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| Hiking | 8.90 Miles |
4,344 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.90 Miles | 7 Hrs 30 Mns | | 1.62 mph |
| 4,344 ft AEG | 2 Hrs Break | | | |
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| no partners | | I have been eyeing Boundary Peak for a while, and this one turned out to be a FANTASTIC hike! I have now done 11 state highpointers, and this one is my favorite.
We started and ended the hike at the Trail Canyon Trailhead. To get there I drove in on Chiatovich Road, off of Nevada Highway 264 about 12 miles or so north of Dyer, Nevada. The road is unpaved, and it is about 14 miles off of Highway 264 to get to the TH. During that stretch you gain about 3,800 feet in elevation, although the ascent is fairly gradual so it didn't seem like we climbed that much. The TH is at about 8.900'. You don't need a 4WD vehicle to get to the TH -- at least when the road is dry -- although you'd probably prefer something with a bit of clearance. I think that something like a Subaru would be OK, again, when the road is dry. The road gets narrow the last 2-3 miles before the TH. The day before the hike I drove out there to make sure that I knew how to get to the TH, and I took some loppers out in a few places to trim some vegetation off the road so I wouldn't get any pinstripes. I didn't time my drive in on Chiatovich Road, but after the hike it took me about 45 minutes to drive from the TH back to Highway 264.
The first 1.5 miles or so of the hike follows a forest service trail, although it is a bit overgrown. However, it wasn't a big problem to stay on the trail, although a GPS is helpful. At about the 1.5 mile mark, we came up to an open meadow. The "trail" continued off to our left to the "descent route" from the peak. We continued more or less straight up to Trail Canyon saddle, at about 10,800'. At the saddle, the trail from the Queen Mine (the other trailhead for Boundary Peak) comes in from the NE.
From there, we continued south up and around a false summit. This was a steep, slow climb on loose dirt and talus -- we probably climbed 1,200 feet in about 3/4 mile. We then got to another saddle where we took a short break. Then we followed a relatively flat trail for a ways around the top of the false summit until we got another saddle just before hitting some boulder fields about 3/4 mile from the summit. From there it was mostly boulder hopping to the summit. There were a few cairns, and in some places you could see the route that previous hikers had taken. I had a GPS track which was helpful, but as much as anything we followed our instints to make our way through the boulders.
We got to the summit to enjoy the awesome views and to take a snack break. Montgomery Peak -- in California -- is only 0.6 miles away, and is quite impressive. You could see some peaks in the White Mountains off to the south. There were some wildfires in California, so the sky was much more hazy than normal. Fortunately we could smell any smoke though.
On the way back, once we got past the boulders, there was a saddle with a "descent route" that we took. This route was very steep -- we descended 1,600 feet in about 3/4 mile -- but I think that it was a lot better than going back the way that we came up. I would not go down it without trekking poles though. It actually wasn't all that bad -- the terrain was basically sand, so it was like being at the beach. There were a lot of short switchbacks, and I basically dug my heels in and slid down in some places, using poles to control your speed -- it was almnst like skiing!
As we neared the meadow that we crossed earlier, we passed through some ancient bristlecone pines. Once we got to the meadow, we retraced our earlier steps back to the TH.
On the early part of the hike we saw 8-10 white-tailed deer about the time that we got to the meadow. On the drive back out, not far from the TH we saw some wild horses.
We did not see many other hikers on the trail. On the way up, we could see one hiker ahead of us, and shortly before the summit he was coming back down. On our way back, we met a couple of hikers on their way up. One of them said that this one was his 44th state highpoint. While we were at the summit, we could look down and see 2 other hikers at about 12,000 feet, but for whatever reason they turned around and went back.
I have a GPS track for the drive to the trailhead if anyone wants it -- I'll have to figure out how to send it to you though. |
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| Civilization is a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there |
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