Big Time Climb: Payback on Mount Charleston

Five years ago I had an epic day on 12,000-foot Mount Charleston near Las Vegas. I biked, hiked, and snowshoed from the bottom of Lee Canyon Road (elev. 4000 ft) to within a couple hundred feet of the summit. Then just like that, I was stopped in my tracks. There, near Devil's Thumb, the South Loop Trail follows a narrow limestone ledge, with similar narrow ledges above and below. To my horror, I watched as the trail disappeared beneath a 50-degree slope of icy snow. Without crampons, one slip would have equaled certain death. It was heartbreaking. 

Defeated--after 20 miles and 8,000 feet of vertical--I retreated and wondered if I'd ever muster up enough motivation to tackle Charleston again. But for what ever reason, when I got back to my car and looked back at the mountain, I knew for certainty that I'd be back.

I've had nearly five years to think about that failed climb. Ultimately, to make things right, I decided I wouldn't simply repeat the same route, but that I'd make the trip as long and difficult as possible. That meant starting at a lower elevation, adding several more miles to both the biking and hiking portions, no shortcuts through the ski resort, and I'd do it in winter conditions (mid February).

Sunrise in Kyle Canyon at about 6000 feet. Here, I already have about 13 miles and 3000' vertical under my belt. The treeless peak ahead is Charleston Peak. This time around I elected to park at the intersection of Highway 95 and Kyle Canyon Road (elev 2850 ft) on the outskirts of Las Vegas, bike 20 miles up Kyle Canyon to the town of Mt Charleston (elev 7350 ft), and take the South Loop trail the remaining 9 miles to the 12,000-ft summit. A strong headwind and an energy sucking sail (snowshoes protruding above my head) made the approach ride painfully slow.

Here, I'm about 2 miles up the South Loop Trail from the bottom of Kyle Canyon as I begin the steep approach to the summit ridge. Patchy snow meant the snowshoes were constantly off on on at this point.

Bristlecone forest near the summit ridge. This was by far the most difficult part where the route ascends a steep north-facing ravine high above Castle Rock. The snow here was several feet deep and soft. Even with snowshoes, I was post-holing and progress was slow. Any hopes of making the summit by lunch time were dashed as I slowly slogged through this section.

Once on the summit ridge, conditions improved dramatically as there was little snow on the south-facing slopes. Much of this portion was runnable and I made good time.

I was surprised to find a large swath of the forest charred to a crisp. I would later learn that the 28,000-acre Carpenter-1 fire that started near Pahrump in the summer of 2013 was responsible. I also later learned that the South Loop Trail I was following is officially closed due to fire damage and will likely be closed for several more years(?) I honestly had no idea the trail was closed. I suspect there are closure signs at the South Loop trailhead, but I never went there. I stashed my bike on the side of Kyle Canyon Road near a small school, and climbed straight south up the unnamed drainage until I hooked onto the trail east of Cathedral Rock. 

On the summit ridge just above the tree line.

Final approach to Charleston. No surprises, thankfully, this time around.

Steep east face of Charleston Peak.

Wreckage from a November 15, 1955, C-54 crash at the 11,500-ft level of Charleston Peak. What a fascinating story. The top-secret flight carried 14 passengers--a mix of CIA, Lockheed Skunkworks engineers, and military personnel commuting to Groom Lake (Area 51) to work on the newly developed U-2 spy plane. No one survived. After the crash, the military sealed off the mountain to prevent leaks about the U-2 program that wasn't supposed to exist. Even family members of the deceased were left in the dark until 4 decades later when much of the CIA file on the U-2 was finally declassified in 1998. 

Attempting to avoid civilian detection, the pilot of the C-54 flew in radio silence and by visual flight rules. But poor weather complicated their traverse of the Spring Mountains, and the pilot became disoriented. If the plane had managed to gain just a few more feet, it would have cleared the summit ridge.

Extreme weather at high altitude delayed recovery efforts. Early attempts to drop paratroopers were thwarted by high winds. A specially trained mountaineering team from March Air Force Base tried ascending the north flank of the mountain on snowshoes, but got bogged down by freezing temps and deep snow. Finally, 3 days after the crash, a group of Las Vegas Mounted Posse and military inched there way up essentially the same route I took (South Loop). After many struggles, they reached the crash site, but the civilian rescuers had to stand back until a couple of Air Force colonels combed through the wreckage and recovered all classified documents and equipment associated with the U-2. The bodies were lashed to horses and led back down the mountain.

Over the last few years, a monument has been constructed in Kyle Canyon to honor those that served their country during the Cold War--often in complete secrecy and without recognition. Fixed binoculars at the monument allow viewing of the wreckage. The monument will be dedicated as the Cold War National Memorial in May, 2015. This short documentary is very interesting and is definitely worth a look.

I reached the summit at about 2:30 pm. Charleston Peak is well-known for its high winds, but I had lucked out this day--not even a slight breeze. Considering all the effort to get there, this one felt really good.

View from the top.

I love it when you can look all the way back down the mountain and see where you had started in the morning.

The last rays of light bath 11,064' Griffith Peak in shades of orange, just before I dropped back off the summit ridge. With such a late summit, I knew much of the descent would be in the dark. But with GPS and the ability to simply follow my ascent tracks, navigation in the dark was no problem.

At the end of the day, I had biked nearly 40 miles with 4600' vertical, and hiked/ran/snowshoed 17 miles with 5700' vertical. It took 14 hours! What a day. Getting even with a mountain never felt better.