Pin Cushion Peak and Pinnacle

30-31 Mar 2009 - by Richard Natale

Drove west on Charleston Blvd out of Las Vegas Hwy 159. Crossed the 215 beltway and drove 5 1/2 miles to turnoff for Calico / Red springs on the right. Stayed on paved road until it ends. There is a dirt road paking lot there. Do not park in the circle to avoid a fine. The trail head is at the circle.

The reddish mountain to the north is Kraft Mountain:
KraftMountain.jpg

We hiked around this mountain to the east to avoid the vertical, we knew there would be plenty to come. As we rounded the corner and headed north we could see the next ridge that we needed to get over. We decided to take the lowest saddle to crossover.

On the ridge we could see the peaks that we were going to and the desert floor we had to cross:
PinCushion.jpg RichardOnPinCushion.jpg

We decended and hiked across the desert to (36.18856 115.42161). Put a carin there to mark the drainage/ridge we took to the base of the mountain. When we got to the base we headed east looking for a place to start the climb. We traversed for a long way before we could see the pinnacle. Once you see it there are many good places where to climb to get to the saddle. We dropped down about 40 ft on the west side of the pinnacle to a crack where we climbed to get to the summit. I think the 12 ft climb at the base of the pinnacle is 4th class.

Crack leading to the summit (left), we rapped off a tree on the descent (right):
CrackLeadingToSummit.jpg RappingTheCrack.jpg

The route from there was straight forward to the summit. The rock near the top is very loose but no exposure, 6471 ft, (39.19839 115.41631). the South Summit is aprox. The south summit is 250 ft. vertical of the pinnacle to the west. It's at 6780 ft, (36.19936 115.41869).

Pincushion Pinnacle (left) and Pincushion Peak (right):
PinCushionPinnacle.jpg PinCushionPeak.jpg

There is another peak to the west of the south summit that looks like a 20 minute trek. Its is Pin Cushion Peak. We did not go there.

We followed our route to decend. It took 3 hours and 20 minutes going up and 3 hours returning.


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