Thor
Since deciding on the Grand Canyon thing for next year (unsurprisingly there's still no openings in October at Phantom Ranch, but that's not something I need to worry about for a while) I've gone on two hikes.
Hike #1 a few weeks ago was an aborted attempt to reach Turtlehead Peak (heh, "turtlehead") in the Red Rock Canyon area. The LV-area hiking book I have states that "there is not a developed main trail up the steep drainage west of the peak, but you can follow a series of use trails weaving back and forth." Yeah, that's a crock. There are sort of trails, but they peter out a lot, and it is frequently not at all obvious where you should go next, but following the general rule of "go up the hill where you can" got me onto the saddle point on the ridge.
Next, "once on the saddle, turn right (east) and climb the sloping sheets of limestone to the peak." This was also a crock of shit. While the peak itself was obvious, getting there was anything but. After wandering generally uphill for a while, including some scrambling over rocks and reaching impasses and backtracking a few times, I gave up, since it was getting on in the afternoon (I hadn't gotten started until after lunchtime) and it also looked like a thunderstorm might be moving in. On my way down I slipped at one point and felt like I might've pulled something in my left thigh/knee area. Fabulous.
I Googled around after I got home and it seems once you're on the saddle the thing to do is stay relatively close to the edge as you continue up to the peak. So maybe I'll give this another try down the road.
With my left leg feeling better, on Sunday I went into the Spring Mountains instead, going up the seemingly redundantly-named Trail Canyon Trail and picking up the North Loop Trail towards the Mt. Charleston summit. Owing to endemic laziness and another late start, I didn't hit the trail until ~1:30 pm, so reaching the top was never remotely part of the plan, but I did make it about half the distance and 3/4 the elevation, going from ~7,700 to ~10,500 feet in about 2.5 hours up and 1h45m down. This trail is pretty much continuously sloping with few level stretches, which was annoying but easy to cope with by resting on the way up, and punishing on the way down -- I'm really feeling it in my quads and calves today.
Probably not on my next excursion, but my medium-term goal is the peak of Mt. Charleston as a (grueling) day hike, after which Grand Canyon rim-to-rim next October should be a picnic. Yeah, ok, that's going to be grueling too, but 4000+ feet starting at 7,700 seems like good training for 4000+ feet starting at 2000...
Hike #1 a few weeks ago was an aborted attempt to reach Turtlehead Peak (heh, "turtlehead") in the Red Rock Canyon area. The LV-area hiking book I have states that "there is not a developed main trail up the steep drainage west of the peak, but you can follow a series of use trails weaving back and forth." Yeah, that's a crock. There are sort of trails, but they peter out a lot, and it is frequently not at all obvious where you should go next, but following the general rule of "go up the hill where you can" got me onto the saddle point on the ridge.
Next, "once on the saddle, turn right (east) and climb the sloping sheets of limestone to the peak." This was also a crock of shit. While the peak itself was obvious, getting there was anything but. After wandering generally uphill for a while, including some scrambling over rocks and reaching impasses and backtracking a few times, I gave up, since it was getting on in the afternoon (I hadn't gotten started until after lunchtime) and it also looked like a thunderstorm might be moving in. On my way down I slipped at one point and felt like I might've pulled something in my left thigh/knee area. Fabulous.
I Googled around after I got home and it seems once you're on the saddle the thing to do is stay relatively close to the edge as you continue up to the peak. So maybe I'll give this another try down the road.
With my left leg feeling better, on Sunday I went into the Spring Mountains instead, going up the seemingly redundantly-named Trail Canyon Trail and picking up the North Loop Trail towards the Mt. Charleston summit. Owing to endemic laziness and another late start, I didn't hit the trail until ~1:30 pm, so reaching the top was never remotely part of the plan, but I did make it about half the distance and 3/4 the elevation, going from ~7,700 to ~10,500 feet in about 2.5 hours up and 1h45m down. This trail is pretty much continuously sloping with few level stretches, which was annoying but easy to cope with by resting on the way up, and punishing on the way down -- I'm really feeling it in my quads and calves today.
Probably not on my next excursion, but my medium-term goal is the peak of Mt. Charleston as a (grueling) day hike, after which Grand Canyon rim-to-rim next October should be a picnic. Yeah, ok, that's going to be grueling too, but 4000+ feet starting at 7,700 seems like good training for 4000+ feet starting at 2000...