Ranges and Routes

Nevada High Points #91 – Spring Mountains

D. Craig Young · November 7, 2021 · Leave a Comment

**Time hoarders**. Bristlecone pine – another day in the element where they are and have been. Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA.

Charleston Peak

11,918 ft (3633 m) – 5300 ft gain

2021.11.09

We have not been on a big hill for a few months. The smaller, hidden gems are a pleasure, but nothing beats some elevation gain and ultimate altitude. I had a work week in southern Nevada, so we decided that for Second Friday we would climb Charleston Peak, high point of the Spring Mountains and a nice prominent summit in the midst of the Mojave Desert. Darren would fly home on Sunday, after which I was sentenced to a week on the strip. But I will deal with that later, tonight I am on the edge of the Mount Charleston Wilderness.

HP #91 Collection

A simple camp on a tributary wash at Kyle Canyon, Spring Mountains.

Camped in Kyle Canyon – bagged a USFS spot for a couple nights – I am up in the dark at 5.30 to prep coffee and breakfast, fuel for the day; Darren soon pops out of his tent to join me. We had set up our packs last night, and they were slightly heavier than usual. The day held an unsettled forecast so that meant a few more layers to take along – and I had my camera and a couple lenses, always good to be prepared even if it was a nice, promising morning. So, all things ready, we made a quick drive to the trailhead, where several cars were already in the lot – a small pack of trail runners heads north, they might have an adventurous day.

**Guarding the summit.** Charleston Peak rises above its eastern limestone escarpment, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

The typical route to Charleston Peak is known as the ‘South Loop’, although it is often done as an out-and-back. That is our plan given the day’s forecast. Although I am curious about alternative routes – the ‘North Loop’, also not a loop, stands out – there is a rather massive limestone wall that rises for a thousand feet or so, forming an abrupt and defensive eastern escarpment. And yet, there must be some interesting and challenging routes in there somewhere. Those kinds of challenges are behind me now.

**Trail at sunrise.** The first switchbacks at first sun, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

**The good boundary.** Entering the Mount Charleston Wilderness on the north slope of Griffith Mountain, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

We begin the South Loop below Cathedral Rock and are soon in the slow switchbacks that ascend the gullies that cut the north face of Griffith Peak, a southern pinnacle on the long ridge connecting Griffith and Charleston. The route is basically forested switchbacks, one after another, leading unendingly, it seems, to the long (~4 miles) ridge that then climbs gradually for the remainder of the walk to the high point. It is a splendid trail. We have traversed riparian woodlands leading to stands of ponderosa pine transitioning to lodgepole, fir, and, eventually, bristlecone – wonderfully diverse above the desert.

**Under the storm.** The last sun before the storm, streaming through a canyon below Griffith Peak, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

At the ridge, we begin to encounter rime ice, clinging as windvanes to leeward sides of tree branches and blades of grass – the wispy strands of ice reach several inches in length. Although calm now, it is obvious that yesterday (last night?) it was windy and cold, with just the right amount of moisture to form the wonderful crystals. The ethereal ice highlights the skeletal remains of once healthy pines consumed by the Carpenter 1 fire of 2013. We would walk in the fire scar for the first half of the summit ridge.

**Frozen in place.** Rime ice traces a red thistle on the South Loop, Charleston Peak, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

**Lime and frost.** Playful patterns in the windy rime ice huddled against a limestone outcrop, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

A small summit hiking team, all women from Los Angeles and, formerly, Costa Rica, catches us as we paused to relish the fog that swirls on the western wind churning along the ridge. At our meet-up, they ask if we are doing the North Loop on the descent and given that Darren and I had started a discussion about our descent route while switchbacking through the forest, I immediately confirmed that we would indeed be heading north after the summit. It would be a good, if quick, decision.

**Trail fog.** Costa Rican summit team, our partners for the day, work steadily up the south loop trail, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

The fog became definitive cloud and pellety graupel pecked at our shirts and packs. The climbing kept us warm, but the moisture crept in. It was windy now too, but the trail guided us easily even as we needed to be strident in the building wind. We soon found, just below the summit, the wreck of the 1955 CIA plane. It is a few large fragments of the fuselage and landing gear (and certainly other bits) strewn among east-sloping talus. It seems that it only just missed clearing the ridge, but, flying east, it crashed into the western slope and tumbled terribly over the ridge. Apparently disoriented in a storm, the plane went down, and none survived their secret commute to Groom Lake (Area 51) deep in the Nevada desert.

