Continued...
Peak 3,153ft - Mt. Newberry
We were a party of four camped off SR163 in the southern tip of Nevada, near
its borders with CA and AZ. The Newberry Mtns Stretch for some 30mi along the
western edge of the Colorado River. The highpoint is the DPS Spirit Mtn, a
summit I'd already climbed twice. I'd brought the group here to chase down
some peaks found in Purcell's
Rambles & Scrambles, in particular
Mt. Newberry, a near-P1K a few miles east of Spirit Mtn. We drove in a few
cars so we could leave Scott's nearer to Spirit Mtn, to allow him the option
of traversing to it after Mt. Newberry. We then returned to join the others
where Christmas Tree Pass Rd makes a 90 degree turn. A spur road forks off at
this point, driving about a quarter mile to the edge of the Newberry Wilderness
from where we would start.
is a short distance from our starting point, really nothing
outstanding about it other than it lets you bag a first peak in less than half
an hour. Ahead of the rest of us in a spurt of morning energy, I found Jim
waiting at what he thought was the summit after 20min's time. I pointed to
where a slightly higher point was still another 5min away.
Off we went. Once , we had almost 2mi to get to Mt.
Newberry with a drop of some 900ft to , followed by
a 1,400-foot climb to the summit. We started by following the NE Ridge of Peak
3,153ft, but about halfway down diverged to into
more directly to the north. Scott was out ahead and would easily beat us to
Newberry's summit. Knowing he had a
long day planned in traversing to Spirit Mtn, I suggested he didn't have to
wait for us at Newberry's summit. Our went up the steep
southwest side, but no real dangers or difficulties as we
negotiated our way up a series of chutes and gullies. A false summit
about 1/3mi southwest of the highpoint, but the traverse
between the two is pleasant enough with views off either side. The three of us
were ten minutes from the summit when we on his way down.
We had a brief chat before he left us, the last we'd see of him until evening.
We reached at 10a,
finding left by Adam Walker less than a week earlier. The
views here stretch over three states, the Colorado River visible to the
northeast and . We chose to down the easier
of the false summit, a class 2 route that would lead
us down to the . Once
in the wash, it was a matter of simply following the wash upstream for
a mile and a half back up to our starting point where we finished around
noon.
Iguana Peak
After returning to the jeep, we drove about a mile west on Christmas Tree Pass
Rd, parking in the same spot where we'd left Scott's car earlier in the
morning. We were a mile almost due ,
an unofficially named
summit in Purcell's book. I had left the book at home so we were pretty much
winging this one and would pay a price, namely the summit. Though it certainly
looks tough from a distance, we didn't know exactly which of several
possibilities was the highpoint and sort of assumed there'd be a scrambling
route up it. We aimed for a saddle to the west of where I thought the highpoint
was, not the best way to approach the peak, it turns out. Getting to
was a bit of work, but after that it just got harder. The summit turned out
to be almost a quarter mile southeast of the saddle and we would spend hours
exploring around , , and sides
of the peak. There were piled on top of each
other, very intricate route-finding, , brush and all sorts of
good stuff, but no way we could find to the
summit which seemed massively vertical or overhanging from the views we had of
it. When we decided to turn back, Eric and Jim were of the opinion that we
should head down the northeast side which
looked easier than the
convoluted route we had taken to get there. This became another
(not entirely unwelcome, mind you) that took us
down though tight squeezes in tunnels, heavily and
.
Each time it seemed we were about to reach easier ground, a new obstacle would
present itself. The amount of tough scrambling seemed endless for such a small
peak. It was 3:40p before we finally
did reach ,
more than
three hours after we had started out. It would take another 30min to get
ourselves back to the cars. Though disappointed in being turned back from the
summit, we all thought it was a very fun adventure and well worth the time
invested. We had contacted Scott via text after we'd decided to turn back,
letting him know not to try reaching the peak late in the day. He was still up
on Spirit Mtn and would be a few hours behind us in getting back, doing most
of the descent in the dark. We spent a second night camped along Christmas
Tree Pass Rd, this time with a campfire and a quieter spot away from the
highway. We would take another crack at Iguana in the morning...
Continued...