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On my second day in Gold Butte NM, three friends from SoCal had driven
out to join me for the weekend. The primary goal of the day was Jumbo
Peak, a difficult P3K with no easy way to the summit. We had enough time
left for a trio of other peaks, all of them found in Purcell's Rambles
& Scrambles.
Jumbo Peak/Packard Peak
There has been a lot written about Jumbo Peak, in Purcell's guidebook,
on SummitPost, DPS archives and elsewhere. Route descriptions seemed
complex and a bit intimidating. We thought the crux was really the long
drive to get there - about 47mi from Interstate 15, south through the
national monument, taking several hours. Having camped at Whitney
Pocket, we'd already done 20mi of the drive when we started out in the
morning just before 6:30a. We drove all three vehicles to the town site
of Gold Butte 20mi further south, then piled into the Jeep for the last
7mi or so to the trailhead. The jeep was probably overkill as any
modestly high-clearance vehicle could make it and probably most passenger
cars, too, with dry conditions. We parked less than a mile from the summit
to the northeast and headed up , aiming for the easiest
route, the WNW Chimney. Most of the going was , but
brush and rather
combined near the top to make for some .
Once we'd reached of the immense summit blocks, we
found the with no trouble - it's really the
only
feature even close to the description on that side. The chimney is 3-5ft
wide, angling upwards with a ramping floor that makes it mostly a steep
scramble. Some chimney techniques are needed to surmount several moderate
chockstones, but we found no seriously loose rocks or similar dangers. A
good thing, since we'd neglected to bring helmets that we knew other
parties had used. Scott went first, followed by ,
myself, and then
Matt. Iris and I elected to leave our packs at the base of the chimney
while the others took theirs. They would have to remove them for
.
At the top of the chimney, Scott turned left under the overhang
and found his way to the summit fairly quickly. Iris elected to follow the
at the top of the chimney that bypasses .
A headlamp is needed for this dark passage. Matt and myself
followed Scott's lead. I was surprised that the remainder of the route was
kinda easy and far shorter than the route descriptions seemed to suggest.
From the start of the chimney to
was less than 15min. It took
a little longer for Matt who was carrying his pack and a lot of camera
gear.
The Colorado Mountain Club had left
here in a PVC tube. I
disdain their PVC tubes and
that leave no
room for comments, long or short.
for the lot of us while
we took in the views, a commanding position in the middle of the national
monument. Most of Lake Mead was covered in low clouds, the first time I'd
seen that condition in a week. Everywhere else had crisp blue skies.
Upon descending, we all chose to take the 30-foot tunnel which I thought
was the best part of the whole route. It takes some mild gymnastics to
squeeze into the opening, then some shimmying along the narrow passage to
reach the top of the chimney. Back down at the bottom of
we
collected our gear and headed off, but we all enjoyed the peak a great
deal.
We went around
of the summit rocks (more to
navigate here, brush too), then onto easier ground on
as
we made our way ,
connected to Jumbo Peak with a
500ft+ drop to a saddle. Packard Peak is the highpoint of
the Jumbo Springs
Wilderness which made it almost imperative that we visit it while
so close. Though it has more than 500ft of prominence, it makes for a
fairly easy bonus peak after Jumbo. The ascent up from the saddle with
Jumbo had good footing and made for a speedy ascent. There was a Richard
Carey register with a few pages of entries.
The descent we took
off the NE side went through a dense juniper forest and had a collection
of large boulders to negotiate nearer the bottom that caught us by
surprise. We eventually completed the loop with some easy walking at the
end to reach the jeep.
Mica Peak
Mica is a P1K about 4.5mi north of Jumbo/Packard. We drove back north
a few miles through Cedar Basin, then a spur road that got us closer to
Mica, about a mile and quarter away on its SW side.
of the
hike was a bit undulating until we reached the base of the peak, whereupon
we began
of over 1,000ft to reach the SW Ridge. Nearer to
the ridge and along it, we found some fun
that we all
seemed to enjoy, though there were several false summits that kept
pushing the summit .
The summit has labeled
"GOLD BUTTE" though there is a nearby summit with that name closer to the
townsite. John Vitz had left an older register here
with a newer
one to supplement it left by MacLeod/Lilley
. It made for a popular
peak with 25 pages of entries. Our descent avoided the false summits by
dropping down the south side sooner, then a meandering return back to the
jeep, helped some by an old mining road.
Gold Butte
Purcell suggests hiking from the Gold Butte town site, the peak about
a mile to the southeast. Consulting the roads on our GPSr, we decided to
drive around to the south side and found a much easier
only 1/3mi from the summit. , sometimes sandy/gravely
climb with occasional class 3 moves leads to rather
quickly. There were several registers found on Gold Butte. The
older Gordon/Barbara register
was weathered and brittle and I
only photographed a few pages for fear of ending up with a pile of tiny
paper scraps in my lap. A more recent register
had three pages,
with John Ide the most register visitor a year earlier. Scott and I
returned to the jeep by a similar route while Iris and Matt chose to head
back the longer route to camp. Scott and I would beat them back to camp,
but not by much.
Matt grilled up some wonderful BBQ treats for us that evening as we
huddled around the grill in all our warm clothes. It was a brisk 43F or
so outside, but it didn't stop us from having a nice time of it under
a myriad of stars and the glow of Las Vegas visible many miles to the
west.
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