Yesterday our group climbed nearby Dome & Klinker Mountain before doing some sightseeing at the Owl in Red Mountain.  Today the plan was to start with Fremont Peak and then run over to climb Red Mountain and then hopefully make it home at a decent hour.

Since we camped right under the peak Saturday night this writeup covers the access and camping options rather than include them with the previous day.

December 17th, 2017

Fremont Peak (4,584')

Red Mountain (5,261')

Fremont: 1.4 miles, 750'
Red: 3.9 miles, 1,800'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [MapF] [MapR]

This trip came about thanks to Ross Doering who has been eyeing Fremont Peak for a while now since it sticks out rather dramatically along the 395 south of Red Mountain.


He mentioned it while we were driving back from a Sierra trip this summer and I jumped at the chance to lead something new.  So a few months later here we were with Dome Mountain, Klinker Mountain, and Red Mountain thrown in to fill out the weekend.

Yesterday Jen Blackie and I climbed Ashford and Desert Hound peaks to the west and today we had a few other random peaks in the Zdon Peak List to choose from.  We decided to grab Ibex since I had seen the name pop up a number of times on Peakbagger radius searches and Jubilee since it was straightforward and along the way.  With the sun going down so early I figured we probably were not going to have time for anything else which did turn out to be the case.

We ended up spending extra time around Ibex due to the New American Mine / American Mine located on the southwestern slope.  We took a longer route to climb the peak and found one of the more extensive mines I've come across lately.

December 3rd, 2017 

Jubilee Mountain (2,526')

Ibex Peak (4,751')
Jubilee: 2.16 miles, 1,200'
Ibex: 6.6 miles, 2,100'

[Pics] [CalTopo] [MapJub] [MapIbex]

I'd been back in civilization for a whopping four days following the epic six day Thanksgiving Turktacular trip to Escalante but an open weekend is an open weekend and I wasn't about to sit around at home. 

Since I finished the Sierra Club Desert Peak Section list last year I've been looking for new lists to work on and one of those has I've been toying with is the list of peaks which are in the Andy Zdon Desert Summits book.

Zdon Upper: http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=-924180
Zdon Lower: http://www.peakbagger.com/List.aspx?lid=-924181

The guide itself I've never cared for since it doesn't include any maps which makes it a lot of work if you are looking for things to climb vs checking for beta on a specific peak.  But hey, Peakbagger to the rescue and it is the closest thing we have to a Secor like reference to the desert.

Jen Blackie and I decided to head out to the cluster of peaks around Ashford Junction west of Shoshone and see what we could get done despite the short days this time of year.

On the plus side that meant the drive was only going to be about 4 hours which is a nice change of pace.  We might have even gotten to sleep before midnight *except* I managed to forget my boots meaning by the time we backtracked and grabbed them we didn't actually get away until 9 pm.  Ah well...

December 2nd, 2017

Ashford Peak (3,547')

Desert Hound Peak (4,472')
7 miles, 4,000 ft

[Pics] [CalTopo] [Map]

This was the second day of the 2017 Mustache Mosey and we planned to have an easy day climbing the 3rd -ish class pile of rocks called Teutonia Peak.

January 15th, 2017

Teutonia Peak (719')

[Pics] [Map]

The Mustache Mosey (aka The Premier Upper Lip Hair Based Desert Social Event Of The Season) began back in 2011 as a way to spice up a relatively pedestrian pair of peaks with some not insignificant access difficulties.  Peaks were climbed, ridiculous mustaches were worn, and unfortunately several vehicles had tires shredded before we were done.  And we've maintained the tradition ever since.  (Except for the tires.  Mostly...)

January 14th, 2017

[PicsKelso] [PicsLavaTubes] [CalTopo] [Map]

December 12, 2016
Palo Verde Peak (1,375')
[Pics] [Map]

We already hit our main objective for the area yesterday when we did Thumb Peak and Paint Mountain / Wiley BM.  Looking around for other interesting peaks in the area Palo Verde Peak stood out as being more prominent than most of the bumps out there.  And as it turned out it's a pretty interesting peak.

December 10th, 2016
Paint Mountain Benchmark (1,328')
Thumb Peak (1,375')
[PicsPaint] [MapPaint] 
[PicsThumb] [MapThumb]

The original plan for this weekend was to lead a trip to climb Little Picacho with a group of AMP staff and students.  A rash of work and illness related cancellations caused me to reschedule that trip and Kristen and I ended up doing some peaks south of Blythe.

That meant the drive was downright reasonable and we were laid out along the side of Wiley's Well Road a bit after midnight.

This was the first "real" hike I'd been on since Knee Surgery 2015.

Prior to this I had done a snow travel outing with my WTC group and a number of short local hikes but I was anxious to get back out.  The last 6 months of being laid up had taken a toll on my sanity.

I picked this peak almost at random while looking around on Peakbagger.  I'm getting low on DPS peaks I need and I really wanted a two day desert trip with a car camp in between.