We regain the trail, turning into the wind on the northwest slopes; it is snowing steadily and brashly now. Finally, the radio towers of the rounded summit came into view, but we were otherwise clouded-in – there was no view in any direction. Should we wait? Would it be a short time until a little clearing revealed a desert panorama far below? Who knows? One thing was sure; the wind chill was crisp, and the moisture of our climb made the cold cling to us, like the rime ice building on the summit towers. We donned our down jackets and set off into the wind-driven squall scouring the giant Z switchbacks on the peak’s eastern face. The Costa Rican party summited just behind us.

**A summit squall.** Darren checks the weather on the summit of Charleston Peak, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

The North Loop has, just below the summit, a very different character than the South Loop. Its switchbacks are exposed, and filled with recent hard-packed snow, the narrow trail is almost serious, especially with the blowing snow and fog adding a bit of drama. I am immediately glad we came this way. There are stories in the ‘summit’ blog sites implying that the North Loop is not worth doing because it lacks interest. How wrong that is! After the few exposed switchbacks, we begin a long traverse, passing the Devils Thumb on our way to the upper reach of Trail Canyon. And we soon get exceptional views of the summit behind and just above us – yes, the summit is clear now. There are mountain views you simply do not get on the South Loop. The trail remains above 11,000 feet for several miles, skirting rock walls and pulpited hoodoos. I would not have wanted to miss this; if we can miss something that we do not know about.

**The clearing.** The clouds break as we descend the east face of Charleston Peak, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

**A grove of ledges.** The light follows our descent as we traverse the ledges below the Devils Thumb, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

**Ending the loop.** Darren enjoying the scenes of the North Loop below Charleston Peak, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

I was beginning to feel the long day as we approached Trail Canyon junction, almost 16 miles into our walk. Autumn colors peeking from the evergreen forest replaced the fog and snow show. The warm color in the raking light of the evening made the descent a pleasure. The Costa Ricans had joined us for most of the afternoon, and it was clear I was lagging more than these steady walkers. We talked of other peaks of late and climbs of the future.

**Kyle Canyon.** The post-storm light plays with the autumn colors of Kyle Canyon, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

Pavement appeared abruptly at the wilderness boundary, the bottom of Trail Canyon. This meant that we had a road-walk for the last mile, but this was fine; it gave us time to review the day and bask in the true pleasure of unexpected alpine walking adventure. It might have been the best day I have had on a mountain – completely unexpected in such proximity to the desiccated oddity of Las Vegas.

**Charleston Peak.** The high point of the Spring Mountains rises above southern Nevada, Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

On the truck’s tailgate, we toasted our unique day on this great mountain tailgate, and then a couple from Connecticut, whom we had met as they headed south on the high switchbacks of the North Loop, came out of the forest below Cathedral Rock. They looked due for a finish and a rest, so we offered them a ride to the Trail Canyon parking area. I was happy to do this until they said they had had a clear summit after our warning of snow and windy fog. But that is how it goes, and, of course, this news failed to diminish our pleasure of a perfect day.

HP #91 Collection

Even freeze-dried spaghetti tastes special after a day like this. Refueled and cherishing the echoes in our legs, we sat by the fire and marveled at our good fortune. Then slept very well.

Keep going.

**Giving way.** Spring Mountains, Mojave Desert, USA

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Nevada High Points #90 – Madelin Mesa

D. Craig Young · October 23, 2021 · 1 Comment

**Mahogany distance.** Wildfire has taken a toll on the Madelin Mesa but hardy curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany holds on to summit outcrops, Great Basin Desert, USA

Rowland Mountain (‘Rocky’)

6911 ft (2107 m) – 650 ft gain

2021.09.24

The mornings have the feel of autumn, but the midday still holds the heat of summer; it is that time of year. Here, at the close of September, I had a landform mapping project in support of archaeological survey and inventory near the northern end of the Madelin Mesa, a hardscrabble and fire-altered tableland that stretches along the Nevada-California border in northwestern Nevada. You could argue that this is not a mountain ‘range’ at all, but the basalt-capped rimrocks and plateaus are punctuated by a few hills and form a distinct region between Buffalo Creek and the Madeline Plains of northeastern California. I have driven by Rowland Mountain for many years, gouging around between the Hwy 395 corridor and the obsidian-rich calderas of the High Rock Country, and, though I had created my list of target high points quite some time ago, I had forgotten which outcrop was the high point. It is a simple cluster of basalt outcrops just south of Buckhorn Road.

