Continued...
Red Needle
It was grudge match time. TomG and I had visited Red Needle a few months
earlier without any climbing gear, knowing it was a difficult summit. It was
mostly a recon visit, and we backed off after examining the crux up close.
Today we would come back with rope and gear to do things properly. This
volcanic needle, composed of loose, conglomerate material, sits on a sandstone
base and is located on the east side of Las Vegas, northwest of Lake Las Vegas.
The first known ascent was by Bob Cable and partner in 1999. In an email
exchange, Bob had shared a hand-drawn topo he'd made of it, but didn't remember
much detail after more than 20yrs. I'd been wanting to meet Bob ever since I'd
found he'd made an ascent of Monument Peak in the Whipple Mtns. His name is
found ubiquitously in the registers throughout the Las Vegas area, so I figured
he was a local
and invited him to join our crew. I was happy when he accepted the offer despite
very short notice (like me, he's retired with a very flexible schedule), and
agreed to meet us in the morning at our rendevous point at Terrazza Park.
He was a fine addition to our usual group and we all enjoyed his company a
great deal. He seemed to be having fun as well, and happily joined us on a few
bonus peaks afterwards.
Six of us piled into the two Jeeps at Terrazza Park and drove the 15min or so
on the non-obvious route from the south to reach it (there are actually two way
to get there from the south, the GPX track has our exit route which doesn't work
if the gate at Lake Las Vegas Pkwy is locked). We under one of
the transmission towers that run past Red Needle on the east side, less than a
ten minute from of . There are
even closer places one can
drive to, but the additional effort hardly seems necessary. In his book,
Rambles & Scrambles, Purcell states, "It's not reasonable to climb
the feature without the use of aid", a bold but untrue statement. Bob had
climbed it on the first ascent without aid and gave it a 5.7 rating, though
that may be a bit sandbagged. Our plan was to have TomG lead the route,
particularly the crux at the crumbly, vertical crack, the others to follow
in turn. I knew that I wasn't going to be able to climb the crack from our
previous visit, so I brought along a couple sets of ascenders to help with that
part. TomG had also brought along his drone for some possible footage of the
climb. Beyond that, there wasn't much discussion beside TomG explaining to
Patrick how to fly . I wandered up to the start of the crack
using to the right of the spooky class 3-4 step
described by Purcell, TomB , and waited for the others to
join. With Iris belaying, went fairly quickly, taking TomG
about 15min to make his way to (about 40ft up), most of that
spent placing a few pieces of pro to protect the crux and then surmounting it.
Patrick, never having flown a drone before, did what I thought was a remarkable
job of manuevering the thing to capture much of TomG's efforts.
Once TomG had established an anchor at the summit, I second
using the prussik slings I had brought, aided by a pair of TomG's ascenders.
There was some more drone footage of this 15min effort, then the drone went
silent - seems the batteries in the controller wore out and without additional
training on how to correct it, that was the end of the drone. The summit area
is small and filled with loose material. TomG was belaying from
the highpoint, so I sat as still as I could manage at the
summit while in a similar fashion. came up
fourth, freeing through the crux in fine style, taking half the time that TomB
or I took. With at the summit now, that was about as much
room as could be had without ovestressing the load limits (or more accurately,
the space limitations). TomB was the ascent route to
make room for to . Like Iris, he chose to do the
climb free, though he had a bit more trouble and ended up with some
. This provided some amusement/concern, but he seemed none
the worse for the wear and was in good spirits. Patrick decided not to join us,
so all that was left was to get four of us back off the summit along with most
of our gear. It was decided to have the rest of us rappel off the SE side to
make it easier to pull the rope. TomG and I had looked at this side on our
previous visit as a possible alternate way up. If it weren't for the loose
nature of the conglomerate rock, TomG thought it could be better.
first on a single strand of the rope while TomB belayed
with the other strand as back up. After this, TomG reset the rope for a double
strand rappel that , , and used in
turn, all down . It was close to 11a by the time TomG
finished up the rappel and had coiled the rope, and by 11:15a we were all
with our gear.
