Sun, Feb 16, 2020
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Etymology |
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On my own for a second day, I headed south of Henderson to tackle
a collection of summits
found in Purcell's Rambles & Scrambles. I grouped them into
three different hikes that would keep me busy for most of the day. The totals
came out to about 11.5mi with something over 5,000ft of gain which might explain
why I was pretty tired by the time I was done. The Sloan Canyon NCA encompasses
the northern half of the McCullough Range east of Interstate 15 and includes
a large number of native american petroglyphs. I had visited the petroglyphs in
the lower hills to the east a year earlier, but had come back today for other
peaks further east and along the main crest of the range.
I first headed north around the base of The Queen to climb more directly to
The King, my first stop. I climbed a ridge that led to the saddle
between The Queen and King, and from there The King's
South Ridge
was an easy class 2 hike.
The summit had an ammo box with
a busy register and a fallen flagpole upon which I found
a nice watch that someone had left (not sure why, it seems to work
perfectly). The register box contained several books and geocache items and
trash, too. Seems a popular stop. I next
turned south to return to
the saddle and climb The Queen via its North Ridge, only slightly more
work than The King. The Queen had a new
register left by an LVMC party
only a few weeks earlier. This was the highest of the five peaks grouped here.
Next up was
White Gold #7 (and where do you suppose one might find
numbers 1-6?) to the west, connected through a saddle. It was a moderately
steep descent down and up
through this saddle, but no more than class
2-3 and readily done in less than ten minutes. No register was found here. I
think the regular loop would have me go back over The Queen or the shoulder of
its South Ridge to hit up The Jack, but there was another summit about a mile
to the south,
Peak 3,500ft, that I was interested in. This peak, from
the north anyway, had the best scrambling on the cicuit. The scramble
along the connecting ridgeline was scenic and interesting, with some
class 3 found above the saddle between the two. There is a false summit that
had a register calling the summit Quo Vadis, after the old mine found at the
base of the peak on the south side. There was
another register at the
slightly higher point to the south.
To make my way back to the Jack, I could have used a number of options, the
simplest probably dropping east to the canyon between them and then climbing
The Jack's South Ridge. Instead, I headed back to the north to pick my way
through the cliffs on the northeast side, a spicy bit of wholey
unnecessary class 3-4 scrambling, then easier going in a somewhat brushy gully.
In traversing the canyons between the two, I came across all sorts of discarded
household items, most of them used as target practice by the local
militia preparing for the apocalypse. Old fire extinguishers and propane tanks
seem to be particularly popular as targets, perhaps hoping they will explode and
send shrapnel flying in all directions? Luckily for them, but probably to some
disappointment, they don't actually explode. The frustration in this may help
explain the high number of holes found in these items before they are left in
peace. While this may upset environmentalists and similar, I take comfort that
every dollar spent on discharging firearms is one less dollar available for
donation to the RNC.
I climbed The Jack from the west side, taking almost an hour from Peak
3,500ft, the longest leg of this route. The Jack had a nice two year-old
register with a few names I recognized. The descent took less than
20min, a
steep gully dropping off the north side,
becoming gentler as it curves to the east and spit me out right where
I'd
left the jeep. It wasn't yet 10:30a and I'd already
been to five summits - good bang for the buck, this one.
Starting from the northeast, I made my way up a gully
heading southwest, turning west as I angled for the saddle between
The Fortress and a lower summit to the north. As the name suggests,
The Fortress is ringed with a cliff band to make for some non-trivial
route-finding. I knew from GPX tracks I'd seen that it is usually
climbed from the west, but I thought it would be fun to attempt to go directly
up the north side. I ran off some bighorn ewes that had been minding their own
business as I made my way
up from the saddle, getting only a
blurry picture of them before they were out of sight. As I got to
the base of the North Face I
found a weakness that would let me get through the initial difficulty, but the
rock quality was lacking and the class 4 effort did not seem worth repeating on
the descent. I found
a flag and
geocache at the summit, noting
a hazy view south to the higher
Black Mtn. Others have done the
traverse between the two,
but that would be a much bigger deal than I had time for today. I descended
the more usual route to the west before traversing back around to the north
side and descending to the saddle. I then
went over the other summit
to the north and down to
the lower saddle with Rattlesnake where the
powerlines and road traverse across the range. The climb up to Rattlesnake from
the saddle took only about 20min, but much of it was a tedious
scree slog that had the
least enjoyable terrain on the day. None of the many Rattlesnakes that are said
to inhabit the slopes of this moutain came out to bother me, probably still a
bit too cold. The summit had a
busy register
whose last visitor was Bob Cable
only a few weeks ago, the same gentleman who had made an ascent of Monument
Peak near Parker Dam back in 2001 (his name was fresh in my mind from our own
Monument Peak outing a few days earlier). The descent was nearly as tedious
since the rock did not allow for wild abandon boot-skiing, but the more
cautious slipping and sliding with one hand ready to catch my falls which were
all but ascertained. It was 1:15p by the time I
got back to the jeep to
finish this second outing, still a bit too early to call it quits for the day.
Continued...
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Tortoise Shell Peak
This page last updated: Sun Mar 1 16:12:56 2020
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