Black Velvet Peak O&B

Black Velvet Peak from limestone Approach

Climbing Mountain Springs Peak

Starting the Sandstone Scramble

Ralyn climbs up through the Rabbit Hole

From the southern end of the Red Rock escarpment (Sandstone Bluffs) the peaks rise at South Peak, Hollow Rock Peak, Windy Peak ... and next comes Black Velvet Peak. Black Velvet is mostly known for its world class climbing walls. However, it is possible to hike to the peak with a small bit of difficulty and a lot of nerve! Cheryl and Jerry took photos, wrote the narrative as below and led the group through the route. Quite the accomplishment! 

There were eleven hikers that met at the Mountain Springs parking lot for a strenuous hike up to Mountain Springs Peak and then on to Black Velvet Peak. It was another beautiful day with temps in the low 50s starting out which helped with the climb up Heartbreak Hill. Everyone was talking about the long summer and what they did to escape the heat. Once we got to the communication tower everyone stripped off their jackets. The group of strong hikers got up to the junction quickly and we turned left onto the trail to Mountain Springs Peak. We made it up to the peak in short order and had a short break. We then started down the broad ridge line towards Black Velvet Peak. 

Coming out of the rabbit Hole

Rabbit hole with a View

Emerging from the Rabbit Hole

There is a seldom used social trail here which we followed down to the sandstone. Once on the sandstone some of us ditched our poles and started scrambling up towards the summit. Right away there was some exposure on the sandstone slabs. It was best to just look at your feet and not down the drop offs. We scrambled over the sandstone up towards the rabbit hole. Everyone got through the rabbit hole with no assistance except for encouraging words from their fellow hikers. After the rabbit hole there was a tricky class 3 down climb which took a little time to negotiate. After this was a large sub peak obstacle with two ways to get around it. Going to the right you had a tricky slanted climb up an exposed slab and going left you had to climb a class 3 chute and go around a corner with some spectacular exposure down to the canyon floor. 

Taking a break before Continuing

3rd class down Climb

More sandstone Scramble

 We decided to take the latter route (gulp!). At this point two hikers elected to stay behind and wait for us to return on our way back. We continued past this obstacle and the going was a little easier until we reached the summit block area which consisted of three separate peaks. Of course, the highest peak was the third one we came to. The going was slow here and two more hikers decided to stay behind. We were very happy to finally reach the summit but were disappointed to find no register to sign. We took our group photo, had a snack and started our hike out scrambling back across the sandstone until we reached the steep hill to the saddle and the limestone crest trail that would lead to the cars. While this last hill entailed hiking up 800 feet on tired legs everyone did so without complaint. However, we did notice that once we got to the crest trail and it was all down hill from there, everyone was very cheerful and we chatted all the way back. A great hike with a super group of hikers. ~Jerry and Cheryl Thomas

Hiking time 6 hrs 30 minutes, 7 miles, 2300 ft elevation gain.

Summit photo with 7 out of 11 Hikers

Interesting spot on the way Back

Another interesting Spot!