Peak 6955 and McCullough, 21 years later

H.W.Stockman
May 10, 2024

Nick and I went to McCullough more than 21 years before. The summit was somewhat underwhelming, but we saw the neater peak 6955 to the north, and promptly went to its rocky summit. Back then the road in from Jean and the west was crappy -- now it is even crappier. This time I took a pretty pleasant loop over the two peaks (well, except for my "exploratory" stupid descent from McCullough!). I never plan to drive these west side roads again, so I'll give some hints below how one can best approach this peak from the saner east side route (and roads). I've been to McCullough 2x from west, and 2x from southeast, and heartily prefer the latter approach, especially when there is just a bit of snow.

gpx files:
This trip, with extra tracks if you want to take east route: 6955_w.gpx
Route to McCullough from southeast, including drive as of 2013; NOTE the waypoints: mcc_e.gpx

If you have a retarded browser (IE), you may get a gooobledygook xml file onscreen, instead of a download. If that happens, you need to get the download menu
To see the download menu, either right click (PC) on the link or use a long press (phone, tablet) on the file name. Then you must "save as" or "save link" or "download link" depending on your platform and browser.

Here I was on McCullough 21 years ago, looking at our next goal-- a nicer, rockier (but 71' lower) peak.	Red is my track from May 10, 2024. The blue is the standard route from the SE. To reach 6955 from McCullough, reverse my red track toward 6893, but before you reach 6893, cut down to the NNW- and N- running ridge. Return the same way, drop down the purple track to blue track out. Extra 2.7 miles RT.	context
The ridges east up the red track were mainly gentle, with occasional rocky stuff you could always bypass, class 2 at most.	View N to snowy Charleston as I ascend red track.	Lots of cow action up here. I saw newish cow flop just 20' below McCullough summit.
View W, with Clark Mt at L, Lucy Gray Mts in Middle. Ivanpah solar bird-burners visible.	Some peaks to E	View W, to show generally benign ridge.
View E over Castle Tower.	Railroad Peak, Muddies in back.
Rough rocks easily avoided at R	Claret cups	On summit McCullough. I was last here in 2013!
	Spirit Mt	Hart Mt L distance
New York Mts	Again Clark to W with bird-burners.	I picked a bad route down.
yellow variant Mariposa lily.	The "spring" was a bust.

Peak 6955 and McCullough, 21 years later (southeast Nevada)

Peak 6955 and McCullough, 21 years later
(southeast Nevada)