My father and I had been planning a trip to explore Nevada's interior for awhile, so when my teaching ended for the summer at ASU, I headed up to Henderson, Nevada, to join my dad for a week-lomg trip to Nevada's nether reaches. I wanted to climb some peaks, naturally. My dad doesn't like to climb much, but we worked in a couple peaks nevertheless. We left Henderson on August 6th and headed up US-95 toward Hawthorne. Hawthorne is the seat of Mineral County, which is about 300 miles northwest of Las Vegas (and about 150 miles southeast of Reno). Hawthorne is dominated by the United States Army Ammunition and Ordnance Depot- essentially a huge storage facility for all the bullets, grenades, missiles and other stuff needed in a battle. One of my great-uncles (my mom's father's brother) was stationed here during World War II and the Korean War, and my dad was interested in checking out the area. We arrived in Hawthorne around 3 p.m., including a side trip off of US-95 in which we drove by Boundary Peak, Nevada's highest point. I had climbed it in 1995.

Mount Grant is a very large, broad mountain that sits immediately north of Hawthorne, and dominates the view. It also sits on land owned by the Depot, so access is restricted. Fortunately, they allow people to drive and hike in this range as long as you sign for a key and waive them of liability. We picked up the key that afternoon, planning for an early morning start the next day. We also drove around the facility a bit (located just north of town off of US-95). We took some photos, including the one below of some old WWII guns.

We hit the road the next day around 7 a.m. toward the town of Walker Lake, about 10 miles north of Hawthorne. Walker Lake, the lake, is a relatively large lake, a remnant of old Lake Lahontan, which covered much of Nevada during the last ice-age. In the town, we took Cottonwood Road up about a mile past some homes and into a canyon, coming to the locked gate. Our key was handy and we passed through it no problem. My dad was driving. The road up Cottonwood Canyon is moderately steep and in mostly excellent condition. The road actually heads west then south as it approaches Mount Grant from the north, steadily gaining elevation. As it does, it passes through lower elevation desert scrub, pinon and juniper, some poplar, passes through larger firs, then rises above all the trees into a low-scrub expanse. It is about 11 miles of driving to an obvious junction, during which the road gains from about 4,000 feet to almost 9,000 feet. The photo below was taken just north of this junction.

From this junction, we turned left and headed up the road as it switchbacked up the broad west flanks of the peak. We passed some mining claims and a spring, and finally parked at a big flat bend in the road at an elevation of 10,369 feet. It was now about 8 a.m. We decided to hike the rest, although the road goes all the way to just below the summit rocks.

The hike went well as we followed the road as it meandered up the slope. This was my dad's first time ever at elevation this high, but he felt mostly well and did fine. It took us about 45 minutes to hike to the end of the road. Here, the summit sits just 200 feet higher up a very rocky slope. My dad opted not to climb it, so I went in by myself. I found a foot path somehow hewn out of the talus, and it led to a saddle just north of the highpoint and south of another knob. The map shows an elevation of 11,239, but this is for the northern knob, whereas the highest point is almost 50 feet higher. However, from the saddle, the highpoint was hemmed in by imposing cliffs so I backtracked about halfway. From here, I just made my own way up the loose talus. It wasn't unnecessarily steep, but the rocks were very loose, and I had to ensure at each step that I had a solid footing or hand-hold, so it took a bit longer than I intended. But in short order I topped out at the summit, and signed in the register. The views were beautiful, with all of Walker Lake in view, and the spider-web network of roads, bunkers and warehouses of the Ammo Depot.

I stayed at the top about 10 minutes then headed down, carefully, of course, back to my dad who had watched me scale the rocks from below. We hiked back down, following a drainage down part way to cut some distance (I should emphasize we followed a well-worn drainage, and did not cut our own way through the scrubby vegetation). We were back to the truck at about 10:30 and back to the Ammo Depot to return the key around 11:30.

The rest of the day was spent driving to Battle Mountain on Interstate-80. We went through the town of Gabbs up to US-50, then stopped at the "Shoe Tree", an enormous Cedar (?) along US-50 near the junction of NV-722 in which people have tossed shoes into it over the years. A very peculiar sight! We took NV-722 to Austin, which is much prettier than taking US-50. After an hour or so in Austin, we made the long drive to Battle Mountain, where we stayed the night. Battle Mountain is pretty ugly, in my opinion.

Updates:

Since 9/11/01, access to the mountain has been closed by the people at the depot. As far as I know, as of early 2003, access is still closed and not likely to be opened any time soon. I got lucky with my timing, it seems. This is too bad since it is a nice day hike, and does not apparently hold any stores of ammo.

Recently (early 2005) the Department of Defence announced plans to close the Ordnance Depot at Hawthorne. This has not been finalized and it offers no guarantee that this will open up the mountain again any time soon. Unfortunately, the closure of the depot will devastate Hawthorne and probably turn it into a shadow of its current self unless they come up with some way to attract business, money and tourists.