"Fleur de Lis" (Across from Arrow Range, NV)

pics by Harlan W. S.
Feb. 07, 2010

OK, the name is not too serious; we promised DB we would name any peak we climbed on Super Bowl Sunday “Fleur de Lis,” in honor of the Saints (DB is from N’Awlins). With CP sick, me still gimping on my sprained ankle, we headed for these seemingly benign mountains.

Those signs: You may pass some signs that show a stylized flying blue goose, and the warning (paraphrased): “Wildlife Refuge -- Unauthorized Entry Prohibited.” I’ve talked with the folks from BLM, and these signs are NOT meant to discourage hiking. They merely delineate the new eastern edge of the Desert National Wildlife Refuge and warn that stricter rules are in play (compared to the bulk BLM land). E.g., you can’t drive anywhere but numbered, authorized roads, and the rules for camping, ATVs, and firearms are tighter.

	CP heads W. Our target peak is to left of the notch.	View back at Arrow Range.
	The peak to R is the highpoint of the range, but we would go there only if we could downclimb the notch.
The squiggly ridge took us over lots of intermediate peaklets.	CP on a random fin.	View SSW.
		We downclimbed lots of peaklets.
	On top, view ESE.	It’s hard to capture the large drop-offs that surround the peak.
Here’s a view W toward CP.	Of course, guess who was there 2 years before? Pardon us for the name; we were constrained by honor.
We head NW, looking for that elusive crossing.	Oops, it looks sketchy below here, I had 70’ of webbing…	…and after CP did some exploring with the security of a handline, I convinced him we should back off and try another route down. We really needed about 120’, and a quicklink on a sling so we could retrieve the webbing.
We were able to downclimb a surprisingly hairy ridge, because there was so much texture in the rock.		CP warned me this neat canyon would likely have dryfalls…
…and this was shortly before we found two big drops in a row, and climbed out along the walls.	This photo shows the terrain; lots of cliffs and blind canyons.	View to Arrow.
Now we head up a bonus peak.	A rare shot of CP below; he got hung up on some unstable crap.	View back SW. The small bonus peak had a large cairn, perhaps from a survey.