Feb 10, 2021
|
Etymology |
Story | Photos / Slideshow | Maps: 1 2 | GPX | Profiles: 1 2 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
I started off for the furthest summit first, Peak 3,287ft, sporting almost 800ft of prominence. I hiked across sandy desert flats and up gravelly washes for most of the first hour. The washes were preferrable with better footing as the sandy flat sections were riddled with rodent dens and I would often sink my feet into the collapsing tunnels. Upon reaching the base of the peak on its north side, I found class 2 volcanic slopes leading up to the summit ridge, with a short walk southeast to the highpoint. Andy Smatko had visited the summit in 1973, but I found no sign of a register. It was the only one of the three that he had recorded an ascent for. I left one of my registers here with an extra entry for Andy. I then headed back across the summit ridge, descending a steeper part of the north side on my way to the second summit, Peak 2,772ft. I had to drop 1,000ft to the drainage between the peaks, but the climb back up was much shorter as the other two summits were quite a bit lower. Peak 2,772ft has a craggy summit that looks like it could be difficult from a distance, but goes at easy class 3 by several routes. There are some shallow caves on the South Face that have been used by sheep in the area to rest and shelter in. I thought this was the best of the three summits and left another register here before finding my way off the north side. Peak 2,739ft was more benign, what TomB would call a "brown lump". Where it had taken an hour between the first and second peak, it took less than half an hour to get between the second and third. There was the remains of a wooden survey tower and a pile of rocks constructed by the surveyors. There is a nice view to the north of the wide, golden plains that drain into Broadwell Lake, the northern Bristol Mountains framing it in the background. I was back to the Jeep by 4:15p, with a little over an hour of daylight remaining.
Continued...
This page last updated: Sun Feb 14 18:17:30 2021
For corrections or comments, please send feedback to: snwbord@hotmail.com