3.4 mi to summit
7.4 mi total
4,583 ft start
7,010 ft max
2,414 ft gain
3 hr 1 min to summit
5 hr 37 min total
So nice to be hiking with friends! <3 Okay - first off, holy moly the trip to the trailhead (we didn't actually fully make it to the trailhead) was almost as long of a drive in and out as the hike itself was. Secondly, the road was in pretty awful condition. It seems like an offroad rally race must have taken place on the road, and it was torn to shreds - about a 2-foot berm of gravel in the center, and up to 4-5 feet of gravel on one side or the other of the wash gravel bed. The 4Runner we were in is not lifted, and we were constantly pushing/dragging gravel, or weaving from side to side to prevent bottoming out. I've never seen a gravel rut-out as bad as that road, and it was 8-10 miles of that crap. So, by the time we were on the road to the trailhead itself (heading east), we were very very wary. A Jeep Wrangler went by us after we parked and were walking, but it's narrower bodied than the 4Runner is. There are some pretty close-to-the-road large rocks, and you don't want anything wide-bodied on this road. Most of the time it's fine, but there are a few dicey spots. Anyway - I brought us up a different wash than was on the track I was following, but once we got up on the ridgeline, it's... pretty straightforward of a hike. You continually follow the ridgeline up. That's... all you do. It's steep. It's following the ridgeline up, off trail. There are some pretty deep dirt bike trails on one of the lower ridges that we followed for a bit, but about 85-90% of what we did was off-trail. It was a nice day, a bit of a breeze to keep it tolerable in the warm sun. Huge cacti at some places - once a gigantic prickly pear, one a gigantic cholla. Easily 10 feet tall and 15 feet wide. The other crazy thing about this peak is the cow pies and cow prints EVERYWHERE, including one very fresh one... but we never saw or heard a single cow. They are ninjas! Ninja cows strike again. And what were they doing so far up on the ridgeline? We were finding cow pies basically just below the peak. Are they peakbagging cows?! Regardless. Steep, off-trail hike that is pretty straightforward, beautiful views, and a currently AWFUL road condition drive to get there. You need a HCV and 4WD at the moment to deal with the sheer amount of gravel and the very deep rutting from what the baja-style offroaders have done with 40" tires and 600 HP engines cutting deeply into the gravel. #28 in the LVMC 50 challenge for me! Glad to get back at it, one peak at a time. :) Even more glad to be doing it with friends! <3
road/access issues, routefinding, bushwhacking
GPS device, high clearance vehicle
hwstock
There us a road rally every year on the west side. I went that way in 2003, but have since gone 2x from the east because the rally turned the roads into crap. A pity, since the peak the north (<7000') is nice and not easily approached from the east.
psychikingjes
@hwstock Aha! Yep, that would do it. Glad to have my suspicions confirmed. And that is a shame, because the whole area is very pretty on the west side, and there are some nice other peaks in the area that are much more easily approached from the west side instead of having to go all the way up and over from the east side.