[John Morrow]

Finally home after the long drive. Next installment of an amazing and diverse desert experience. I hope folks find it interesting enough to plan a trip of their own! After dropping off my friend Laurie at McCarran Airport, I settled back into the Boulder Campground at Lake Mead national Recreation Area as a basecamp for a few more days. At $10 it is worth leaving the gear set up safe. Rising to a whopping $20 (Capitol Reef, too, FYI) on Jan 1, don't think I'll be staying there much more, unfortunately. That evening I walked the famed "rail-trail" once used to supply the Hoover Dam construction.

Rail trail moonrise

Interp

Color

Interp tunnel

tunnel

Nov 23 I did an unknown untested walk to search for rock art, water, and maybe scramble a peak. It is a place called Aztec Wash on the west shore of the Colorado River between Black Canyon and Spirit Mountain Wildernesses in Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

Eagle Aztec overview

Eagle Aztec detail

I was delighted to find immense cholla forests, rock art, and a nice scramble of Eagle Peak 3602' (out of Courtney Purcell's book). Eagle was Class 2 up the south ridge out of Aztec Narrows and down the N/NE Ridge.

Cholla everywhere

Destination Eagle Peak 3602'

forest

Eagle Peak

down into Aztec

Aztec descent

Aztec Wash

Aztec narrows

narrows view

south ridge of Eagle

along south ridge scramble

Aztec below

chollas enroute

Lake Mead National Recreation Area

View to south

Ireteba Peaks

North Ridge scramble down

yet more

Nov 24, today I wanted to stitch together a hike loop of narrow canyons, peaks, and more rock art. I came up with this loop of Goldstrike Canyon, a side canyon to Boyscout divide, Boyscout to North Fork Boyscout Canyon, and back to parking via the powerline jeep trail. This was mostly in Black Canyon Wilderness and included interesting scrambles of Goldstrike Peak 2400+, Windbreak Peak 2583, and Pass BM (Black Cany Wilderness Highpoint) 2695'.

GoldstrikeBoyscoutNF

Down Goldstrike and up a side canyon to Goldstrike Peak:

Goldstrike morning

Hoover Dam Peak for another day

Side canyon approach

fun scramble falls

tough move (or easy bypass)

pothole

beautiful side canyon Black Canyon Wilderness, NV

Black Canyon Wilderness, NV

Out of canyon

Up to saddle

Onto ridge

Ridge run

Black Canyon view

Black Canyon Wilderness, NV

final scramble (groove on right)

from there

solid groove through tuff face

Colorado River, Black Canyon

the route on Goldstrike Pk 2410'

Down off the south side of Goldstrike Peak to Boyscout Canyon ( a small slot along the way) to N. Fk. Boyscout Canyon:

Now to Boyscout Canyon

SW Ridge scramble descent

flowering

Boyscout Canyon, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Black Canyon Wilderness

Boyscout Canyon, Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV

Color view back

N. Fk. Boyscout

N Fork pothole

fun in N. Fk.

Mo' wate

N. Fk. opens

Sheep!!!

Sheep move

Finally up Windbreak and Pass BM and back to the car:

Looped around that

On Windbreak Peak 2583'

Finish on Pass BM 2695'

Nov 25th: I left Lake Mead National Recreation Area and headed to the Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area and its' North McCullough Wilderness Area for a ridge run. There is rock art here but inaccessible in a day trip with my Honda Civic so I took Trails 404 and 402 to gain the McCullough Crest and finished back on the Black Mountain Trail 404 at the end of the hike. Started up the trail then went crosscountry up Fracture Ridge. From there followed the ridge south a few miles to the Wilderness Highpoint:

Starting up

Sparse terrain

Petroglyph Canyon way off

Interface

Black Mountain

Steep east face

Over to Wilderness Highpoint

Final saddle

Railroad Peaks

McCullough Range

J-Trees. North McCullough Wilderness, NV

Distant Red Rocks

Then I turned around and headed back north on the ridge to Black Mountain:

North McCullough Wilderness, NV

Fracture Ridge summit

View to Boulder City

Traverse to Black Mtn

Black Mtn summit wind

Finally descended the trail back to the trailhead:

Traverse route

stunted chollas

back to strange trailhead

Some rock art, more on Flickr:

AZ1

AZ10

AZ12

AZ6

BS9

BS16

BS22

BS1

BS12

BS21

BS23

Final Installments: A day in Red Rocks, more Mojave National Preserve, and Death Valley National Park discovery.

[ree]

We did that railroad grade hike earlier this year. Nice historic walk. I hope you do your Mojave Preserve trip report soon... We need some recommendations. Love those desert colors. Thanks for posting. You've given me some good ideas!