After our successful hike of Granite Chief in Placer county, California, Adam and I headed into Nevada with the intention of gaining the four northwestern-most county highpoints. First on the list was Desatoya Peak in Churchill county. Truthfully, this peak is fairly remote from the other three we were attempting; it's actually closer (in air miles) to the Lander county highpoint, Bunker Hill. In May, when I did Lander county, I drove right by the Desatoya Range on US-50 and was very tempted at the time to go in and bag Desatoya as well, but lack of time nixed that idea. From the highway the peak and the range looks like a fun day-hike: gentle slopes, reasonable road access and wide-open spaces with virtually no forest cover. The low sage on the peak looks like a manicured golf green from down on the highway. From California we drove through Reno via Interstate-80 and then took US-50 east through Fallon, stopping to gas up and get supplies, and continuing toward the Desatoya range. Where US-50 meets Cold Springs about 40 miles east of Fallon, the Desatoyas are the mountains parallelling the highway as the highway starts a gentle bend north. Cold Springs is also the only gas stop between Fallon and Austin - 110 miles - and is near some Pony Express ruins, in case you're interested.

From Cold Springs we continued north a short bit to a sign on the highway that read "Alpine 3". From that sign, we stayed on eastbound US-50 for 2.5 miles (actually driving northbound) to where the highway makes a gentle right bend. An unmarked dirt road leads in from here, with one of those terrible wire gates that crumple into a heap once they're detached from the fence. Since I was driving, Adam got the honor to get out and open the gate. This dirt road goes due east at first then bends south and 11.1 miles later tops out at a saddle called Basque Summit, where another gate spans the road. The road wasn't too bad- dusty, but accessible by passenger car. After passing through the gate at the pass, we went no more than 100 feet, made a right and passed through a third gate. About 0.2 miles past the third gate, I turned right onto a jeep (4wd) road and followed it about a mile, using 4-wheel-low to get up a short but steep 200-foot hill, marked as hill 8043 on the topo map, where I parked on its bald summit. It was about 6 p.m. and we set up camp for the night. Cows were seen off in the distance. Desatoya Peak was easily visible to the west, and our route was also apparent. This would be a straightforward hike.

We started our hike early the next morning at about 5:30 a.m. From out hilltop campsite we descended about 100 feet toward a fence right along the ridge (and the Lander-Churchill county line) and then walked up the ridge westward, following a ranch road most of the way. We moved to the other side of the fence just once to bypass a bunch of cattle milling about. Continuing on the road, we followed it as it got steeper, passed through a gate, then up to a saddle just north of a rocky knob at 9,130 feet and a more significant summit at 9,531 feet. The map shows this road to end here; in reality it wiggles up toward the 9,531 summit, but we left the road here and contoured through thick sage and some rocks, following cowpaths much of the way, until we reached the principal saddle north of the smaller "twin" summit of Desatoya Peak. We followed a cowpath that was so well defined that I had to wonder if it hasn't been maintained by humans to some extent. Whatever the case, this path was better than some "maintained" trails and made it very easy for us to walk this portion.

The final portion was a moderately steep hike up to a ridge just east of the north summit and a nearby peaklet at 9,562 feet. Here, the fine cowpath ceased, but we could easily see Desatoya's main summit not far away. We diagonalled southwesterly until we gained the saddle between the twin summits at about 9,820 feet. The final hike to the top of Desatoya Peak went quick, avoiding our only snow patch of the hike. We made the top in about 2.5 hours, including breaks, arriving about 8 a.m. in great clear weather and a gentle breeze. From the top we could make out the Toiyabe Range to the east, US-50 down below us to our west, the Clan Alpine Range across the way, and my truck, barely visible, back on hill 8043. Adam and I spent about 45 minutes at the top, having an early lunch.

The hike down went fast. The cowpaths and roads made for easy jog-walking. Adam stayed behind to scale a side peak, so I beat him back to the truck by about 20 minutes. I decided to "shower", using my new camp shower apparatus. It worked well enough to clean me up. While waiting for Adam I spotted another truck that came up another road. I don't think he saw me or my truck, and Adam told me that he hiked out of view himself, so we figured we were okay. Anyway, while we were getting our stuff packed up, we heard a gunshot. The truck was parked about a mile away. We heard another. It sounded like a mid-caliber gun, but we wondered what the hell they were shooting at. While we had no reason to believe they were shooting at us (we didn't have a direct line of sight between us), I decided not to stick around to find out. We got in the truck and got down the other side of our hill and out of possible harm's way. We went out the same way we came in, and stopped for a spell in Cold Springs for a snack and potty break. From here we made the long journey north toward Granite Peak in Humboldt county, which we managed to do the very same day!