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I had half a day until was time to pick up my wife, my cousin and his wife at the Las Vegas airport in the early afternoon. I was an hour south near Searchlight, not at all where I had planned to be, originally. After finishing up the previous day in California, I called an audible and decided to get dinner in Searchlight and then do so peaks in the area the next morning. The main draw was that it would be quieter here than along Interstate 15 somewhere. This turned out to not be true at all. US95 runs between Searchlight and Las Vegas, with a speed limit of 75mph that even the trucks could legally drive. I underestimated the amount of truck traffic along this route as well, and combined with the higher speeds, I don't think it's any quieter. I camped about 2/3mi from the highway which gave me decent sleep, but the road noise would be audible for most of the hiking I did today, even when I was several miles from it. All of the peaks can be found in Purcell's Rambles & Scrambles. Today's included some very oddly named ones, but he offered no explanation in his guidebook as to why he chose them. Future historians may get no closer to solving this riddle.

Point of Redemption - The Ignorant Fool

I had parked at a saddle between these two on a rough BLM road. I found no turnouts, so left the Jeep in the middle of the narrow road hoping no one would come by while I visited the two summits on either side. They did not. I was up well before sunrise to do these when there was barely sufficient light. Both are less than half a mile from where I parked, both are a bit tedious with steep and loose slopes of dark volcanic rock. The summits offer fine views of the immense Eldorado Valley that stretches from Searchlight to Boulder. There are some huge solar farms in this valley that can be seen to advantage, too. The sun rose while I was tooling about on the second summit, The Ignorant Fool. Both summits featured registers - Kevin Humes had left the one of Point of Redemption, Adam Walker the one of The Ignorant Fool. I finished them both off in less than an hour.

Arch Back - Lonesome Peak - Pigs in Zen Peak

I had about three hours, so I picked these three that I could do do in that time. They are located east of SR165, north of Nelson. Arch Back is closest to the road and where I started first. There are shooting areas on the southwest and east sides of the rock feature, and there is much trash littering the area. Purcell gives the North Ridge via the West Face as class 2. I think he missed a gem here with the SE Ridge which I found to be very fun, sustained class 3 scrambling. The rock was solid and the route-finding not tricky. After returning to the Jeep, I headed off for the other two about a mile and quarter away. I spent about 30min navigating various washes and low ridges to Lonesome Peak which is out of view for about half the distance. I ascended it from the west to reach the SW Ridge. There's some scrambling, but it's not very good, really, as the rock is kinda loose. The views from the top are quite good, stretching across the Colorado River and all over the southern part of Clark County. It's also the highpoint of the Eldorado Wilderness, as a bonus. The 2003 register that Purcell had found in 2010 is missing, replaced by one from Vitz in 2013. It had many pages of entries thanks to it being a Wilderness HP.

Pigs in Zen Peak (another oddly named one), is only a little more than half a mile to the southwest. Getting between the two is not complicated, not really good scrambling, but I found it interesting and enjoyable as a remote-feeling romp from one summit to the other. Maybe it was because it was the only segment where I couldn't hear the truck noise from US95. Kevin Humes had left a register here sometime in the previous decade. The west side of the peak has a cliff band, but I found a way down through it for the descent. Once off the peak, it was another mile of easy rambling across the rolling terrain through small washes and over the low ridgelines to get back to the Jeep, finishing up around 10:30a. That would be enough for today. After cleaning up the Jeep, I was off to Las Vegas for family time...

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