Darren and I had tried to get to Rowland in March, but our plans were curtailed by poor road conditions. On that outing we had retreated from the mesa and made for the High Rock Wilderness, drier land to the east, and summited Mahogany Mountain.

This time I was alone, although I knew of an archaeological field crew camped a few miles to the north. I was on my way to visit them, but first, with no sign of snow or much of anything to block my way, I turned toward Roland. I parked near an older Wilderness Study Area (WSA) boundary sign, though the currently mapped boundary of the Buffalo Hills WSA, is along the summit of the nearby ridge – this is the goal of today’s summit walk.

HP #90 Collection

**Rabbitbrush at seed.** Disturbance plants such as rubber rabbitbrush colonize burn scars on Madelin Mesa, Great Basin Desert, USA

It seems we have had endless days of cloudless skies. This can make for a pleasurable outing, but it makes the creation of interesting landscape photographs challenging. And, while landscape photographers have been trending away from grand, saturated landscapes toward smaller and more personal compositions, I remain drawn to the big scenes and have found only rare satisfaction with intimate, unique imagery. Maybe the cloudless walks into unassuming hills like those of the Madelin Mesa provide a laboratory for practice.

**Woven.** Great Basin wild rye thrives along narrow, rocky floodplain where skeletons of western juniper trace earlier woodland, Madelin Mesa, Great Basin Desert, USA

**Splash of autumn.** Color spills from protective rock outcrops where seeds and water gather, Madelin Mesa, Great Basin Desert, USA

Wildfire scoured the area sometime in the past decade or so. Stands of western Juniper have become confined to the narrow canyons with patchy remnants only thickening to the north. Skeletal woodlands stand bare among the disturbance colonizers and locally proliferating – slowly, slowly – communities seeded to rehabilitate the barren slopes and washes. Curl-leaf mountain mahogany grips the higher outcrops where its fire hardiness has protected isolated stands. These hardwood trees are beginning their brief dance of autumn color and stand hopefully dressed among the rocks. Otherwise, the landscape is a trodden yellow-brown in all directions. Horses navigate repeatedly and hopefully between water reservoirs (many now dry) constructing a web of inter-weaving trails, pounding the fragilely submissive, droughty land to dust. Pronghorn look at the equine map with confusion but remain ready to run, they need no habitual track.

**Little shade.** Pronghorn antelope gather at a lone western juniper, attentive as always. Madelin Mesa, Great Basin Desert, USA

Your host on High Point #90, Rowland Mountain

I reach the wrong summit after a relatively short walk. It is only a slight mistake as the elevation of the bunched-up outcrops along the summit ridge is difficult to discern. I jump off one to gain another, then another. Soon, the brass benchmark ‘Rocky’ (the label on the 7.5’ quadrangle map) shines into view. The register was placed, once again, by my ‘peak neighbor’ Tom Rountree, a summit hiker I have run into many times but never met. There are only two other names in the little book – by the looks of it, these Spanish surnames suggest visits by Basque or Hispanic crofters who could not keep from getting to the highest point around; at heart, they are no different than I am.

This walk only takes a couple hours, but I take my time, watching Northern Flickers attack the barkless juniper snags while pronghorn stand guardedly in the shad of a long western juniper until I make a careless move, and they begin a slow but purposeful walk westward away from the strange figure on the hillside.

