Today's agenda included Funeral Peak, the highpoint of the Black Mtns, and then Pahrump, a DPS peak in the Nopah Range. Evan was interested in the first one while I was more interested in the second, so it seemed a good mix. This was the fifth day in our six day tour of the California desert around the Shoshone area. We'd spent the night parked off the Green Valley Road which we'd used as a trailhead to Ryan Point the previous afternoon. After breakfast we drove another five miles south on the fair dirt road to the highpoint along the road and our starting point for Funeral Peak. The peak is easy to spot by virtue (or curse) of its two mile-long NE Ridge, though finding a place to pull over was not trivial.
Around 7:20a we 
set out across the Greenwater Valley, a two mile march
across a gradual upward slope. Halfway across the valley
we came across two lonely 
fenceposts
(or maybe signposts?) seemingly in the middle of nowhere. We were fully inside
Death Valley NP, but these old markers may have been on the boundary of the
National Monument before it was expanded to the present National Park. After
some 45 minutes we reached the base of the Northeast Ridge, one long, consistent
climb up an easy slope to the summit. I'd never seen anything quite so
consistent (or monotonous) from the base of a mountain to its summit. We had
seen this ridge from Pyramid Peak's summit the day before, and its persistent
slopeline had stood out as unusual even from a long distance.
Not being a DPS peak, there were no ducks and no use trails that we could find
anywhere. Navigating through the desert scrub was not difficult though we had
to bob and weave around lots of waist-high brush. The mountain is primarily
volcanic, and there was plenty of dark lava rocks that poked up through the
brush. In fact, the slope wasn't as smoothly graded as it had seemed from
below, but had maybe a dozen 
rocky steps along the ridgeline,
none of them difficult to surmount.
It took a bit less than two hours to reach the summit where we found a register
near the benchmark. From the summit we could just see into portions of Death
Valley itself, with Telescope Peak and the Panamint Range arrayed behind. There
were 
lower peaks
blocking much of the view into Death Valley which might explain
why this range highpoint is not a particularly popular peak. There were less
than half a dozen parties visiting each year, likely most of them coming via
the same route as ourselves. After about 20 minutes we had taken in the views
and signed the register, and it was time to head back.
We were back at 
the truck
just after 11a, then it was time to drive to our
next peak. After an hour of driving, we stopped in Shoshone for lunch, our
third meal there in four days.
This time we actually enjoyed our meal at the Crowbar
(Evan had a Philly cheesesteak that went by another name, I had a patty melt).
Satiating ourselves, we then drove another 15 miles or so up SR178 for the
trailhead to 
Pahrump Point.
Utilizing 
our bikes,
we left the highway just after 2p, heading up the old
road that leads to the opening of the canyon where the DPS route starts. We
knew that the Nopah Range fell in a Wilderness area, but didn't know if the
old road was part of it. We passed a signpost in the first hundred yards that
indicated not only were motor vehicles banned, but bicycles as well. Evan had
ridden by it oblivious, but it hardly mattered - we weren't going to hike up
the road if we could avoid it. The ride was certainly harder than hiking, but
it was a bit faster on the way in, and far faster on the way back where it was
all downhill. It took us half an hour to cover the breadth of the Chicago
Valley and reach 
the end
of the road - this is much easier approach than the
one to Nopah Point where the valley is much wider.
We left the bikes here and continued up
on foot.
The standard DPS route follows up this canyon for about half the distance
before exiting out to the right, or south. The initial part is through a
wide wash
strewn with rock debris and gravel. A use trail can be found to make
passage easier, but the navigation is fairly straightforward. Following the
first half mile up the narrowing canyon, we came to the first fork where we
should have turned left. Instead, we were following a use trail heading up the
right branch that shortly gave out and left us wandering up without trail or
ducks. It didn't take long for us to entertain doubts in our route. Looking
back down, we couldn't see any ducks on the other side either. At least I
couldn't. Evan point out something he thought was a duck which I quickly
dismissed. Turns out I thought he was pointing to something else and he had
seen one after all.
Correcting our mistake after only a few minutes, we climbed back down
to the junction and soon picked up more ducks heading through the left fork.
In fact there were so many we couldn't understand why we couldn't see them
just a few minutes before. This branch
led to a second junction some fifteen minutes later where we took the (correct,
this time) right fork. The 
scrambling
proved to be some fun, though not as
good as we'd found on nearby Nopah or Stewart Point a few days earlier.
Before reaching a dry waterfall impasse that we could see ahead, we followed
ducks and thin use trails up a steep 
scree slope
towards the ridge on the
south side of the canyon. From 
the ridge,
the DPS directions give one the
impression that there is some tricky route-finding, but we found that not to
be the case. Simply follow the well-groomed use trail at this point through a
few notches, one with a very interesting "window" rock. The rock appears to be
a rock conglomerate with the center hollowed out and four or five windows worn
though on all sides. One can sit inside, though not comfortably, and I got an
uneasy feeling that the whole structure might collapse and crush me inside.
I didn't stay there very long.
This led to 
another gully
(which is really just the continuation of the canyon
we had been ascending earlier) that we climbed to its end. The last part is
very narrow, steep, and composed of compacted dirt that looks like it would be
impossibly slick and slide-prone in wet conditions. This was followed by
scrambling up the 
West Ridge
until we reached the summit ridge that runs
roughly north-south. This was a 
short section
of rocky scrambling that was
mildly exposed and good fun - except that it was so short.
Our two hour effort got us to the summit shortly after 4p. We found the usual
benchmark
and register. The wind had picked up some and the weather looked
like it was in for a change - high clouds were moving in and there was much
dust in the air due to the wind, obscuring the distance views. We hung out on
top for about half an hour before starting our descent. The return was pretty
much the same as the ascent, minus the route-finding error. We
got back by 6p,
showered outside the camper, and watched the sun setting on the Nopah Range.
Despite the mediocre Funeral Peak hike, the day had been an enjoyable one. We
headed south on SR178 as evening came on, heading for the trailhead for
Avawatz.
We found spot off the highway away from the road to give us some quiet. The elevation was quite low there and the evening temperatures were too warm to sleep comfortably. I had to leave the doors to the van open to get some circulation. The wind picked up considerably in the middle of the night which cooled things down some. It also knocked the bike parked outside down and blew some of Evan's clothes about the desert floor. All good fun though...
Continued...