The girls had finished their last match around noon on Monday, the last of three
estrogen/adrenalin-fueled days of volleyball competition in Las Vegas. Once
again I was on my own to drive back to San Jose while wife and daughter flew
out in the afternoon. I planned to spend the next three days hiking in nearby
Red Rocks but found myself unexpectedly with a half day to kill with something
more than sitting on my duff. I decided to head to Calico Basin to tackle a
handful of summits in the Calico Hills. With more than seven closely-spaced
summits amidst a sandstone and limestone playground, it seemed a fine
introduction to the Red Rocks area.
Big Bird/Kraft
I parked at the end of the road in Calico Basin, just outside the large lot that
was filled to capacity. These two summits lie directly to atop
a large red/orange sandstone formation. Bouldering is quite popular among the
large blocks that can be found scattered about the edge of the mountain on the
south side, a short walk from the parking lot. Young 20-somethings can be seen
plying the trails with crashpads strapped to their backs, looking for an
unoccupied which are easy to identify by the white chalk
marks that cover key holds on the rock. I walked past these and then towards the
east end of the mountain behind them, aiming for a break in the cliffs that
characterize its southern aspect. It took about 30min to climb up from the
bouldering areas onto the and then to the summit. The most
interesting part of the peak is its class 3-4 . This is most
easily climbed on the east side where thin ledges provide adequate hand and foot
holds. has that goes back only to 2009,
actually one of the older ones to be found in Red Rocks, as I would come to
find. The summit has one of the better views in Red Rocks of the sprawling
and today there was little smog to mar the view. To
is Calico Basin framed by Blue Diamond Hill (more of a large
mesa) in the background. Greycap and the La Madre Wilderness rise high to
while Kraft dominates the view and it was to this
I headed next.
There is little prominence to Big Bird, which means there is little elevation
loss traversing between the two peaks. 20min was all that was needed to get from
one to the other over a bouldery sandstone landscape connecting them.
were picnicking on a large, flatish rock just south of the
summit, and I spent only a moment at the summit to look for a register (in vain)
before moving on to leave them to their romantic solitude. More sandstone
scrambling to took me down to a maintained trail between
Kraft Mtn and New Peak. This appears to be a fairly popular hiking route as I
saw several plying it in the short time I was there.
New Peak
Immediately west of this trail rises New Peak, the highpoint of the Calico
Hills. It is almost entirely made of limestone which in contrast to the
colorful and fun-to-scramble sandstone, makes it rather blase. The rock tends
to be crumbly and no different than hundreds of other summits scattered
across the Mojave Desert. Still, as the highpoint it has a
overlooking the rest of the Calico Hills and provides a perspective on which
routes might work to reach the other points. After perusing the more interesting
sandstone that lay ahead, I continued off New Peak.
Red Cap
I dropped to a wash between New and Red Cap, then began finding my way up the
east side of Red Cap, and it was here that things got interesting and really
fun. One can generally find ducked routes leading to most of Red Rocks many
summits, or, to up the ante, simply make up your own route which I soon found
myself doing. The east side of Red Cap is characterized by huge sandstone
blocks, and tricky route-finding. I followed along
and through narrow gaps, getting stopped in my tracks in
places only to find an alternative that "just" worked. It was great fun and the
only downside was that it consumed only about 15min, much too short, really.
There is a beautiful (spanish for a small pool in a rocky
hollow) on the northwest side of the summit block that makes
for fantastic pictures. The summit block itself requires a short class 4
off-width crack climb on the northwest side that took me a few minute to manage.
After taking a couple and returning to the tinaja, I met a
couple making their way up. I commented something like, "that last part is a
bit of a challenge," to which he replied, "yeah, I was up here this morning." I
watched him scramble up in less than half the time it took me
while his companion watched on. Clearly he was no beginner and was intimately
familiar with the area.
Tank Peak
Located less than half a mile , Tank Peak proved another
enjoyable
adventure. I spent about 30min scrambling between the two, finding all sorts
of challenges to keep the fun to a high level. Meanwhile, the other two could
be heard behind me in conversation making their way to Tank Peak as well, far
more casually than I felt I was doing. I
was moving about as fast as I could without any familiarity with the route, not
sure what option would work and which wouldn't, but making a pretty good stab
at it. Eventually finding my way to Tank Peak, the other two were only a
short distance behind. I struck up a conversation with Jimmy in order to ask his
advice on how to get back down to Calico Basin. It was closing in on 5pm and
just over half an hour to sunset and I didn't want to waste unnecessary effort
in extracting myself from the sandstone cliffs. Jimmy was quite helpful and
directed me down immediately off the SE side. This turned
out to be a ducked route leading up from Calico Basin and was just the ticket
for getting myself back in short order. I disturbed a on my
way down, who proved to be a most agile climber. It first darted down the gully
to hide behind a rock, only to fly back up the gully in a hurry as I passed by.
Lower down I
came across a dad with two pre-teen daughters (not looking so confident on the
steep rock) on the way up. Another group of perhaps a dozen teenagers were
scrambling in all different directions on their way up towards West Calico Tank.
They weren't following any fixed route and some of their party had already
turned back while the braver members jeered them from above. With sunset not
far away, they seemed to have a rather cavalier attitude towards the whole
thing - I was happy to extract myself from and leave them to
their shouting and bravado.
There is an old homestead foundation near Ash Spring on my way back where
someone has meticulously lined up rocks in a large,
on the ground, perhaps 50yds across. How it survives amidst the bustle of human
activity (that has left no small measure of graffiti on the surrounding hills)
is surprising, but there must be someone maintaining it. I walked gingerly over
it so as not to disturb any of the rocks. Not knowing exactly what it was,
who made it, and why it was there was perhaps part of the charm of Red Rocks
for me. I was back by 5:30p, having spent the last four hours on a wonderful,
albeit short, tour of the Calico Hills. I had a much more ambitious plan for
the next day, but this had more than whetted my appetite for the sandstone
scrambling the place is reknowned for. I found a place only a few miles away
off Moenkopi Rd to shower and spend the night - who knew there was so much fun
peakbagging to be found virtually on the edge of Las Vegas...
Continued...