**As is.** A necessary evil on the track to Rowland Mountain, but mind the sign. If no sign, leave it as you find it. Madelin Mesa, Great Basin Desert, USA

HP #90 Collection

After so many outback days generally alone, I am surprised by a cluster of hunters on my walk out. I see them a ways off, but am surprised nonetheless. Their sight of me is equally surprising, especially given that I am non-motorized, just a guy walking down a wash. I am waiting at the gate, having kindly opened it so they can pass unperturbed by its presence. I offer that I have been waiting a very long time for their arrival, and we have a good laugh and short conversation about the convenience of a backcountry valet, especially on a Thursday afternoon in the middle of nowhere, as they say. Once again, to me, this is the middle of everywhere. The best place to be, even if it hardly draws attention on a map.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Nevada High Points #89 – Calico Mountains

D. Craig Young · October 19, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Donnelly Peak

8533 ft (2588 m) – 2317 ft gain

2021.09.12

There is a problem with names in this part of the desert. And, as a geographer and some-time chronicler of Great Basin landforms, I strive to maintain a sense of where I am. It stands to reason that the names of landmarks and their labels on maps are paramount, and when there is a problem with names, the labels on maps are hard to change. For a time, Donnelly Peak was shrouded in a cloud of changing labels, and the fixes seem to have echoed in the local hills and canyons.

I first drove Highway 34, south from Oregon in 1989. As we wormed our way down the lonely, dust-ridden road – I recall the romance of calling this wonderful road a ‘highway’, the epitome of Nevada overland travel – my travel companion, a long-time Nevada resident and professor, identified the prominent peak with its white, west-facing outcrops – like breast feathers on a sage grouse – as Division Peak, a landmark for us and for those who traveled the route historically, and probably thousands of years before that. I traveled the Black Rock – High Rock Country for many years using this landmark as a way point – my maps all showed it as Division Peak. It was not until the mid-1990s that I noticed I had been misinformed, by my mentor and by the USGS; however, the mistaken label made historical sense.

The peak’s original name (1893) was Division Peak, the prominent high point of the Calico Mountains thought to ‘divide’ Humboldt County from Washoe County. As early as 1902, there were hints that something was not quite right. If Division Peak was to divide the counties, it was in the wrong spot. One cannot move mountains, so they say, one can only play with names.

HP #89 Collection

Smoke subdued evening of the sagebrush hills of the Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

Touting local mineral interest, the Daily Nevada Journal (1902) referred to it as Donnelly Mountain after a nearby spring, but that label did not stick. As I mentioned, ‘Division Peak’ appears on many USGS maps, including those used in today’s digital applications that rely on scanned versions of map originals. I learned of Donnelly Peak as I reviewed Alvin McLane’s Silent Cordilleras, my primary reference for my list of named highpoints. Even as I wanted to believe my otherwise trusty and detailed 7.5’ USGS quadrangle, Alvin had clearly done his research. He separated the low hills along the county line, over four miles west of Donnelly, as the Division Range with Division Peak as its high point (McLane 1978:39). His book was published in 1978 but as late as 1975 the official place names register had Division Peak at the spot that today is Donnelly. In keeping with the local confusion, Alvin’s Division Range is often shown as the ‘Sheep Peaks’, and I have seen a modern digital map that shows the highpoint of the Sheep Peaks as something other than Division Peak, even though no such highpoint exists. Helen Carlson, in her wonderful reference of Nevada Place Names (1974), tried to rectify the misnomer by explaining that ‘Division’ actually marked the boundary between Pershing and Washoe counties, but that makes even less geographic sense. So, ignoring Alvin’s insight, the U.S. Board of Geographic Names, in 1982, found that the 8533-foot peak had been changed from Donnelly to Division with the publication of the geographic names register in 1975. This judgement, too, seems misinformed as anyone visiting the summit will find brass benchmarks stamped ‘1940’ and ‘Division’. This place above the Black Rock was confused way before Burning Man ever showed up.

An unedited benchmark showing the peak designation in 1940 – Division.

Finally, in 1989, about the time I was making my first excursion along its base, the Board of Geographic Names – I suspect Alvin may have played a role – declared the Calico highpoint to be Donnelly Peak and the nearby high point of the Sheep Hills (Alvin’s Division Range) would be Division Peak. Alvin had done the hard work of moving the mountain, the register finally followed suit. Division was back on the county line; actually it’s about a thousand feet east, but close enough. We will summit that sometime soon and see what its brass marker proclaims.

