peak bagging Archives - Page 6 of 15

Bat Mountain (north peak)

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:December 14, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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Bat is the dark distant bump in the middle of this photo taken from the summit of Perry

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.

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Sentinel Peak, Lake Mead National Rec Area

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:December 12, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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"The Sentinel" LMNRA — “The Sentinel” LMNRA

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.

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Shadow Mountain

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:December 10, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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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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Mesquite Mountains High Point

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:December 9, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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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.

Oh dear, I didn't bring snowshoes. Or crampons. Or an ice axe. It's the desert, for Pete's sake! — Oh dear, I didn’t bring snowshoes. Or crampons. Or an ice axe. It’s the desert, for Pete’s sake!

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Joshua Trees on the way to Squaw

Turquoise Mountains: Mines and Squaw Peak

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:December 7, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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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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Mt Tyndall (14,026′): Summer Sierra Trip Report Part 5

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:September 8, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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On the morning of Day 5 we got up early and packed up, saying goodbye to Pavla since she was heading in a different direction than us. Her plan was to meet up with some other friends who were heading out via Mt Whitney. Meanwhile, David and I were heading over to Shepherd Pass to set up a base camp for the next couple of nights in order to climb Mt Tyndall and Mt Williamson.
We exited Wright Lakes basin via the simple cross-country Rockwell Pass, a shortcut that would quickly connect us to the trail heading towards Shepherd Pass from the JMT. Rockwell Pass is famous as the location of the highest observed tornado, but I was perfectly happy avoiding such excitement when we visited.
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Mt Barnard (13,990'): Summer Sierra Trip Report Part 4

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:September 6, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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We woke up the morning of Day 4 in Wright Lakes Basin, a lovely place that we seemingly had all to ourselves. This morning we weren’t packing up camp, rather we were off to climb Mt Barnard, the highest non-14er peak in the Sierra. And at 13,990 ft it’s close enough to 14k that maybe someday it will be measured as a 14er, so it’s nice to get it while it’s flying under the radar!
Although the summit of Barnard was less than 2 miles as the crow flies from camp, I had estimated our round trip route to be close to 10 miles of hiking. The southwest ridge of Barnard is an easy Class 1 slope but we still had some unknown terrain to navigate to even get to the ridge.
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Traversing the Sweetwaters: Patterson and Wheeler Peaks

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:August 28, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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The Sweetwater Mountains are an overlooked range thanks to their more showy neighbor, the Sierra Nevada. Occupying a piece of largely undeveloped land north of Bridgeport and bordered by highways…

Another Weekend of Peaks in Yosemite: Warren (12,327′) and Johnson (11,053′)

Post Author:Rebecca
Post published:July 24, 2013
Post Category:Trip Reports
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Proving once again that there is no such thing as too much time in the mountains, I headed back up for another weekend of peak bagging around the northeast end of Yosemite. On Saturday, we climbed Warren Peak, a lovely pile of rocks on the eastern crest of the Sierra with a tremendous overlook of Mono Lake. On Sunday, we hiked to Johnson Peak, a unimpressive pile of rocks from a distance but a fun slabby climb along some beautiful benches up close.
Here are some photos from these two great climbs. If you are interested in the detailed route information for these peaks, I tried to capture it in the captions of the photos in the albums I linked to below. Neither peak is particularly challenging with route finding or terrain, and they would make fun entry level off-trail peaks in the Yosemite area.
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