Adam Helman and I were on the second day of a multi-day swing of county highpoints in (mainly) northwest Nevada. Actually, I had been on the road now for almost a week, ahving driven up from Arizona via eastern California where I had successfully visited White Mountain Peak, and Freel Peak, both county highpoints and two highly prominent mountains. I picked Adam up at the Reno airport and we drove into California again for a hike with Edward Earl at Granite Chief, the presumed Placer County highpoints (later, it was discovered not to be). Adam and I backtracked into Nevada and car-camped the night before today near Desatoya Peak. We made short work this morning of Desatoya and then began the long drive north to Humboldt County and the Santa Rosa Range, home to Granite Peak, Humboldt County's highest peak.

The drive was scenic, through empty high Great Basin desert via Fallon through Lovelock and Winnemucca, then north through an interesting town called Paradise Valley, that still had some population and remnants of its old downtown dating probably from the 1880s or so. It looked like an old coach stop and probably hangs on today as a ranching town of some sort. Out of Paradise Valley we followed good gravel and hard-pack roads high into the Santa Rosa Range, eventually crowning the ridge at Hinkey Summit, the road to here being in excellent shape. Slightly past Hinkey Summit, I followed a sketchier road west up onto a small open hill, lightly covered in low grass and sage. The road was kind of spooky, being narrow and a lean to it, but my truck did fine. I parked my truck right atop this little hillock. It was about 4 p.m.

Granite Peak was just a short way away: no more than two airmiles, if that. We had about three hours of daylight so we decided to go for it now instead of tomorrow morning. From my truck we walked the continuation of the road as it descended slightly into a small basin, where the snowmelt had turned it into a gigantic marsh. We sidestepped what we could and occasionally walked through the wet mud, but in time the road ascended out of this section and worked its way westerly toward Granite, it's impressive cliffy profile standing grandly above us. I have to admit I wondered just how we were supposed to get up the darn thing.

The road ends at a fence line which runs very steeply up a rocky hillside. We went up this hill, then down the other side, now directly below Granite's summit. A fairly obvious ridge comes off the summit to the saddle where we stood, so we followed it and went as far as we could, hoping for the best. The climbing here was easy as the rock naturally formed itself into a series of ledges and pseudo-stairs. brush was moderate but always avoidable, and we in fact made excellent time. At times looking down it looked quite intimidating but at no time was exposure or a fall ever a concern.

We'd been climbing the path of least resistance so far as we could determine, and this led us to the only tricky portion of the ascent. It was a sloping boulder, maybe 8 feet high, but with good holds and minor exposure. It wasn't bad at all and in moments we were above it, now facing an easy, much more level ascent up the final couple of dozen feet to the summit, where we arrived slightly after 5 p.m. We were happy to have been successful on what was a small gamble, and time was on our side. The summit is very rocky with not much room to sit. A small solar-panel and repeater box sit up here, serviced by helicopter. We spent a few minutes up here and looked around, but we both agreed it might be wise to descend sooner than later and celebrate back at the truck.

The descent was not bad at all, and we were off the rocks in no time, and back to my truck a little before 7 p.m. Granite had gone rather well for a late-day, spur-of-the-moment hike. It was pleasantly cool back at the truck, and Adam celebrated his 100th county highpoint (or so we thought) with some Schnapps. The hilltop campsite was marvelous and we had amazing views in all directions. At night it was breezy but still, a very lovely place.

Postscript: After it was discovered Granite Chief was not the actual county highpoint in Placer County, all of our county counts were offset by one, so in truth, Adam's 100th county highpoint would actually occur tomorrow on Star Peak in Pershing County.