Kraft Mountain (with Jerry & Cheryl) - 4/1/26

Seven hikers met at the Kraft Mountain trailhead at 8am.  It was a pleasantly cooler morning than the past several weeks with just a little breeze.  We greeted a new comer to the club and started hiking up towards Five Stop Hill (aka Hell Hill).  After hiking for a short distance we came upon three hikers from the Lone Mountain Hiking Club who were going up Five Stop Hill.  We had a stop and chat for a few minutes and then continued.  Shortly, we turned off the main trail onto a smaller social trail as we made our way up Three Peaks Canyon.  This name was given to this small canyon on the far left of Kraft Mountain by rock climbers due to the three rock pinnacles along the side of the canyon.  We started climbing up the pour over and scrambling up the canyon.  There was quite an abundance of wildflowers in bloom including globe mallow, desert marigolds, notch leaf phacelias, mohave asters, dogweed, hedgehogs, etc.  We scrambled to the top of the canyon and then turned right and followed some slots up towards the peak.  

We eventually joined up with the standard route to the peak and continued scrambling and rock hopping to the summit.  The new comer seemed quite capable and everyone was chatting and having a good time.  We took a snack break at the summit and signed in to the register.  Then we began our descent following a track I had made in 2011 on a hike led by Branch Whitney.  This route is quite circuitous and amazingly drops from the summit to the middle of Gateway Canyon through seemingly impassable cliffs.  We scrambled down ramps and chutes, hopping over boulders.  We dropped into a small bowl area and hiked down a corridor towards a narrow slot.  I pointed to the slot and asked who would like to be first to go through it.  Well, it was so narrow that probably no one could fit through it!  After a few minutes of consternation, we said, “April Fools”, and continued down a more reasonable path.  We reached Tree Alley and everyone was able to negotiate the class 3 down climb into the alley.  We hiked along the alley and up a slot and over to another slot until we reached another class 3 down climb.  Everyone was able to negotiate these class 3 spots with no problems.  We finally made our way down into Gateway Canyon and hiked along the wash and trail back to the cars.  

Stats: 3.7 miles, 1300 ft of elevation gain, 3 hrs 43 minutes.