First, we need to walk up Donnelly Peak! Second, I am happy to admit that all too often when contributors to summitpost.org state that a peak has ‘little redeeming value’, Darren and I tend to have an even better experience visiting the forlorn highpoint. Donnelly was no exception.

First light as we leave for the climb to Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

Darren had scouted the lower slopes last night. Not that that was necessary; it would be difficult to get lost on the open slopes of Donnelly. We went along the spring exclosure fence to gain the slope. This was a northwestern ridge extending from the peak; the ridge is cut by a series of slightly glassy, tuffaceous rocks exposed as resistant rimrocks and outcrops. Silty sandy gravel on tuff mantled moderate slopes between outcrops.

The northern view on the northwestern slopes of Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

Darren waits on a small rimrock plateau in the northern Calico Mountains, Great Basin Desert, USA

My mountain walks are always a multi-tasking bit of ambulatory mountaineering, photography, and geomorphology. My walks are meditation and seeing. Ok, more multi-observational than actual separate tasks. Tasks are typically thought out or planned, but my observations are absorbed through seeing and I try to stay open to the elements around me. I react to seeing and observe by collecting information – sensory, analog, and digital.

Rock lines puzzle me, so Darren and I stop occasionally to think about the processes that might form them. We take particular note of a set of incipient and mature rock lines. These may be a result of nivation creep due to wet snowload, melting, and runoff rilling; lines forming on slopes of a particular grade. Maybe. Large clasts form anchor and deflection points that transition to aprons or stop the rock line.

Geomorphic features on the western slope of Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

Having puzzled over the rock lines, we aim toward two prominent, tower-like outcrops near the top of the ridge, all the while wondering about the white rocky center that outcrops abruptly on the steep western face of the peak. I am subsequently distracted by an outcrop that holds a nice woodrat nest with locally remnant fossilized midden. Well-preserved middens can hold troves of information about past environments; these, however, look recent.

A rock strewn approach under cloudless morning skies, Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

The summit’s rolling knob is cleft deeply on the western side as the rimrock drops to the white tuff below. The register protects a few ladybugs, and the notebooks protected by the nested cans are clean if somewhat well-used. We have decided to descend on the south side of the summit rimrock to traverse the scree-covered slope to check the white tuffs of the mountain’s core. It has been a while since we have descended a slope this steep. It is not dangerous, but the silicic clasts clatter and roll beneath our feet. Occasional game trails are walkable, but after a few strides, the screes slips and slides between low shrubs. Balance does not always come easy.

Descending the talus, Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

Darren checking out the welded debris flows in the white tuffs of Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

The white outcrops are pyroclastic flows and tuffs with well-sorted and graded cobbles and boulders in distinct beds between jumbles of unsorted, high-energy debris flows. Clasts in lower tuff units are rounded like alluvium and are distinct from the angular and sharp boulders and cobbles from the sides of the flow and the throat of the dikes and vents. A spring bleeds from the end of the alluvium below the white walls above this western canyon. The energy of the past eruptions is sweetened by today’s trickle of life-giving water.

A reminder that I am not alone in the outback, Donnelly Peak, Great Basin Desert, USA

HP #89 Collection

It has been a great morning up-and-down Donnelly Peak and it is warming as we top the small rolly hill overlooking camp. This one made us work a bit, a nice change from some of our smaller hill walks. The names have changed but the mountain stands where it always has, a beacon at the southern end of High Rock Canyon and the western edge of the Black Rock Desert. I am happy to have solved its naming puzzle after 30 years of navigating the dirt highways at its base.

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Nevada High Points #88 – Butte Spring Hills

D. Craig Young · October 18, 2021 · Leave a Comment

Peak 6507

6507 ft (1983 m) – 910 ft gain

2021.09.11

On Nevada Highway 34, a wonderful dirt road north of Gerlach, there is a steep right-hand turn just after the Lund Petrified Forest. The forest consists of a couple of upright trees trapped behind a fenced enclosure, but we are not here to see the rocks that were once trees. We had escaped the smoke-filled Carson Valley to gouge around a pair of summits on Second Friday weekend. This steep road, a cherry-stemmed, spring access in the Little High Rock Wilderness, would get us near the high point of the Butte Spring Hills. Although this group of hills is not one of those listed by McLane or Charlet, I added Peak 6507 to my list as it stands apart from the Division Range; the canyon of Willow Creek making a clean break from the Division Range (aka Sheep Hills) to the southeast. My few additions to the lists are typically small hills like these that stand out on USGS maps and are labeled even though they sometimes seem to structurally related to nearby ranges – and it gets me to a few places I might not otherwise visit.

