Nevada 2013 pics

Why Nevada? *pics to be added*

My main goal this year is to get to a lot of the out of the way peaks in Nevada that have a prominence of over 2000'. Some times I could get there for a couple days and often my trips were affected by weather. Other times I could get close to a week. So far this year these are the peaks I've picked up: (31)
Garfield Hills HP
Lone Mountain
Worthington Mountain
San Antonio Hills HP
Beaver Peak
Wilson Peak
Goshute Peak
High Bald
Butte Range HP
Pearl
Big Bald
Troy Peak
Egan
Fagin
Wildcat
Shoshone
Hole in the Mountain peak
Reveille
Kawich
Portuguese
Blue Eagle
Silver Benchmark
Seaman Range HP
Arrow Range HP
Quinn Canyon Range HP
Moody Peak
Nine Mile mountain
Miller Mountain
Piper Peak
Blue Dick Mountain
Spirit Mountain
McCullough Mountain

Trip One - Garfield Hills and Lone Mountain

First trip to Nevada for year. long drive for two peaks near Tonopah

Trip two Worthington and San Antonio HP

Tacked on to the tail end of a full week in Arizona, these two were hit on the way home.

Trip three - 5 peaks in May

First up will be pics for High Bald Mountain, found east of the Humboldt range and very very remote.  Since the information will be eventually made into a mountain page here at SP (now completed),  this will allow me to put some information together on each of these mountains:  From our trip to High Bald, the following directions: 
Get yourself to the intersection of county roads 783 and 784 in Butte Valley, right by Quilici Spring. There are several ways to do this - you could come in via Cherry Creek and drive north on CR 21, west on BLM 4015, and north on county 784. Or you could leave US 93 on county 783 ("Butte Valley Road") and follow it to the intersection. There are many other ways to get here, and they vary in quality of road and length of drive. But you can reach this point on good gravel roads. The Benchmark map book for Nevada is a great resource to see these roads and works much better than just a Nevada state highway map.

Just north of the intersection (<100 yards) a lesser road heads west towards Medicine Spring. There was a BLM sign on the ground at this point when we visited. Follow this road (high clearance) as it winds to the SW quarter of section 18. Go south and follow the road toward Mud Spring (decent road to here) and beyond (much rougher; we used 4WD). Keep left at the junction marked 2104 meters on the topo and continue as far as you are comfortable. We went beyond the end of the mapped road and found a very nice camping spot on the ridge where the GPS track begins.

The hike follows horse trails (LOTS of horses in these mountains) as indicated on the GPS track, all the way to the summit and register. Class one hiking and the key of course is the long drive in.

Trip 4 June

Pearl, Big Bald, Troy, Egan

Trip 5 - August

Fagin
Wildcat
Shoshone

Trip 6 - Sept trip (no pics)

A recent trip to Nevada netted 5 peaks which will be thumbnailed here. Sorry that there are no pics but I lost my camera coming down off of Blue Eagle Mountain (I'm still bummed about that)

Hole in the Mountain Peak
with Dennis Poulin and Ken Jones. We were able to drive each of our three vehicles up to Lizzie's Basin. Not really recommended even if you have 4WD and high clearance (both required). Nice hike to the summit. Watch for gps track posted by either Dennis or Ken in the near future. (9/10/13) Register was missing.

Reveille Peak.
Bad weather forced us to forgo our climb of Currant Peak and so we drove to the trailhead for this one. Richard Carey's trip report and description were very helpful. We endured a full evening of rain at the trailhead but the rain let up enough to allow us to climb the mountain the next day. (9/12/13)

Kawich Peak.
Looking for a place where the weather seemed decent, we picked Kawich instead of the intended Quinn Canyon HP which was in the center of bad weather. Using Andy Martin's helpful trip report, we found our way there via Hall's canyon.While at our "trailhead", a storm came in and dumped on us all night. It was a bit wet going the next morning as we went through the wet brush which kept us cool until the sun came out. I actually thought this peak was easier than I had anticipated (thanks to Andy's directions with his Bob Sumner variation). The last 400 feet is a brushy mess but not as bad as I thought it'd be. We found some pink ribbons on the route, probably dating back a few years. They were helpful. It was nice to get this one. Fortunately the roads had dried out during the time we were on the mountain and we escaped the way we came in. (9/13/13)

Portuguese Mountain.
Driving from Kawich, we drove US 6 and while getting rained on, drove to the turnoff for Portuguese mountain. We car camped a few miles up the road and hoped the skies would be clear in the morning (they were). Driving into the area of the mountain we found the roads to be a mess. Two notable washouts almost stopped us but we found ways through the brush to connect roads. Dennis had to rescue my truck on one occasion when my truck went into a washout section and got stuck. Carrying a tow strap is good insurance and his big Tundra easily extracted me from my predicament. I'd still be there shoveling if I was there solo.
We drove to within 3/4 mile of Little Ike Spring and hiked from there. Dennis found a great route all the way to the summit but arriving at the summit, we saw a black wall of clouds heading right at us and we barely had enough time to sign the register and start almost running downhill. John Ide had been there two weeks before us and before him, nobody in four years. We beat a hasty retreat to our vehicles and made it out of the bad road sections before a major storm hit where we'd just been. Whew.
(9/14/15)

Blue Eagle Peak.
Following John Vitz's tips, we drove in via the Andrew Spring way and the roads were nasty with one mud section I almost got stuck in on the way in and on the way out. Ugly conditions but we had been promised by the weather report that the weather was going to be better (it was). We parked near Tank Pass and made our way up and over some ridges to get on the mountain proper. Dennis once again led a good route and it worked well for our needs. Wonderful views from the summit and I celebrated my 73rd birthday with the summit as a gift. Dennis was patient with my slow progress both up and down this one as I was feeling everyone of those years on this hike. With promises of eating at Margaritas in Ely, I moved as fast as I could and I thank Dennis for treating me to a birthday dinner. The drive out to US 6 was more of a thrill ride than what you can get at Magic Mountain, yikes. I hope they repair those roads.

Another trip was done in October

Many thanks to Dennis as we rattled around on some very isolated roads in the Nevada outback. It was rewarding adventure wise and wonderful to get some difficult peaks that I will always look back on as part of my Nevada birthday trip. He let me pick the peaks and never complained once about my choices. 121 p2k prominence peaks in Nevada accomplished, http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=41313

Dean Molen - older and maybe a bit wiser.

Images

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