[Gimpilator]

We had planned to do Moapa, one of the peaks recently done by Steven and Jake, but the Vegas area was experiencing the start of a 2 day major rainstorm. I searched for the nearest peaks with an acceptable forecast and settled on the Sacramento Mountains, a small range just west of Needles CA. We could get 3 peaks down there, about 2 hours away.

Eagle

Nomento

We drove up the Eagle Pass road and entered a sandy canyon. We started with Eagle Peak. It was guarded by cliffs, but we found an old trail leading to a mine and then ascended a loose steep gully. The eastern summit ridge was longer than it appeared.

Josh

After Eagle we traversed the connecting ridge to Nomento Peak. This area is packed with cholla. We all took minor hits on the trailrunners but Josh fell on one and had a few deep thorns to extract. We could see that a lot of rain was falling to the north and some to the west as well. We only experienced a few light sprinkles.

cholla

Nomento

Eagle from Nomento

After Nomento we moved the car to Eagle Pass and then followed the was south along the east side of some black rock formations. We scrambled up one for fun, but it didn’t have enough prominence to be a peak. The third peak we went to isn’t named and probably has less than 10 ascents. It’s just Peak 2871. We crossed over a number of ridges before coming to the final summit ridge. There were several false summits.

Fletcher on the black rock formation

Sacram Benchmark

summit

[Jake Robinson]

Nice consolation prize after getting rained off Moapa. I left you guys a note in the register up there so you'll have to go get it someday

[Fletcher]

Another fun day in the desert, although it wasn't our original plan. I really enjoyed the scenery in the Mojave.

Eagle Peak from the car

hiking the old mining trail we found

the mine

Nomento from Eagle

ranges

Nomento again

entering the cholla fields

Josh is happy despite just having fallen on a cholla

Eagle from the south

nice scenery

nice scenery