We were camped in the Hualapai Mtns of Arizona, on our way to Sedona, AZ to
meet up with others. Today, I was most interested in Dean Peak, a P1K I had
noted while climbing nearby summits a few years earlier. I readily admitted to
Tom and Iris that 
Hualapai Mtn, a county and range HP as well as
a P4K, was the better objective, so they decided to do that while I went off
to Dean. I would finish well before them and go on to do a handful of other
summits on the way to Flagstaff, keeping in touch via text throughout the day.
We eventually met up again for the last summit, the only one we did as a group.
Dean Peak - Peak 7,745ft
It appears most, if not all folks approach this from the the east via BLM roads in McGarrys Wash. That hike is almost 9mi roundtrip up old roads and cross-country. When I was visiting Peak 7,745ft about a mile SW of Dean Peak two years earlier, I wondered if it wouldn't be easier to approach from that side. Others had commented that the route looked brushy and difficult, but it was so much shorter than the standard route that I felt it needed to be tried. My route would work out to be 5.5mi, longer than I had estimated, but better than 9mi. On that first visit, I was able to drive an OHV road partway up to a locked gate. A new gate has been installed at paved Hualapai Mtn Rd across from the campground, so the hike would be a little longer. Parking is restricted to those who pay the park day use fee, so I parked down the road where I found no such signage. It would do me little good - I had a notice from the park rangers when I returned. I hiked up
a gully and cross-country to
reach the road that would 
take me up towards the towers found
on the two points northeast of Peak 7,745ft. From the 
end of the road
above a saddle NE of Peak 7,745ft, I hiked down to the saddle and then traversed
the north side of Peak 7,745ft to reach 
the ridgeline connecting it to
Dean Peak. The traverse was a bit brushy and had me a little concerned t
his could be more trouble than it's worth, but things 
rapidly improved
once on the ridge. There was a very good 
use trail that I could follow
for most
of the distance, initially skirting obstacles on the left through forest. Where
the trail gets lost back on the right (SE) side of the ridge, I was happy to
find a 
collection of 
ducks that led nicely up steep, rocky
slopes that proved the only real impediment. It wasn't a piece of cake by any
stretch, but the 
cross-country portion to reach 
the base of
Dean's summit rocks took only an hour. And fun, too. The 
summit rocks
could be more easily climbed by traversing right and joining the route up from
the east, but 
the SW side proved a fun 
class 3 exercise. I
was 
atop the peak by 9a, two hours after starting out. A register left
by John Vitz 
in 2004 had six pages, 
most recently by Stav
Basis the previous year.
On my way 
back down, I stopped to pay a return visit to
Peak 7,745ft in the way of gratitous stat-padding. It's a bit brushy
at the top, but not bad. I was happy I did, too, because I found a register I
hadn't noticed on my first visit. It was left by Mark Nichols 
in 2006
on a single sheet of paper with perhaps a dozen names now. I started back to the
saddle and road to the northwest when I realized I had forgotten my poles I'd
left on the ridge heading to Dean Peak a few hours earlier. Luckily I had only
a few minutes of backtracking to 
find them, then continued my return.
I was down 
to the Jeep before 11:30a, having taken something less than
4.5hrs for the outing. After getting 
my note from the rangers, I drove
up to 
the ranger station to
pay the $8 fee. They were a friendly bunch, so I didn't mind the extra work.
Peak 5,875ft
The next three peaks were picked off the peakbagger app with minimal beta. I drove back down Hualapai Mtn Rd, then right on the Interstate 40 shortcut, DW Ranche Rd.
Peak 5,875ft lies on BLM land above the Pinion Pines
community. There's no trailhead per se, and it seemed a bit sketchy for the
first 100yds or so until I was clear of the neighbors. An old
utility road goes around the edge of the neighborhood and helped in
the flatter, lower reaches. The 
East Slope I climbed is a mix of
pinyon, agave and brush, combined with much rock in 
the upper half. All
class 2, no bushwhacking required. The 
summit ridge has no obvious
highpoint. Bob Packard had climbed it in 2000, but I had no luck
finding a register, if he even left one. Nice view of the higher
Hualapai summits to the southeast. I spent just over
an hour on the outing.
Rattlesnake Hill
Back on DW Ranch Rd, I drove to I-40 and across the overpass to the north side where I parked for Rattlesnake Hill. This low hill stands alone at the edge of Hualapai Valley. If I'd done a few more minutes' research, I might have discovered that one can drive nearly to the summit. Instead, I hiked from
the overpass, initially on the 
old US40 pavement (that was
kinda cool, in a Mad Max sort of way), then cross-country up
grass/rock slopes to 
the summit in less than
20min. No trees and not much brush, clearly a much drier climate here
at 4,000ft or so.
Peak 5,097ft
This was a gimme just off
the south side of I-40 on the way to
Flagstaff. I parked 
along the highway, not knowing if that was legal
or not, but getting away from the pavement quickly. It's an easy summit up
class 1-2 slopes. There's a nice pile of 
granite rocks at
the summit to give it a summit feel. No trees, but more brush than the
previous summit. Ted Brasket left a register here 
in 2006 at the age
of 76, no other entries. Roundtrip time was just under an hour.
Squaw Peak
Tom and Iris had passed by the Jeep about 10min before I got back to it. That would make it easy for us to connect further east up the highway at the Anvil Rock Rd exit. We left Tom's truck there, piled into the Jeep and drove south for the drive-up to Squaw Peak, about 15mi from the highway, but only a few miles on dirt Radio Tower Rd. The peak is in Courtney's Rambles and Scrambles and has 900ft of prominence, though it is otherwise unremarkable. We walked around the perimeter fence at
the flat summit where the
largest of a collection of 
telecom installations is located. Really,
it's not worth the detour off the Interstate.
Back to I-40, we drove to Flagstaff where we met up with TomB and Eric for dinner, a Thai restaurant that proved decent. Afterwards, we headed south on SR89Alt towards Sedona, stopping for the night at the dispersed camping off Forest Road 237. It's a very busy place at this time of year, primarily because the dispersed campsites around the entire Sedona ecosystem is highly limited, and equally regulated as we would come to find out.
Continued...