We parked at the White Rock Springs trailhead and took the White Rock Loop trail for a while, before heading up a steep, loose gully toward a 'notch' in the limestone. This route was published as 'La Madre Notch' in Branch Whitney's original Hiking Las Vegas book. From the notch, we headed north up a knife-edge ridge to gain the main east/west ridgeline. Once at the main ridge, we headed east along the ridge until we were at a place just south of El Bastardo. The overhung cliff bands prevented a direct ascent, so we traversed north below the cliffs, losing altitude until we found a break that we could ascend. We climbed up through the cliffs and then headed south, back to the summit. Once there, we heard someone yelling and noticed a lone figure on the ridge we were on previously. This is not a place that normal people go; my only guess is that he saw us going up in the beginning and decided to try to follow. Either way, he turned back.
We descended down the EXTREMELY steep and loose gully just east of the summit. We had to descend one at a time in stages to avoid setting rocks loose on each other. Once we got down to the bend in the gully, there was a big dryfall that we had to negotiate. There was an exposed awkward workaround available, but we opted to set up a 40 foot rap from a tree instead. From there, we took the long wash back and gained a trail on the east bank. We took that back to the trailhead, making a quick detour to Hogback Summit, since it was along the way.
This was an extremely tiring day, but everyone was in good spirits at the end.