Charleston & Lee Peak from NW; Heli Crash

pics by Harlan W. S.
Oct. 01, 2009

See also this trip from following week.

This is the best route in Mt Charleston; no, it’s the best route in the entire Universe!

Just kidding. It was 25F when I started hiking; perfect shorts and T-shirt weather.

This is a nice route, and it’s clearly someone’s cherished route; the ascent has very well-chosen small cairns in iffy places. Please don’t try this with a large group – the small talus stretches, which are now fairly consolidated, will become awful from too much foot traffic. If you don’t pick the exact correct route on the way up, you will face class 4 walls and very iffy talus on top of cliffs. Plus, it will take hard-core souls to deal with the stair-master grind to the ridge.

I really didn’t expect to see the helicopter that had crashed there 4 days before, given the misleading reports in the paper. I averaged position at the main crash for 10 minutes; it’s at 11825’ +/- 8’, higher than suggested by the papers. The upper wreck is badly burned; the resin burned out of the Fiberglas. The tail section broke off before being consumed by fire, and is now 200’ lower.

The descent on the ridge N of the normal chute can be very fast, and dangerous, if you don’t watch for cliff bands.

I parked at Ski Lee/Bristlecone trailhead.	First open spot; view N up Lee Canyon, with the Sisters at L.	Looking up at the N face of the Lee Peak mass. We skirt the ridge.
McFarland in distance.		The true summit of Lee is at R.
	An important scree chute; find this if you want to go back the same way! The L is mainly rock.
Wallace Canyon, with Amargosa Overlook at R.	The route flows this ridge.	NNE to Mummy; the Ski Lee bushwhack chute is visible.
		Lee Pk, not much room to back up.
Chaz from Lee.	Telescope Peak in far distance.	Now we’ll take the Devil’s Thumb route.
		The crash, as seen from DT route.
View of crash from top.
		Ready to descend.
	The spring is covered with ice.	“wild” horses.