Redstone Peaks (Nevada) 19-Jan-2019

For our second hike near Las Vegas, we picked a short, but steep, cross-country route to the Redstone Peaks in the Pinto Valley Wilderness. This wilderness lies within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, which was open despite the federal shutdown. But no fees were being collected and there were no rangers on duty if we’d needed help. We didn’t but it’s still a stupid way to run a government. 😡

We started from the Redstone Picnic Area and went southwest cross-country up one of the washes draining the northeast side of Point 950. After climbing around behind that point, we scrambled up a steep, loose slope to the top of the highly broken ridge. From there, we could see Lake Mead in the distance and four big horn sleep 🙂 grazing in the canyon below us. We traversed northeast along the ridge and then did a little more scrambling to the summit of a point MapBuilder Topo calls “Redstone Peak” (about 3,476 feet). Once there, we found a register, two witness marks (but no benchmark), and the remains of a surveying post.

After taking in the huge view from the top, we scrambled down a different gully and then, more gently, wandered out across the desert back to the picnic area. Along the way, we passed through bulges of staggeringly bright orange-red Aztec sandstone, now brilliantly illuminated by the late morning sun. A short hike (3 miles return; 1,200 feet of gain), but a good one, with views and sheep!

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