Four Peaks West of Pahrump

Four Peaks West of Pahrump, NV

Harlan WS
Feb 28-March 17, 2018

My life has not been easy the last 10 weeks, with a whiplash injury on Feb 4 that left me with pulsatile tinnitus (PT), and a dislocated shoulder. I've still gotten out a lot, to keep my sanity. The trips to these peaks started with an invitation from Anji and Tracy for Shadow Mt, a peak I'd driven by many times; it always look too lumpy for the bother. But Anji picked a wonderful day after a snowfall, and I enjoyed my time. Alas, I went through the worst PT in the next few weeks, and never knew if my nights would be terrible, so I finished the other 3 peaks solo, after morning broke when I was reasonably rested.

Overview map of the area.	First up was Shadow, Feb 28	View S across a fog-covered playa, with Nopah and Resting Springs ranges to S.
This is the 2nd-highest peak in the Resting Spring range; I planned to go there a few days later.	Shadow Mt in morn, still a bit of snow	Chance Range to NE
	Anji picks a better route. The slides are made of ancient metamorphosed diabase	Nopah Range
	Telescope Peak to W

Charleston.

View back at Shadow, most snow gone.	I started out the day hoping I could drive to the start of a hike up the 2nd-highest peak in Resting Spring. Alas the road was closed, and I started too late for a 15 mile day. What to do?	Well, I noticed that High Peak was close, so I started up from the back side, a bit more gain than the front (NE) route.
It was basically class 2	View SW to Resting Spring	View E along mellow edge to summit.
The top	on top, view E	Where I'd planned to go
Shadow	Charleston over Pahrump	Same, zoomed out
Tweet tweet	across playa to SW	View W on ridge. Why don't he write?
	I'm back closer to road, will head up a lump with enough prominence to be a "peak."	View back at High Peak from lump.
Pahrump Point from lump.	I headed straight down W of the lump, over awful talus	Azurite/chryscola
OLD cans. I hope CA doesn't arrest me for having open containers in the car.	View back at talus route down lump.	Anji had mentioned there were several P1K peaks in the area; I saw the name "Rocky" and was intrigued. I was able to drive the good gravel Ash Meadows road rather near the peak.
View N on approach. I'll go to that saddle at L.	View back ~S to Shadow Mt, from saddle.	Now I'm heading E toward Rocky. The rock was very frictional...
One could just walk up stuff at 40 degrees	The ridge was a bit of a roller-coaster	View to E, Rocky itself looks benign, but there is a valley between us...
back W at the one brief class 3	View S from connecting ridge	View back at the peaklets I traversed. That rocky peak falls short of the highpoint by < 50'.
First I hit the peak E of the BM	Now I've traversed W to the BM, view E	I ll head back the way I came, but drop L off the ridge
BM register	View N
I came down the Steep talus	I then drove to Peak 4355 to scout the road. Hmmm, looks harder than I thought.	A few days later, after a good relatively quiet night, I headed for peak 4355'
View from SW, my route.	On the way N, I spotted a possible descent, but later missed the turn.	View E on the W ridge. I stayed on the rock, mainly class 2-3, to avoid loose talus.
View back NW to Rocky BM at R.
View S.	Charleston.
View SSE	View E to ridge that might go, but a view from bottom showed there may be cliff bands	View down S, along east face of 4355'
Charleston Peak on skyline	View back to true summit from SE summit	Now I'll head down between those 2 lumps. The potential route I'd seen earlier is to R.
	This descent was a bit more complicated than I expected; I kept cliffing out.	I'll switchback several times to avoid cliffs, and eventually go L of that lump.
View back mild ramps at base of canyon	View back at route	End.
Google Earth synthetic of descent.