Clipper is just south of the infamous Edgar and Mitchell Peaks and Providence Benchmark nearby looked to make a decent pairing with it.

As I posted on Facebook that morning:
"Middle of nowhere, parked in an abandoned dump, about to do a long slog for a seldom visited bump of no particular significance. All is right with the world. -ish"

March 26th, 2016

Clipper Mountain (4,593')

[Pics] [Map]

December 20th, 2014
Valley of Fire Peak (2,972')
[Pictures] [Map]

Valley of Fire is a Nevada State Park along the 15 north of Las Vegas.  After finally exploring the area during the 2012 Turktacular I'd always wanted to bring a group back here since so few people from the Sierra Club peakbagger crowd seem to know about it.

Neal and I were looking for a fun party trip to close out 2014 and it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  We led the trip through the Sierra Club Desert Peak Section despite this being off the list of peaks they climb and by the time the trip rolled around we had 15 people signed up.

What:
  Jumbo Peak (5,761')
  Mica Peak (5,758')
When: October 27nd, 2013
Where: Near Lake Mead, NV
Who: Matthew Hengst, Jeff Atijera
Pictures: [Matt]
GPS Track: [Map]

After the previous days successful climb of Mormon Peak ended a bit early when we couldn't find a way to traverse to a nearby bonus peak set off further east along the 15.  A quick refueling stop in Mesquite later we started down the long bumpy road to Whitney Pockets and beyond.

What:
   Mormon Peak (7,414')
When: October 26th, 2013
Where: Nevada
Who:  Matthew Hengst, Jeff Atijera
Pictures: [Matt]
GPS Track: [Hike] [Hike+Drive] [Whole Drive]

Mormon Peak is one of those oddly prominent bumps out there that makes you question why the club would leave it off the Desert Peak Section list while a number of significantly less memorable peaks are included.

Granted it is near the far more memorable Moapa Peak which tends to grab ones attention a bit more from the free but still.

And then I climbed it.  Suddenly I'm not such a big fan of adding it to the list...

Reasons why I look forward to desert season again

  Peak 11784 (11,784')
  Headley Peak (12,676')
  East Headley Peak (12,751')
  Indian Peak (11,297')
  Mount Hogue (12,751')
When: June 15th, 2013
Where: White Mountains, East Side
Who: +Matthew Hengst, Paul Garry, Keith Christenson, Daryn Dodge, more...
Pictures: [Matt]
GPS Track: [Hike] [Hike+Drive]

After surviving 20+ hours of driving for last weekends Jefferson and Arc Dome outing there was one last desert outing to be done before returning to the distressingly awesome early season conditions in the Sierra.

Paul Garry had asked me to assist on a two day outing to the east side of the White Mountains with the goal being some relatively rarely visited peaks on the Non-Sierra California 10,000-foot Peaks list.  We'd be dayhiking, we'd get a number of peaks, and we'd be doing around 8k worth of gain on Saturday alone.  Sounded like fun.

What:

What:

   Rainbow Wall (6,924')
   Gunsight Notch Peak (6,160')
   Juniper Peak (6,109')
When: March 30th, 2013
Where: Red Rocks Nevada
Who: Matthew Hengst, Jeff Atijera, Harlan Stockman

What: 
  Valley of Fire Peak (2,972')
When:  November 24rd, 2012
GPS Track:  Track

Yesterday Anne and I had kicked off the long Thanksgiving weekend with a somewhat relaxed day and scrambled up the relatively short White Dome & Gibraltar.  After looking at what the park had to offer I figured we could easily amuse ourselves for another day and then we'd probably head on and grab the relatively nearby Desert Peak Section list peaks Virgin and Hayford.


The remaining named bumps on the official park map (which wasn't the best, I'd strongly recommend bringing your own) weren't overly interesting looking so we decided to head for the high point we'd been able to see from White Dome the day before.  It had the advantage of being the most interesting looking thing around.

What: 
  White Dome (2,234')
  Gibraltar Rock (2,172')
When:  November 23rd, 2012
GPS Track:  Track


Along I15 north of Las Vegas there's a sign I'd passed numerous times for Valley of Fire.  Generally it was late at night coming or going from some climb or another so I'd never taken the time to explore it.

After longer Thanksgiving trip plans fell through I ended up doing Thanksgiving dinner in town and then loaded into the car and headed for Vegas.  Not surprisingly traffic was fairly light.  One quick 11 pm stop at a Vegas Walmart for supplies and we were back on the road and pulled in to Valley of Fire sometime after midnight.

What: 
  Cathedral Peak (5,775')
   J. J. Freakel Peak (5,681')
When:  November 18th, 2012

What: 
  South Pahroc HP / Hyko BM (7,950')
  East Pahranagat (~6,280')
When:  November 17th, 2012

What:  Castle Peaks 
  South Dove (5,668')
  Dove Benchmark (5,830')
  North Castle Butte (5,896')  
When:  November 3^rd, 2012