New York Mountain 11-11-23

New York Mountain…

New York One and New York Two are the two tallest peaks in the New York Mountains, in the Mojave Wilderness. I took the Keystone Canyon approach, which turned out to be a combination of a dry rocky drainage, and a rocky abandoned road, up to an abandoned mine operation, then a cross-country route (path of least resistance) to New York One (7463’), then a spicy scramble up New York Two (7533’). Along the way I took some time to explore the abandoned mining operation, complete with the mine opening, rails running out of the mine to the tailings dump site, and other metal and concrete things. I continued up a ridge to a small saddle where I got my first look at the two New York peaks. I made my way to NY1 which turned out to be more of a mound with an awesome 360 deg view, and a great view of NY2, the taller of the two peaks. From a distance, I had no idea how I was going to summit that rock structure. As I got closer it didn’t look as bad, but I still didn’t see a way to the summit. I tried several routes, but could only get to what I called the false summit, with no way to the true summit. Just when I was about to bail, I remembered reading about a “bushwhack” just below the true summit. I looked down and saw a patch of pine trees and shrubs and decided to drop down to check it out…sure enough there was a scramble to the summit. After a brief break at the summit, it was time to descend. Like usual when I solo this type of scramble, I had a hard time retracing my ascent route and ended up dropping down another route (a little spicier), but made it down just fine. On my way down the mountain, I ran across another mine opening. 6.5 hours after starting I made it back to the van.

Fun day out. Deb would have enjoyed this one.

Leaving camp…