picked them from a variety of
sources. There were three different hikes, a nice selection of what the
area has to offer. We even added additional bonus peaks since we were doing so
well on time. Still, we barely scratched the surface of the fun that can be had
here, a bonanza of rugged limestone, sandstone and volcanic peaks that could
keep one busy for months.
Northshore/Northshore South
Our parking location was a turnout on Northshore Rd, about 1/3mi from our
summit. On paper it looks like a quick hike, but the metric topo map doesn't
show the formidable cliffs that ring this side of Northshore Peak. Hmmm, we
needed another strategy. Zach had already checked on SummitPost and Purcell's
guidebook confirmed that the saner way to climb this is along the Northeast
Ridge starting from a TH parking another mile up the road. We left Zach's Camry
and carpooled in the van to the other parking area and started
. It's a nice climb once one has gained
from which there are swell views off both sides - the firey red
with the Muddy Mtns behind it to the right and Lake Mead
to the left. I was not surprised to see ducks their fine summit selections
without a ducked route. There is a short step along the ridge, easy class 3,
otherwise your standard class 2 desert . As the highest peak
between Northshore Rd and Lake Mead, it is a P1K, the most prominent of the
day's summits. We found a busy as expected, filled with
entries from 52Peaks parties. I checked my GPSr and noted Northshore Peak West
less than half a mile in that direction. Should we head over there? Zach was
game though he noted Purcell described it as a choss pile. We followed
to the southwest, finding a good scramble on
solid limestone, wondering why Purcell had given it a poor rating. It wasn't
until I checked my GPSr again at the second summit that I noticed we'd climbed
the wrong one, sort of. We'd actually climbed what PB calls
and is
the obvious bonus I had looked at from Northshore Peak. Northshore West turns
out to be a standalone peak now to the northwest of us and it did indeed look
like a talus heap - we would skip that one even though we walked right by it on
our way back to the highway. We the exceedingly steep NW
Ridge off Northshore South, finding it about as spicey as we'd have comfortably
liked (ok, perhaps a bit
uncomfortably). Despite
and some loose rock, we made it to the saddle between
Northshore South and West. From
there we followed an easy wash back to the road and the then along the road
to Zach's car only a third of a mile away.
Hamblin/Hamblin West/Hamblin Butte
A little 9a, we were doing well on time. Hamlin Mountain, found in Zdon's
Desert Summits, would be the longest hike of the day. We reparked the
cars several miles west along the road at another turnout on the north side.
Directly south is a stake marking the start of a trail
we knew nothing about, but conveniently leads to the Hamblin's summit in about
3mi. is unsigned at the start and it is easy to lose in
that it follows or crosses, but for the most part it's
pretty darn good. to in a bit more than an
hour, it wasn't yet 11a. after signing the register and taking our share of pics
(really nice views of from the top), we decided to head off
for less than half a mile away along a connecting ridge.
The from this second summit were even better, the
scrambling decent and less popular. I pointed out Hamblin
Butte another mile and a half to , sort of on our way
back to the road. Not surprisingly, Zach was game to tag that one, too. We
dropped off what I thought was a connecting ridgeline to Hamlin Butte, but is
really just Hamlin's steep . We had to drop all the way
to where a wash separates the two peaks, then climb up the
south side of Hamlin Butte. This turned out to have the
of the day, a fine bit of solid volcanic , especially in
the lower half. rolls off and is more broken, tame class 2, but
we both enjoyed the line we had ascended. We found another
here, also with few entries, though like all the registers we found today, none
went back more than about a decade. The descent off of
Hamlin Butte went well, in the cliffband was easy to
find. Back down on easier terrain, we followed a pleasant wash up an easy
gradient before returning to the road about a quarter mile from our cars.
Anniversary West/Anniversary Narrows
After moving our cars a few miles yet again, Zach decided he was getting tired
and needed a break. Not tired from climbing, but rather a lack of sleep. He was
running on only a few hours sleep after driving out from Fresno during the
night and needed a nap. He drove back to Las Vegas while I drove up the
Anniversary Mine Rd to near the Anniversary Narrows Trailhead. I didn't make
it to the trailhead, seems I didn't read the map too well on this one, and
ended up at the Anniversary Mine instead. Though signed for Private Property andNo Trespassing, it seems the mine has been abandoned, maybe. A gate was askew
and I simply drove in, past what looks like the and
up to the edge of Anniversary Narrows, a small gap through
which Lowell Wash flows. Occasionally, anyway. The TH is actually on the west
side of the narrows while I was on the east side. Rather than drop down and
follow Purcell's route through the narrows and then up the west side of the
peak, I decided to try and follow directly, up and over a
on the way. It was a bit tricky with some class 3-4
downclimbs through , but it paid off and worked nicely, with
some fun limestone slab scrambing thrown in for fun. I used up most of the
available daylight on this one, taking almost 2hrs to go 1.5mi to
of Anniversary Narrows Peak. There was another 52Peaks
register here, busy as expected. I had found no register on Anniversary West,
so had there, or at least tried to. Seems I was a bit
premature and left it on a lower bump further west - maybe someone finding that
one can move it to
the higher summit (which on PB is oddly named "Mean Gene Peak"). To speed the
return, I dropped directly to the southwest from the summit, easy going at the
top and bottom, but with some fun & tricky scrambling down a steep drainage
in the middle. I eventually returned to the mine site after traversing the base
of the ridge, getting myself back to the van by 5p - using up just about all
the available daylight today...
Continued...