2024 peakbagging and other activities

[Brice]

I finished off the far northern section of the park this week.  After Sandy point my goal was Last chance mountain.  It appeared virtually snow free from the south but the Gaia snow layer was showing feet of snow.  Hmmm....It turns out that all the northern facing slopes were still covered pretty heavily.  About half of the hike ended up being snowy.  Usually I could keep to areas of less than a foot of snow, but more than a few times I plunged to knee depth.

Here's a view looking south from the summit of Last Chance.




Ladybug sex parties (new band name?) are weirdly common on mountain summits, but I've never seen this many in one spot before.  



 

Then it was off for Marble benchmark.  From the Sandy point summit, there was some discussion over what the "thing" was in the middle of the Eureka Valley Pancake (that's what I'm calling it).  So I hiked up there to find out since I was camped right next to it.  To absolutely nobody's surprise, it's a rock.




I climbed Marble from the pancake.  I knew from satellite that the road between there and the canyon entrance was in poor shape and I didn't want to risk driving in wilderness by accident.  The climb up Marble was gloriously dry.  There's a nice section of red eroded mountain on the way up.



Ubehebe crater from Marble benchmark.



After Marble benchmark I headed to the far NE corner of the park around the north side of Last Chance for a couple of summits in that area.  Here's a photo of Lost Chance on the drive up.  The snow free slopes in this direction are deceptive.



168 down, 32 to go...