Smith Mt (Death Valley, CA) loop

pics by Harlan W.S.
Jan 25, 2012

This hike was a last-moment decision, and it lead to a pleasant day. The drive out from Las Vegas is about 3 h, via Pahrump and Shoshone. I took the “for 2wd” route described on Summitpost; Note the annotations on the 100k map at the start of this page. My Subaru (with just 7.3” clearance) never bottomed out, but the section between 7 and 8.5 miles past the Greenwater Road is rough, and requires careful wheel placement. A wider car will probably get rocked more, as the driver will be forced to place 2 wheels down lower on the side of the road.

The standard DPS route is not exciting, and I reached the top in about 1h 40m. I was annoyed with all the ravine crossings on the way in, so I came back along the S ridge (Mainly Granite), which is more challenging and offers a fresh view.

The 100k map. The blue indicates the gravel road, the red is the hike.	I went counter-clockwise on this loop. Class 1-2, class 3 if you insist on visiting all the granite spires.	Not far from the parking, view W across sparsely-brushy terrain. If you match my route up, you will cross at least 10 shallow ravines that run SW to NE.
Finally in the big ravine on DPS route.		Snow-covered Spring Mts (NV) in distance.
View from “top.” the west summit is slightly higher, but the east (benchmarked) summit has better views.	Telescope Peak across Death Valley.	View ~NW across Death Valley.
View SW.
	View NE.
	Now I’ll head for this ridge, slightly lower with 400’ prominence above the saddle.
View of Badwater from next peak.	View down into Foundry Canyon.	View back at Smith.
		This peak actually has one of the azimuth checks for Smith, even though it is about 1 km away.
The ridge has lots of little granite nubbins, which are generally easy to climb.
	View back at the nameless peak with azimuth check benchmark.
View SE	Shortly after this point, the terrain was gentle enough for a descent to my car… without crossing ravines!
My faithful Soob awaits!	This is a neat range W of Shoshone – Sheephead Mts.	As I drove back, I took this pic of Nopah Range…
…and this one, a bit farther north.