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In West-Central Nevada to finish off the peaks listed in Andy Zdon's
Desert Summits, I was ahead of schedule and had time for a bonus round.
So I drove into the Monte Cristo Range north of US6/US95 to tackle a few easy
summits including the range highpoint. I'd spent the night along the dirt route
from the highway, far from road noise and rather quiet. In the morning I was up
early to finish the drive while I ate breakfast.
Monte Cristo Range HP
I used David Porter's 2015 TR from PB for the driving directions, the roads in
very good condition until the last mile or so. I had fun driving further than
the track indicated, getting myself to within a mile of the summit with about
1,000ft of gain remaining. The terrain is open desert scrub with easy
cross-country. I could see the summit and picked out a
line using the NW Ridge. Only the middle section of the hike was particularly
steep with lots of talus in . The from the
top of the ridge are quite nice with a fine view of the snowy White Mtns to
. There was a rock cairn, the remains of a wooden survey
tower, and a register dating , left by the
dynamic duo of MacLeod/Lilley. There were ten pages of entries, most of the
names recognizable from the usual crowd, with a few unknown local entries and
the odd Canadian visitor. I chose to make a loop of the outing by descending
and then a subsidiary ridgeline descending northwest back
to where . The whole outing took just about an hour.
Norman BM
This P900 lies 7mi to the southwest of the range HP. It took most of an hour to
drive from one end of the range to other, with a good dirt road getting me
within a mile of the summit to . With only 500ft of gain, this
was an than the last and I took only 25min to find my way
to the . I did not find the benchmark on this one, likely
buried under one of several rock piles found at . Richard
Carey had left a register here , with the
most recent visitor a year ago. It was not long after 9a when I
, leaving me plenty of time for the day's main event.
Lone Mountain
As the name suggests, the peak rises in , reaching
to more than 9,000ft. It is found on the south side of US6/US95, west of
Tonopah. There are several ways to reach Springdale Canyon on the east side of
the peak which provides the shortest climbing route. I used a lesser road called
, heading south from US6/US95 for 5mi. It then
intersects the main road to Springdale Canyon. Some
grazing in the scrub added to the scene as I approached the
mountain. I could see significant snow on the upper part, and since my final
ascent would go up the north side, I decided it would be prudent to carry the
snowshoes. I was able to drive the road to , the last
part pretty rocky and not really gaining much for the trouble, but great fun in
the jeep. I was a little less than 2mi from the peak when I started out just
after 11a. The route goes south/southwest cross-country up
of the canyon. One can climb out of the drainage
earlier to up steeper slopes for a slightly shorter route,
but this would have entailed more snow travel today. I stayed in the main
drainage (mostly class 2 with some easy class 3 in places) until I was finding
it choked with snow, then moved out to the right on
to stay out of the white stuff until it was necessary. I reached a saddle on
about 400ft below the summit, finding the snow coverage
almost continuous now. Because temperatures had not fallen below freezing for
several days, was soft and slushy - time for the snowshoes.
It took 20min to complete this last steep part with the snowshoes,
before hiking the final to
where I arrived at 1:30p. Barbara and Gordon had left a
register here , with more than 30 pages of entries over the past
three decades. The wind was blowing strongly over the summit, leaving
even with fleece, balaclava and gloves. On the way back down
I kept the snowshoes on for a longer distance, this time staying on the
of the drainage until the snow ran out lower down. I
was by 3p and decided to call it a day even
though there were still four hours of daylight. I spent more than an hour
driving back out of Springdale Canyon and then on to Tonopah where I spent the
rest of the afternoon relaxing, and catching up online with BK's free wifi in
town. Later, as the sun was getting ready to set, I headed south out of town for
more than an hour before stopping to camp off US95 near where I planned to
start hiking the next day. With Lone Mountain finished, I had just one peak
left in Zdon's book - Nevares Peak - and it was in that direction that I was
headed...
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