Windy Loop - 11/15/21

Approaching the Windy Peak Scramble

Las Vegas View

(Left to Right) Mountain Springs Peak, Wilson Peak, Black Velvet Peak, Calico Hills

Climbing Burnt Ridge Trail

The Fearsome Foursome wanted to take advantage of one of the last warm days (in November no less) and climb Windy Peak near the southern end of the Red Rock Canyon escarpment. But, since we all have done the peak so many times, we changed up the route a bit. Today, we left out of the Mountain Springs Trailhead in the north northeast direction to climb an old road up to a ridge, down the other side, through several blackbrush bushes, up another hill, down again and up to another old road to turn to the left. There is a vague game trail during this section. We followed the road up just a bit then came to a trail that turned to the right. This is the Burnt Ridge Trail. It takes hikers up onto a long empty ridge toward the high point of the Hollow Rock Trail.

The Burnt Ridge to the Hollow Rock Peak High Point

Pasrump Peak (L) & Mountain Springs, NV

Windy Peak Trail

Arriving at the Scramble

About 3/4 of the way up the ridge, a trail veers off to the left. This trail will take you to the Heartbreak Hill saddle. From there, we followed the Windy Peak Trail up to the fork (take a right here) and up to the Windy Peak Trail high point. Next, the trail goes out the bench and joins the sandstone. The peak climb begins with an exposed scramble up to the top of a long somewhat easy scramble to the peak. Sign your name in at the register at the peak and continue on out to the end of the bench where there are precipitous drops on two of the three sides. ... and nice views. We took our break and photo here. Afterwards, we began our scramble back to the limestone trail and continued up and down back to the fork.

Scramble begins up to the Left

Starting Scramble

Crossing over to the Peak

View from Peak to the end of the Bench

Not far past the fork, there is a new trail we "discovered" last winter. A cairn marks the junction to the west. I'll just call the trail The Cairn Trail because its original cairns are still there marking the trail every 20 to 50 feet. The interesting descent trail continues down the second trailing ridge which happens to be the other "end" of the Windy Peak bench. At the bottom of the trailing ridge, the trail crosses a gully and continues down the ridge on the other side. After passing through the "roundabout," continue on the trail almost straight on the other side. Follow this trail to cross the gully again. Now, we were on an old road and turned right. A barking dog can be heard nearby. Follow the old road as it curves slightly to the left.

Taking a break at the end of the Windy Peak Bench

Scrambling back down to Terra Firma

Return on Windy Peak Trail

Descending to the Fork

At this point, we were vigilant for a cairn on the right side of the road. We saw that there is one "warning cairn" not far before the cairn we wanted. This marked a shortcut trail to the right that takes you to the top of the first hill on the Heartbreak Hill route that leads up to the relay tower. A right turn will take you down to the cars. The new loop route made Windy Peak new again. The Burnt Ridge is steep but so is Heartbreak Hill. The Cairn Trail is about 0.1 miles longer but less steep than the other two routes. Again, something new is always more fun!

Stats: 5 miles; 1500' gain; 3.5 hours

Descending Ridge #2 on Cairn Trail

Crossing the Gully

Old Road back to Cars