For our final day in Death Valley during Thanksgiving week, we wanted something a little simpler than the previous day’s climb of Bat Mountain. The Death Valley Buttes fit our criteria perfectly. The Buttes are a semi-isolated set of bumps where the Grapevine and Funeral Mountains meet. Their position in the Valley provides some great views south towards Badwater and west towards the Mesquite Dunes.
Near the town of Death Valley Junction a distinct peak rises from the desert floor. This peak is part of the “Bat Mountain” range, and has always been on my radar due to its interesting profile. Topo maps label Bat Mountain as a smaller bump on the north end of the short range, but the true high point of the range is on the southern end. Furthermore, two peaks are often confused as the high points, and are usually referred to as Bat Mountain (N) and Bat Mountain (S).
The peak with the interesting profile, Bat Mountain (N), is the true high point by a few feet. This is a very infrequently climbed peak and it was difficult to find beta. Fortunately we got just enough that we felt confident enough to spend the day after Thanksgiving hiking to the summit.
Our original mid-Thanksgiving week plans called for Bridge Mountain, a peak that has been on my bucket list for quite some time. Unfortunately, the weekend storms had left a dusting of snow on the rainbow escarpment that was just deep enough to concern us. First, the nasty 4×4 road to get to the trailhead was already a challenge, and snowy and/or wet conditions would make it worse. Second, there is some exposed class 3 scrambling on the way to the peak, and although that can be really fun on the good sandstone, when it is wet it can get slippery and much more dangerous. So, plans scrapped. Boo.
Luckily, Robin had been in contact with Harlan Stockman, and he offered an alternate: he’d guide us to another impressive peak in the area, the informally named “Sentinel” in Lake Mead National Recreation Area. I had never met Harlan but was more than familiar with his prolific collection of trip reports over at his website and had used his beta on more than one occasion. I was excited to get to climb with a local peak-bagging star and get some good beta first-hand.
Continuing our trend of summiting infrequently climbed peaks, we took off Monday morning to hike Shadow Mountain. The route began from our camp area at the Shadow Mountain Mine and followed old mining roads and eventually the southwest ridge to the summit. It is a rather small and insignificant peak compared to its neighbors Kingston and Clark, and that combined with the bad roads make it a rarely visited summit.
To start out, we followed an old road past the mill building ruins and machinery pads and into the hills that flank Shadow Mountain. We could have driven most of this road, but a large washout about 1/4 mile past the mine site blocked progress by vehicle. No problem – we don’t mind walking!
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The bright sunny Sunday morning that we were hoping for didn’t materialize exactly as planned, but the clouds had cleared enough for us to get a peek at our objective for the day, Kingston Peak, and we didn’t like what we saw. Behind the ridges the higher rocky peaks were coated in a fair amount of snow. The last part of the route up Kingston is scrambling around rock, and none of us were eager to do that in icy or potentially deep snow conditions. Luckily we had come prepared with a nearby alternate: the high point of the Mesquite Mountain range.
I always enjoy visiting the desert during the week of Thanksgiving since the weather is usually so perfect for the activities we enjoy. Instead of the oppressive heat that is normally associated with such a place, the temperatures tend to hang around the 60s during the day and 30s at night. Sometimes a little colder, sometimes a little warmer, but overall it makes for comfortable hiking and climbing weather during the day, and nothing that a good campfire and jacket can’t handle in the evening. Every once in a while we get a bit of a sprinkle or snow, but hey, it’s the desert, and it likes to stay dry.
Driving into the Turquoise Mountains
Well, this year we headed out right as a big weather system moved through the area. The forecast kept changing, but overall it looked like the rain would move out of the area by Saturday mid-day. We headed out from San Jose and met up with our friend Robin around 9 am on Saturday in Baker. It was foggy and drizzly, but we decided to charge on with our plans: exploring the Turquoise Mountains, a small range on the north side of highway 15 between Baker and the CalNeva border.
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Interchangeable lens sunglasses have been around for a long time. I’ve owned several pairs, but despite the advantage of having multiple lenses to choose from, I very rarely change them. All of the pairs I have owned are difficult to change, and the pressure required to remove and replace a lens often makes me nervous that I’ll break something. Luckily I live in California and play at high elevations so most of the time I put in the strongest glacier lens and never remove it. I’ve always considered interchangeable lenses to be more of a gimmick than a useful feature.
But then, Switch Sunglasses came along and completely changed my mind. In fact, after last winter’s Outdoor Retailer Show, I honored Switch sunglasses with my “Brilliant Take on an Old Gimmick” award. Rather than forcing the lenses into some kind of notch or groove, Switch uses magnets to hold a lens in place. Gentle pressure is all that is needed to pop a lens out of the frame, and better yet, no pressure is needed to snap a new one in. The magnets just ‘suck’ the lens into place.
Lets talk about socks. As a kid, they’re a disappointing Christmas gift. As an adult, yay socks!
One complaint I’ve overheard in REI and outdoor stores is the expense of socks. Do you *really* need to spend $20 for a pair of socks when you can get what looks like the same thing at Walmart for $4? When those socks are Darn Tough, then my answer is a resounding YES. This post is an ode to my favorite sock manufacturer.
I’ve used pretty much every brand of sock on the market and I cannot recommend anything more than Darn Toughs. Not only do they perform magnificently in the field, their durability is so far beyond any other sock I’ve tried. Generations of other brands have passed through my sock drawer, yet I’m still holding on to the first pair of Darn Toughs I got nearly ten years ago. I wear them more frequently, too. Spend $20 on a pair of these and not only will you have much happier feet on the trail, they will outlive 50 pairs of the $4 socks.
I have a large collection of Darn Tough socks. Some were given to me at various Outdoor Retailer shows. Others have been graciously sent to me by Darn Tough. And yes, I’ve bought them for myself as well. One perk of going to the OR shows is a lot of free socks, so I don’t often have to spend money on them. But when I do, I go straight to Darn Tough. I don’t even look at other brands anymore. And as more of my sock collection gets replaced by Darn Tough, the less frequently I need to buy new socks!
Lets take a look at my lineup. These pictures speak for themselves when it comes to durability of these socks. In the photo above, can you tell which pair has 10 years and over a 1000 miles on them?
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By Friday morning we knew we had to start working our way back home. But we didn’t want to leave Zion without at least one more hike! We chose Observation Point since it was one of the few canyon hikes that we hadn’t yet done.
The Observation Point trail starts at the Canyon bottom at the Weeping Rock trailhead. It climbs 2500 ft in a little under 4 miles to an outcropping on the rim of the canyon. A handful of switchbacks climb to the junction with the Hidden Canyon trail before continuing up to Echo Canyon. We had hiked this trail in the past, so everything beyond the junction would be new to us.
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