Wingate Wash?

[Evan]

I turned around about 35.890897, -116.779504. The terrain is pretty open to that point but it looks like the hills get taller and the wash gets narrower further on. Didn't take any photos of the mine site (I keep my phone in my pack and am lazy about digging it out). There are the remains of some small structures, some pieces or parts of equipment, and trash both old and newer. On the way in from the road there's a lot of lumber and metal in the wash like you see coming out of the canyons.

[edward]

If one was feeling froggy and wanted to make it a through hike, it's more like 22mi/4000ft gain to road at the base of the radar tower in the Owlsheads, skirting the base border, which would probably be a tough cross-wash hike.  Or it's about the same distance if you could get up and over to and cross Lost Lake.   Looks like a bit of a ridgeline there, but looks like a couple of the canyons are navigable on satellite.
 

For anyone's future reference: I did something similar on Saturday starting at the Lost Lake "trailhead", caching extra water and snacks - and changing into lighter hiking attire - at the north end of Lost Lake, then going over the ridgeline to the dry lake ("Wingate Dry Lake"?) a few miles to the east. Here is a view of that ridgeline from the northern end of Lost Lake:



The yellow dot on the left represents the location of a pass through which I followed burrow tracks to an overlook. The descent to Wingate Wash from there was steeper, but manageable. The yellow dot in the middle represents the location of a wider canyon through which I made the return ascent. I think there were two dry falls at the top that were only three or four feet high. The worse part returning to Lost Lake from that area was that there were what seemed to be countless washes and it was quite fatiguing at that point in the hike. The yellow dot on the right represents where those washes seem to run and also other routes down to Wingate Wash. I chose not to go that way because it would have added another 3 to 5 miles to get to the dry lake. Here are those first two routes:



View from the overlook:



Looking north from the south end of the dry lake, the old Jeep trail is still visible:



Lost Lake (not pictured) is one of my favorites, and this hike had some nice views of the southern end of the Panamint Range. If a person only wants to see the dry lake in Wingate Wash or explore more of Wingate Wash from the West, I would recommend starting from the Epsom Salt Mine trailhead. FWIW.

[Beardilocks]

Dude! Epic hike! Amazing. Thanks for posting up. That’s still on my bucket list for someday. This gives me some great beta.

What was the total mileage on the hike?

Hit me up if you’re still in the area.

[edward]

My watch showed 23.95 miles in 10.5 hours, and I took 20 to 30 minute breaks at around 6, 12, and 18 miles. Out-and-back hikes suck, but returning via the Epsom Salt Mine would have been much too long for me. I don't recall the details of Steve Hall's report, but my recollection is that in his exploration of Wingate Wash he arranged a drop-off with Farabee's. I would eventually like to explore some parts of the Quail Mountains next Feb/Mar (possibly Oct/Nov), so I might be available to do a drop-off near the Epsom Salt Mine trailhead if anyone is interested in duplicating Steve's hike.