Continued...
Today's goals included a pair of high prominence summits at the CA/NV border
near Primm, along Interstate 15. We had spent the night camped on BLM lands
in CA, behind the
in Primm. The weather today was good,
with fair skies, light wind, and tshirt conditions most of the day.
Tess Mtn / Peak 4,681ft
Tess Mtn has nearly 800ft of prominence and can be found in Purcell's
Rambles
and Scrambles, a comprehensive guidebook centered on the Las Vegas area.
Both of these peaks are located in California, in the SE corner of the Mesquite
Wilderness. The plan was to do a moderate-size loop tagging both of them,
starting from the powerline road to the south. We took two vehicles to allow us
to start and stop at different points along the road, saving us a mile and a
half walk back along the road. A
spotted on the drive in had
Iris giddy with excitement as we stopped for a few photos. Her reaction is the
same for any large mammals - burros, horses, bighorn, even cattle. Yes, cattle.
It was after 7:30a by the time we'd driven the 6-7mi of dirt road from our camp,
dropped off one jeep and driven the other to the under
the
transmission lines. We followed up what could be
called Tess's , an hour and a half's effort that included
some on . Out in
front for most of the way, Tom was first just before 9a,
the rest of us a few minutes later. We found
and several registers. The oldest was a fragile bit of
moldy paper left by a Smatko party . Courtney had left his
initials when he visited in 2011. Daryn Dodge and Kathy Rich had left another
register on their visit . They incorrectly identified Tess as
the Mesquite Wilderness HP, but that point goes to another summit a few miles
to the west that is another 100ft higher. The most interesting view is to
where one has an outstanding view of the Ivanpah Solar
Electric Generating System. Unlike simpler, passive solar panels, this system
uses an array of mirrors to focus on central boiler units which generate steam
to run electric turbines. The boilers atop the central towers glow intensely
and are visible for many miles around. Today, only two of the three units were
operating, the one closest to us off-line, with it's mirrors pointing
vertically.
After about 20min's time we picked ourselves up and headed off
of Tess in order to follow
connecting it to Peak 4,681ft. It would
take us about 45min to cover the 1.5mi distance to this minor bonus peak.
Arriving first, I spent some time reestablishing
, complete with
guywires to keep it erect for perhaps a few years longer. The others arrived
in time for another
that would last about 15min. No register
was found at this summit and I didn't have any with me to leave. Tom and I
first since it would be our job to retrieve the jeep we'd left
at the starting point. The others came down not long after, choosing to stay at
the summit a few minutes longer. Our route down the South Ridge was quick and
efficient, taking about 25min to find our way to where we'd
. We
then retrieved Tom's at the starting location and drove back to pick up the
others and return to our camp just outside Primm.
Adalac BM
Adalac BM is a P1k and the highpoint of Nevada's
Lucy Gray Mtns east of Primm and the
immense Ivanpah Valley. Access is from the next town to the north along I-15.
Jean, NV is the site of Terrible's Hotel & Casino, a state prison, and the
world's largest gas station with 96 pumps - they seem to be very proud of this,
with gas prices more than dollar higher than found in Las Vegas.
We left most of our cars in one of the large lots by the highway, then piled the
five of us in Tom's Jeep for the drive in. The
pavement ends just past a quarry located at the north end of the range,
becoming dirt/sand for the rest of the drive. The area is a popular OHV spot,
somewhat busy on the Saturday we visited. The roads are all unmarked so it helps
to know ahead of time where you're driving. You can (try to) follow Richard
Carey's long description from 1999 found on PB, or just use the GPX track in
this report that includes the driving route. I used satellite views to find the
most well-used trails which worked nicely to get us to our parking spot about
1.3mi east of the summit. The hike across rolling desert flats
laden with joshua trees and related cousins. The burned-out hull of
was
found in a wash soon after the start, pools of hardened aluminum suggesting the
intensity of the fire that consumed it. No one seemed to think it worthwhile
or necessary to have it removed, so it remains to become part of the desert
scene. T becomes more strenuous once the base of the range is
reached, but seeming to go on for about twice the
length I was expecting. We spent almost an hour to reach the 5,700-foot
where we found an unstamped and several
registers. The ten pages of entries had many of the usual highpointers -
, , , ,
. We added as well during
as we took in the desert scenes around us. We would
spend much of another hour on the return via a slightly
, getting us by 3p.
After a beers & chips break where ,
the rest of the afternoon was spent in getting us showered and then relocated
north to the Red Rocks area, stopping to dine at Al's Garage Sports Bar off
Charleston Blvd. We spent the night camped in our vehicles at the TH on Moenkopi
Rd, noting that signs for No Camping had been beefed up since we last
used this site. I was a bit nervous that we might be rousted out of our cars
during the night, but happily, perhaps due to the government shutdown going on,
there was no such disturbance...
Continued...