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| Hiking | 7.85 Miles |
1,503 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.85 Miles | 4 Hrs 52 Mns | | 1.87 mph |
| 1,503 ft AEG | 40 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Started from the parking area around 0900. Only one other vehicle there—a family of three who started about five minutes before we did. They seemed mildly annoyed that we were doing the same hike as them. The guy loudly announced that he had the route on his phone as they headed out.
We headed south on the trail from the parking area and quickly dropped down into the wash. I like this wash, the colors and rocks are neat. The wash heads generally southeast for the first couple of miles. At times, you think the wash is littered with broken glass, but it’s really just pieces of selenite everywhere. There’s also a patch of salt, which Wyatt samples every time he passes by. Yuck.
Climbing over the dryfall at Cottonwood Spring was easy since the rocks were dry. Spring is dry, as usual. And now that the cottonwoods have been washed away, you’d never know there is/was a spring here. For those who don’t like the looks of climbing the dryfall, there is a wide bypass on the south, behind the catclaw type bushes, the path is pretty obvious.
At two miles, the convergence of two washes, we turned sharply southwest. The route gets somewhat faint through here for a little while, but there are a few cairns and basically just stay in the wash on the right until the trail becomes obvious again. The colors of the clay in this section are reminiscent of the Painted Desert. The steepness of the hike increases at this point too. Eventually, you cross a ridge, then drop down into the next big wash, turning southeast again.
Follow that wash up, with one more easy scramble, before switchbacking up to the saddle. While the entire hike has great views, they really open up at the saddle. Lake Mead is visible to the south, along with the mountains to the south and east. We made a right and headed up to Hamblin first. The trail is steep and slippery from the saddle to the summit. Just before the summit, there’s one more little scramble on some narrow edges. Last year, I didn’t let my son do that final scramble, but this year he was fine. We ate a snack and rested for a while before heading back down. I was wondering where that group of three was since we hadn’t passed them, and they weren’t on the summit ahead of us. Kind of weird after all their complaining.
On the way back down to the saddle, we finally encountered the group on their way up. The woman started loudly wondering how we had gotten ahead of them. I know what they did—there’s another route that swings farther to the east lower down and adds probably a mile each way, although I’ve never taken it. I made a snarky comment as we passed by about the route on their phone not being very good and kept going. After the saddle, we headed up the opposite side to the top of Jacal. No real trail, just stay on the top of the ridge the entire way up, stepping over the abundant bighorn evidence. From there, I could see that the group of three had stopped a couple hundred feet away from the summit of Hamblin. After all their whining, they did not even go to the true summit. So weird.
Easy hike back downhill to the car, just retraced our steps down. Even though temps were around 60 and breezy, it still felt warm. RouteScout got a little weird at the summits, so my stats are from last years hike. Same exact route. Plus it matched up closely with my watch stats. This is a great winter hike that has a good amount of solitude. |
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| Stop crying and just go do the hike. |
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