HP #88 Collection

***Dry Days.*** Bath Tub Spring, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

We arrived at the wilderness boundary at mid-day. Not the best time for a photographic foray on the hardscrabble sagebrush, mostly beaten down by horses. After parking at a boundary sign, we walk an abandoned two-track toward Bathtub Spring. The spring is damp, but the dug-out reservoir is dry and pocked with trampling hoofprints. A barbed drift fence has fallen into disrepair; it would be nice to see this removed. It is, however, easily stepped over, and we make our way to a dry wash that rings the southern apron below the prominent rimrock of Peak 6507.

***Time to go.*** A fence in need of removal, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

***High key desert.*** A good walk to Peak 6507, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

***Remnant.*** Memories of recent rain. Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

Water pockets in the capping outcrops promise hope left by recent rain. A quick storm passed a couple days ago, and I am surprised the water remains. As Craig Childs writes, there is often more water in the desert than we expect, if only we see and learn. These seemingly lost pools always lift my spirits.

***Summit views.*** High point of Butte Spring Hills over Highway 34, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

The summit is a jumble of rhyolitic rimrock and boulders; there is no register – maybe I should install one on those hills that I upgrade to the status of named-range highpoint (those not on the typical ‘lists’), but, hey, leave no trace. Even for a relatively small group of hills, the view is awesome. It is especially good to see Donnelly Peak rising to the southeast, our target for tomorrow.

***Looking west.*** Shadows among the Rooster Comb, Little High Rock Desert, Great Basin Desert, USA

***Desert high.*** On the summit of Peak 6507, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

We scurry down the west-facing rimrock and walk a looping route back to the rig. Obsidian nodules of the eastern margin of the Cottonwood Caldera rest as gravel and small cobbles on the fans near the so-called Butte Spring. We take the opportunity to map their distribution for my on-going obsidian sourcing project. Another great reason to get into the lesser-known hills and highpoints.

HP #88 Collection

Keep going.

***Mind the sign.*** Notes at the wilderness boundary, Little High Rock Wilderness, Great Basin Desert, USA

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing

Nevada High Points #87 – Anchorite Hills

D. Craig Young · September 6, 2021 · 4 Comments

Powell Mountain

9530 ft (2905 m) – 1988 ft gain

2021.08.13

It took a long time to get going today. Smoke from Sierran wildfires has filled Carson Valley for weeks it seems – now the typical summer atmosphere, and the heat has been oppressive, forged one-to-one with the unending haze. Could I drive out of it? Climb above it? It was hard to get motivated.

The Anchorite Hills rise as an afterthought, like a comma, on the southern end of the Wassuk Range, the home of Mount Grant above Walker Lake. Low mountains of rhyolite and granodiorite host thick pinyon woodlands that give way to old fire scars where, high up, a few limber pines stand haggard and scraggly in protected canyons and bowls. I found Curleaf mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius) wrapping the highest ridges and extending to the range’s highpoint at Powell Mountain. However, boulders scatter among the vast areas of open Montane Zone shrubland, which makes for nice walking on open slopes, approaching ridges, and intervening hummocks.

HP #87 Collection

Southern view toward Table Mountain from Powell Mountain, Anchorite Hills, Great Basin Desert, USA

I approached the Anchorites from the West Fork of the Walker River, following the Hawthorne Road toward Lucky Boy Pass. After watching an Osprey dance above the Walker, I skirted Rough Creek and traced along Mud Spring Canyon and its numerous tributary washes to get to the broad pediment of the Borealis Gold Mine. I turned south to cross a beveled landform cut by dry washes with clear evidence of being not so dry very recently. Detritus of sticks, weeds, and mud hung as snags in washes were bedforms showed ripples and pools of a passing flashflood. I was a day or two late, but new thunderstorms were brewing. The monsoons of recent days had been rather weak and primarily anchored to local topography – the cells built above highpoints and stayed there, mostly. I was headed for a highpoint, but it wasn’t as high as Corey Peak and Mount Grant to the north, and that was where today’s storm held its ground.

