"12.8.18. The Guardian & Ram Skull Peaks. Solo...21 miles, 3,800’ gain in 7:20 hr. With inversion cloud! Today I bagged one of the most remote and hard to get to Peaks in our area. It’s deadly hot most of the year and when it’s cooler the days are short so you have to be very fit and run the 17 miles to and from the approach to get it done in the daylight hours. It has a 2 mile steep & rocky monster ridge (4 miles out and back) to get to both peaks. I’m glad I was in the clouds going up because if I saw it, I might have cowered away in horror. I stood high above the Lake Mead Narrows. The views were spectacular. I can’t believe this wild place is near home. Today was one of the hardest, fastest, rewarding, beautiful mountaineering experiences of my life. I’m so proud of myself and I blew my own mind. I flew. Thank you Harlan for the beta and for taking me out here last weekend. He has turned me into a peakbagging champion and I can’t believe I can do these things now. " — paula.raimondi • Dec 8, 2018

"Parked on Northshore Road and hiked a loooong way down through Pinto Valley to Boulder Wash, before heading up the gully to the saddle between Ram Skull Peak & Boulder Peak. From the saddle, I headed up the loose slope to Ram Skull Peak, then traversed over to Guardian Peak. I returned the same way, taking a slightly different way back to the saddle, then followed the ridges up to Boulder Peak. Hiked down the NE Ridge of Boulder Peak back to Boulder Wash, then returned the way we came. 19 miles in all. We saw a Bald Eagle, a Turkey Vulture, 5 bighorn sheep and 3 bighorn skulls along the way!" — Kevin • Feb 28, 2015

"Man, what a long day...I trotted down through Pinto Valley & down Boulder Wash, making good time initially. Then I went up the ridge with a small arch out of Boulder Wash. Lots of route finding to gain the top of the ridge really slowed me down. I made several wrong turns & wound up cliffed out. Once I finally reached the top of the ridge, I realised it was still a very long, rough route across to the summit. Very short days meant that it got dark as I was descending the final ridge which slowed me down a lot. Hiking back up through Pinto Valley, I turned around & saw two glowing eyes following me in the dark, right below Sentinel. I couldn't tell how big the animal was, so I was pretty freaked out! (Especially since there is an active lion in that area.) I yelled & banged my poles together, but it was running toward me. As it approached, I could finally see that it was a kit fox! He ran right up to within 10 feet of me & even followed me for another 1/2 mile before turning back. This hike took me 12 hours exactly. I don't use other people's GPS tracks to find my way, but in this case, it would've cut a lot of time off the trip. " — StudioHoodoo • Jan 14, 2012

"This was a long, hot day, with me dropping 2 water caches on the way in. By the time I got back to the soob, my legs were cramping. I tried a different way down the west side, which was a mistake. Best thing was a bobcat sighting; I surprised the cat while he/she slept on a north-facing ledge at the top of a class dryfall, and the cat rans down the fall VERY fast. https://hwstock.org/guard/" — hwstock • Apr 14, 2007