It was the last day my wife and I would be spending in Las Vegas. She was scheduled to fly back to San Jose in the evening after more volleyball reffing, while I was heading back to California on the road. We planned to meet up again the following weekend in Huntington Beach, so I had 5-6 days to make my way across the state. I was up early to beat the LA traffic leaving Las Vegas and made my way to the Mojave National Preserve with plans to tackle a handful of summits along the Lanfair-Ivanpah Rd. Much of the day would be spent driving from one remote location to the next, sort of planned that way to give my feet more rest time. I enjoyed the random driving around obscure desert roads looking for similarly obscure peaks, both good fun. Three of the hikes were pretty short at less than a mile round trip, but even the other two were only 2-4mi in length.
Barnwell BM
This local highpoint is found a mile and a quarter east of Barnwell at the junction of Ivanpah Rd and Hart Mine Rd. If there's half a dozen folks living in this run-down rural enclave, I'd be surprised.
The hike
off Hart Mine Rd is less than half a mile to 
the summit. Barbara Lilley
had left a register here 
in 2014 on one of her last sorties. Mine was
the only signature, a neat little
feat that would be repeated a few more times today as I chased her ghost around
Lanfair Valley.
Castle Mountain
Named by Purcell in his Rambles & Scrambles, this is the 3rd highest summit in the range. This was mostly a driving exercise, more than 10mi from Ivanpah Rd, with a rough Jeep road leading up to
a high saddle a quarter mile
from the summit. The summit is quite imposing
from the west, with volcanic
cliffs acting as high ramparts surrounding the top. The southeast side is
easy class 2, but there are several fun 
class 3 routes up
the west side. I went
up one of these and down another. Finding no register at the top, I
left one of
my own. I was hoping to be able to use some obscure roads to get between Hart
Mine Rd and the Piute Range to the south, my next stop.
The Jeeps navigation system found
a likely route which I attempted to follow, but it led through private property
and along non-existent roads, ignoring other perfectly good roads. After some
frustration, I gave up and drove back out to Ivanpah Rd, taking the looong way
between the two sites.
Piute Range HP / Ute BM
This diminutive range is obscure and isolated and has little to recommend it. It consists of a single, low ridgeline, 12mi in length, running north to south. The highpoint is somewhat up for debate with two point separated by 2/3mi vying for the honors. Loj has the flattish, north summit as the highpoint, as determined by John Vitz. PB has Ute BM as the highpoint, this one determined by Richard Carey. Both of these veteran peakbaggers are usually pretty good about such things, so I figured I better visit both. A good deal more driving east from Ivanpah Rd got me to the
west side
of the range and the north summit. I hiked up from there over
mellow terrain, all class 2. There is an old road that reaches
the north summit from the north, no longer open to vehicle traffic as
much of the range is now within
the Mojave Wilderness. I found no register among
the highest rocks. Looking
south, Ute BM appears to be obviously higher, though this is often an optical
illusion. I took a GPS reading and headed over to the south summit, a nice
little stroll with only a modest amount of elevation loss
between them. My
second GPS reading at the south summit showed it to be 10ft higher. There was
a Gordon/Barbara register here 
from 1993.
There were several entries from folks
who sighted the two summits and said that Ute BM is "clearly" higher. I
don't know about it being obvious, but I would concur that Ute BM is probably
the range HP. The benchmark was buried under an enormous summit cairn, but
I did find one of the 
reference marks
before 
heading back down. The round trip
effort too just under 2hrs, the longest outing of the day.
Eagle Mountain
This is a short, easy hike to the highpoint of Lanfair Buttes, a small collection of hills a few miles east of Ivanpah Rd near Lanfair (another tiny desert community). My first effort to reach it was stopped by a home blocking the road and signed for No Trepassing. I found a little-used road to the south that went around his property, sort-of. There were more No Trespassing signs on the east side of his property that I went past, but there was no gate blocking the road this time. I
parked just east of Eagle Well and hiked
the 
short distance to 
the summit. Barbara had left a register
here 
in 2011 and again mine was the only other entry.
Grotto Hills
This slightly larger collection of hills is due west of Eagle Mountain on the west side of Ivanpah Rd. No access issues for this one. I was able to drive a rough road into the
small valley
between the west and east highpoints, but it
would be nearly as easy to simply hike them from Ivanpah Rd (which any vehicle
can drive, indeed the van has been on it several times). It took less than an
hour and a half to cover both summits in a triangle pattern. I went to the
further and higher west summit first, finding a large 3-foot
snake that
skitted away before I could get a good pic. It wasn't a rattlesnake, that's
about all I could determine. There is 
a benchmark
marked "LEDGE" and a Richard Carey register 
from 2006. Lilley was here
in 2011. The 
east summit featured the third Lilley register
that I found with no additional entries, this one also 
from 2011. Nice!
I finished up shortly before 5p, showered, and headed to Needles where I would get dinner and spend the night. More CA desert fun tomorrow...
Continued...