Bridge Mountain

Stage 4 of the 2008 Las Vegas Seven Summits Challenge was held on April 19, 2008. Seven of us LVSSCer's (Annette, Bill, Dave, Don, MRK, Greg, and me) set out in an attempt to climb the forebidding Bridge Mountain monolithe. And it was resoundingly conquered! I consider this my favorite hike in Southern Nevada, so of course I had a good time, and I think everyone else did too. The temperature was perfect, but it was incredibly windy (I'll estimate sustained winds of 40 mph or so with gust much higher). We could hardly talk to each other on the summit because of the wind noise.

GPS Stats:

5.1 miles round-trip (No big deal, right? Check out the total vertical!)

2 hours 16 minutes on the move

2 hours 51 minutes stopped or resting

5,372 feet total elevation gain!

Hope you like the pictures (thanks Greg!). Oh, and a big thanks to Don for four-wheeling and rock crawling us securely to the trailhead and back.

The "Crack" (it's almost as scary as it looks!).




The intrepid hikers framed by the bridge.



One of nature's swimming pools.




Coming down.





The world famous summit shot.

Keyhole Canyon

To give Jennifer a chance to clean out her desk in the den, which we are in the process of converting into a bedroom for Sage, I took the kiddie winks out to Keyhole Canyon to check out the petroglyphs. It's a pretty neat little canyon, but it does tend to get trashed by scouts. We decided we'd take trash bags next time. Check out some photos:

Behold Mr. Chuckwalla (well, we think?)

Petroglyphs - yes, you have to look closely.

Ryder navigating the gravel canyon floor.

Savannah took this nice one.

There are tons of petroglyphs here, but they are hard to see in this photo.

Cute kids in a dry waterfall.