A new house purchase has had me quite busy lately so I'm a week late on this post, but better late then never, right? With all of the recent storms…
Kessler Peak The day after Thanksgiving we needed a good hike to help burn off some off that delicious dinner. Sure, we'd bagged two peaks on Thanksgiving Day, but I'm…
Early Thanksgiving morning, David and I left the Vegas strip for the Mojave desert. We met up with Sooz, Robin, and Gordon at 9 am to hike Table Top mountain, a striking mesa-like peak in the heart of Mojave National Preserve. Like the majority of desert peaks there is no established trail to the top and hikers are on their own to find a good cross-country route.
In fact, I read somewhere that Mojave National Preserve, in its 1.5 million acres of desert, only has two maintained trails. This isn’t uncommon in the desert parks though – the wide open terrain is more forgiving and conducive to cross-country travel than say, Yosemite Valley. So, we found a nice pullout to leave our cars and set out on foot towards Table Top. We walked along the base of the ridge and once passing the jumbles of boulders started up the side of the mountain. This area burned a few years ago and it is very bleak and barren. I imagine that will change during wildflower season!
Table Top is ringed with a volcanic ridge that from a distance looks like it would require some technical skills to pass. However, as you get closer to the peak a steep but passable chute becomes obvious and we headed straight up. The last few hundred feet required some hoisting and balancing with the hands, but overall it was pretty easy. Upon topping out, it doesn’t look like a typical summit at all. It is incredibly flat and the actual high point is difficult to determine. Luckily, the high point was very near where we topped out and we found the log book and had a nice break. You can definitely cram a lot of people on this mountain top.
The trip down was fast and uneventful and we found ourselves back at the trucks around noon. After lunch, we agreed that we had enough daylight left to try for Pinto Peak, only a few miles to the north and close to our campsite. It only took a few minutes to drive to the next trail head and soon we found ourselves on the way to Pinto Peak. From where we dropped the cars the peak was not visible, blocked by an impressive and colorful volcanic ridge.
After three nights and four days in the backcountry it was time to pop back into civilization for food and showers so we headed to Vegas. We usually break up our Thanksgiving trip with a night or two in Vegas and this time we spoiled ourselves with a hot tub room. Although Vegas can be fun, we’ve been there so many times that wandering the Strip has lost its appeal and we prefer to spend the days hiking in Red Rock Canyon.
We spent two full days in Red Rock. On day one, we first headed up to Black Velvet canyon to check out some bouldering sites. There were many climbers up on the bigger walls, but we had just brought along bouldering gear (shoes, chalk, crash pad) and wandered up the canyon while stopping to play on the rocks. It was a fun morning stop away from the crowds of the main park loop, but we had an afternoon plan to summit Turtlehead Peak and didn’t want to run out of daylight so we didn’t spend a lot of time in Black Velvet.
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On Wednesday we will be leaving on a backpacking trip that will have us above 10k for six days, so we decided to head to the mountains this past weekend…
It’s Whitney Day! My watch alarm woke me at 4 am and remembering last night’s cold temperatures, I maneuvered myself to the door while staying inside my sleeping bag. I wanted to heat my breakfast and coffee water inside my vestibule and get as much packing done as possible while staying all warm and cozy inside my down cocoon. As I started moving around I realized it was warmer than the previous night – a check of the thermometer on my GPS revealed a temperature of 47, warmer than most mornings in the Sierra. I ridiculed myself for being a baby and finally got out of my bag.
We left Palm Springs on Christmas morning, ready to head back out to the desert for some hiking. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooporating and most of the surrounding ranges…
On December 26 we awoke to the coldest morning of our trip. It was in the mid 20s and the wind, though it had died down from theprevious night, was…
Sheephead Mountain
We had some turkey and pie to work off on the day after Thanksgiving, so after a morning of hot breakfasting around the cabin’s wood stove, we headed towards Ibex Peak, the highest peak in the small Ibex range in southern Death Valley. It’s not a biggie, but it did have some great views of the surrounding ranges, as well as towards the snow-covered Telescope Peak and Mt Charlston.
We’d scoped out the route on National Geographic Topo the previous night at had an approach plan. After a few miles of two track driving, we left the trucks at a side road closure and continued towards the peak on foot. After climbing slowly across the desert along the old miner’s road, we finally reached the base of the peak and scrambled up to gain a ridge. It was a simple climb from here – an easy ~1000 feet of gain up the ridge straight to the summit. We enjoyed views towards Sheephead Peak the entire way.
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