Pinnacle
TomG and I had visited this one was on that first visit, but since it was
such a nice scramble, we insisted we should all do it again. After all, it's
only a few minutes south of Red Needle. We moved the Jeeps and ourselves to an
easier starting point on , from
there. the group up without a shred of beta on where
to go. She wandered up to the north side to look it over (the standard route
goes up the east side). Behind her, TomG and I thought what came to be known as
would make for an interesting start, so up we went.
It was steep but solid scrambling that quickly rejoins the standard route.
Patrick would join the three of us on while TomB and
dispensed with the nonsense and zipped up the east side to pass
us rather easily. Still, it was less than 20min from the car to get all six of
us to . We signed , took some photos of
from our vantage point, and headed back down
.
Hummel Peak
BobC must have been enjoying his time with us since he offered up another
nearby peak we could climb, rather than bolt back to Las Vegas when he had the
chance. Hummel Peak is a PB-only summit about half a mile south of Pinnacle.
There is a trail going to the summit from Terrazza Park, about
2mi in length. We could have made this considerably shorter by starting from the
dirt road we exited on, but we were back at the park before this was fully
realized. No matter, it makes for a very pleasant walk, and appears quite
popular - there were a half dozen other parties we came upon enroute. The first
half mile of the route is a paved path, first going over Las Vegas Wash (the
treated outflow of the city on its way back to Lake Mead)
before forking off onto . It took us about 40min to reach
with views of Lake Las Vegas and the expected American flag
found at any Nevada summit with a trail going to it. An ammo box held a busy
geocache. We had at the top for snacks and views before
to the park in a similar amount of time. A child at
heart, Iris couldn't help some of the park features upon
.
Peak 2,740ft
That was enough for BobC, Patrick and TomB. While BobC headed home, the latter
two headed to Patrick's hotel in Henderson for showers. It wasn't yet 3p and I
thought there was time for a few more summits. Iris and TomG seemed to agree.
We dropped TomG's truck off at a Chevron along E Lake Mead Pkwy, then took the
Jeep into the River Mtns south of Lake Las Vegas. I had been to the River Mtns
on several previous occasions, most recently with Iris and Tom back in December
to the southern part of the range. I was interested in a couple of unnamed
summits of minor consequence, and offered up the range HP (a summit I visited
in 2016) as enticement to the others. In perusing the satellite views, I had
found a Jeep trail that would get us close to the summits, and I found it a fun
driving exercise, too. The route from the nearby neighborhoods is completely
unsigned until one enters
, but the satellite view had served
well in identifying a way to reach it. We parked less than a quarter mile from
Peak 2,740ft on , and took less than 15min to climb
to the summit over easy terrain. There is and
that contains advertisements for the idea that the covid
vaccine is the Mark of the
Beast prophesized in the Book of Revelation - heady stuff, but we had another
peak to visit before we could ponder such things.
Peak 3,620ft
With time running low, we returned to the Jeep and drove another 20min to the
end of the road near the crest of the range where a transmission line runs over
it. It took about 10min for the three of us to to
with a
view of Lake Mead. Peak 3,620ft was about 1/3mi , the
range HP about 3/4mi to the south. Iris turned south to begin that one on her
own while Tom and I went up to Peak 3,620ft along the easy gradient of
. It took us only 15min to reach ,
whereupon Tom turned to with Iris on her way to River
Mountain BM. I took a more leisurely pace to the Jeep, returning
there by 4:30p. I hung out in the fading sun for about 40min
before the two of them were through. It would be fairly dark on the drive back
out, but we'd made the most of the day's remaining light. I drove them back to
Tom's truck and then headed back to the Travelodge in Las Vegas where I was
staying with my wife for the weekend...
Video of BobB prussiking crux
Continued...