Valley of Fire Peak - 12/15/11

This Thursday's hike was another power scrambler in the Valley of Fire State Park of Nevada. The writer did not attend, however, the "boys" stepped up and sent photos and narration on what was apparently a wonderfully challenging hike on an overcast day with temperatures in the 40's & 50's. The words below were written by Mike O'C. and the photos were contributed by Larry Dunn and Richard James Natale.

It was a no-nonsense trek, a Thursday hike with a Tuesday pace. The Valley of Fire Peak. Nine hikers going hard right out of the gate, much like a pack of feisty thoroughbreds on a six-furlong dash. Recent rains had softened the terrain, muting the sound of our footsteps, the only audible noise being sharp intakes of breath. Conversation came to a halt.

Over the desert, across the sandstone and up the crevices we went, intent on reaching the highest point in the Valley of Fire. At the difficult spots, queues inevitably formed as individuals slowly made their way up the steep sandstone.

And then on a plateau high above the valley floor, just before the summit, were a set of picnic tables. Picnic tables??!! Think helicopter, as there was no other way these tables got to that spot on the mountain. Brian Dodd said that it took him three years to find this particular route to the pinnacle. So after a thousand days of futility, we managed to summit in under two hours. Brian was ecstatic; so was everyone else. Big smiles all around.

                               Brian Dodd's Valley of Fire Hikes (Nov. 2012)

Christmas at Red Rock - 12/10/11

Dan C. caught sight of this in the Calico Tanks area last weekend. Thanks Dan!

Fracture Ridge Peak - 12/8/11

Eight hikers arrived at the Fracture Ridge Peak trailhead parking area within the Sun City Anthem community in Henderson, Nevada this morning looking forward to a pleasant up and down hike on the mountain range that boasts the largest peak in the southern portion of the Las Vegas area called Black Mountain (Henderson). Just to the south of Black Mountain is a smaller peak. This was the peak we were interested in today.

We began by hiking up the Black Mountain trail until we arrived at a trail junction that lead off to the right. Taking this trail, we crossed some lowlands filled with desert scrub and cacti. Eventually, we found ourselves climbing a steep hill. The view behind us of Las Vegas and the Spring Mountains became larger as we gained altitude. Being still pretty fresh in the energy department, the hill seemed short and forgiving.

After the steep section ended, we progressed onward through a gradual ascent and enjoyed the scenery. There were very few joshua trees to block the view and the wide expanse of the ridge we were on gave us a feeling of hiking through a meadow. After this came the final climb to the peak which involved finding the trail among very large piles of lava boulders.

Seven of the eight hikers made it to the top where we had this view of Black Mountain seen below. The wind was cold on the ridge but there were several "seats" among the warm rocks on the southern side of the peak. Nevertheless, the peak stay was cut short due to the cold temperatures and we began a short fast flight down to just below the steep section. Here, we turned onto a more southern trail route that took us back to the water retention basin that we passed on the way up.

Fracture Ridge Peak is a beautiful trail with some variety in types of hiking. Almost seven miles with almost 2000 feet of elevation gain.

Brownstone Canyon Loop - 12/6/11

Today's hike was an eight mile loop hike out to Brownstone Canyon while completing a 360 degree circle around Turtlehead Peak. Twenty- two of the Around the Bend Friends' finest hikers participated even though the initial temperature at Sandstone Quarry off of the scenic loop at Red Rock Canyon NCA, Las Vegas, NV amounted to somewhere below freezing.

We were dressed appro- priately for our individual body temper- atures and after a warm up of half a mile, the writer's hands were no longer threatening frost bite! There was very little wind and this certainly helped matters. We started out on the Calico Tanks Trail and circled around to the base of Red Cap.

From Red Cap, we dropped down through a wash to Gateway Canyon and began climbing up wash through Upper Gateway. The limestone was slippery due to the cold and there was quite a few snow pockets lying in the shady spots. Our trip up through the canyon was pleasant and quick.

At the top of Gateway, we turned left to gain the top of the sandstone hill above us. Although this was a steep climb, it was colorful and the top provided us with a complete sandstone view to our right. We turned right and proceeded to hike over the beautiful plateau.

Finding our way across the sandstone fins, we came upon a very large tinaja. It was dry and had some plant growth within it. The word was that once in a while it is full of water. From here, we could see our entrance into Brownstone Canyon as seen in the first photo.

We dropped down one of those sandstone fins, crossed over to a bouldered steep wash and began a delicately dangerous drop over iced boulders to the floor of Brownstone Canyon. This drop is seen in the photo two pictures below. It took a while for everyone to get to the bottom but we were all walking just fine, thank you, as we strolled over to some large rocks lying in the wide wash and sat for a snack break.

We didn't want to stop too long since we would get very cold very quick, so after a short break, we decided to explore down canyon to get a look at some petroglyphs very high up on the canyon wall. We returned to the snack spot and continued up canyon through a maze of washes.

The gravel had some snow on it and through- out the hike, we saw various animal tracks. To the right is a photo of kangaroo rat tracks (notice the tail marks). There were many rabbit tracks. We also saw bighorn and bobcat tracks. Our fearless leader, Don C., did an excellent job guiding us through the maze and we magically ended up at the end of a particular wash where we had to climb up the hill to our left that was unfortunately covered with a thin layer of snow.

Because of the snow, we were unable to locate the trail in this area until we bush- whacked all the way over to the target saddle where we would begin our descent. After re-gathering at the saddle, we started hiking down the now- found trail which lead us through a narrow wash.

This narrow wash opened out into the wide wash at the base of the front side of Turtlehead Peak. We connected with the Turtlehead Trail and finished out the hike at Sandstone Quarry around five hours after setting out at the same spot. The temperatures had climbed up to forty degrees ... almost balmy, don't you think?

Day After Big Wind/Snow Storm at Sandstone Quarry Vicinity - A Photo Essay- 12/2/11

Today is the day following an "epic" wind storm in the western part of the United States. The Las Vegas area received winds gusting around 50 mph and the Spring Mountain range received a good snow fall. Most of the snow that fell at the Red Rock Canyon NCA melted upon impact, however, the upper elevations in the La Madre and Rainbow Wildernesses were still fairly white.

Although there were signs of the skies clearing in the late morning hours, today, the clouds refused to abate very easily. The writer and her husband ventured into the park for a small wandering hike at Sandstone Quarry and to take a few pictures of what snow was left.

We hiked the first and third sections of the Tank Discovery Scramble; the hike that was cancelled due to the storm yesterday. The midday sun on the sandstone was enchanting. There was virtually no wind. And, the park was very quiet.

During our morning, we met up with two other Around the Bend Friends hikers who were out for the same reason we were.

There were several photographers with tripods perched on the sandstone in different places. The writer could only think to herself how much these photogs were missing by not hiking into, up, down and around the desert like we do.