A few raindrops pelted me as I scouted on foot for a camp. I had driven the rig and trailer to a good turn-around and searched ahead for a spot that was not too tight and would not get damaged if I brought the trailer further up the two-track road. I had already made a sketchy turn-around exploring the pass between the Wassuks and the Anchorites; that track being riddled with flashflood debris stuffed into a typically good dirt road. Tonight’s camp would be below Powell Spring where pinyon-juniper woodland transitions abruptly to valley shrubland at the foot of the Anchorites. Four pinyon jays and a pair of western bluebirds checked on me as I set camp.

Quiet camp in the pinyon woodland of the Anchorite Hills, Great Basin Desert, Nevada

Powell Mountain, high point of the Anchorite Hills, Great Basin Desert, Nevada

I had originally planned to climb the short distance to Powell Mountain – about a mile and half from and two thousand feet above camp – in the morning, but the brush of rain had cooled and cleared the skies, so I set off. If I could get through the riparian brush of Powell Spring and the canyon above it in less than an hour, I should be able to access open country and get up and back before dark. I did not want to navigate the densely enclosed canyon by the light of my headlamp.

There is a broken-down cabin at Powell Spring; it spooked me as I came through a patch of Desert rose and willows – I do not want to visit this in the dark either! The canyon was just navigable. I walked along the dry runnel of the canyon floor, climbing onto outcrops that walled the canyon to get around ‘steps’ where groundwater allowed a fluorescence of willow. Here and there, dense skeletons of willows, blown flat by the weight of a snow avalanche, possibly, blocked my forward progress. While this half-mile took quite a while, I made the steep open slopes below the summit in good time. Here, I started the difficult steps into the gravelly soft sediment, a mix of dust and slopewash alluvium, that blankets the bouldery slopes below the southwest ridge. I could reach out and touch the hillside I was climbing; it was much steeper than I expected. I stumbled between shrubs and boulders, but I quickly gained elevation.

Final approach to the Mahogany woodland at the summit of Powell Mountain, Anchorite Hills, Great Basin Desert , USA

As I gained the boulder-strewn summit, I was surprised by the seemingly sudden appearance of little, packed woodlands of mountain-mahogany. It took me a few minutes to find the actual summit marked by a wood-staked survey marker hidden among the shrubby trees. The register was lost among a thicket of branches. It is not a popular summit, though I found one of the few groups to visit had hiked up here only last weekend. After signing in and watching the smoke begin to block the sunset, I knew I could not linger. I had to get through the thicketed canyon before dark.

Triangulation marker at summit of Powell Mountain, Anchorite Hills, Great Basin Desert, USA

There is some ease in descending a dirty, grussy slope. It goes quickly until a foot gets caught in root or branch, a reminder that gravity could easily win. In the steepness of the upper canyon, I startled a small owl – likely a Northern Pygmy (Glaucidium californicum) – that had been feeding on a finch-sized songbird. It was likely a recently fledged juvenile in a daily roost, benefitting from a parent-delivered meal. It was too dark for photography, and I did not have patience to wait while the canyon floor darkened.

An owl’s interrupted dinner, my apologies.

I felt my way along the canyon floor, following my approaching footprints through the small, dry streambed. The bends in the canyon seemed to alternate from noisy with songbirds and insects to the quiet of enclosed woodland. With my eyes focused on the red of the infernal sunset, the pinyon loomed as blackened shadows, sad portents of once and future fires. As the woodland darkened, I could just make out sandy gullies in gaps between trees, arriving eventually and abruptly at the imploded cabin below the spring. It was time to get the headlamp out, but I enjoyed the last few steps to my truck, happy to have had the summit walk at the end of a slow-starting day.

Corey Peak and Mount Grant rise through the smoked shade of the breaking monsoon, Wassuk Range, Great Basin Desert, USA

HP #87 Collection

Keep going.

Please respect the natural and cultural resources of our public lands.

#naturefirst #keepgoing