Mission: Turtlehead!

Asked to cut a tree down in Vegas, Tod and I JUMPED at the opportunity as this also meant time to re-visit Red Rock Canyon and maybe climb another peak! Tod and I climbed the two tallest peaks in Red Rock back in 2002, Mt Wilson at just under 8000’ and Bridge Mountain which is a touch less! What a great deal, we would get a free trip in return for a small amount of work? WOW, too good to be true! Well, we soon found ourselves in Vegas at the home of my friend and former boss Dan, who flew us out for 10 days of fun and games…oh, and the tree lol! Now, Dan doesn’t do anything half-heartedly, our trip included a rental car, all meals and whatever extra fun he could muster up for us (what happens in Vegas….well, you know). Though we were told the tree came first, we were on the road to Red Rock Canyon bright and early the next morning, a bunch of caches in the GPS were waiting for us to visit and we were ready to oblige!

Not worried about any time constraints, we tackled a few simple caches near the visitor’s center and an earthcache (Tod is standing in front of the earthcache in the above picture on the left) before turning off into the Sandstone Quarry parking lot where the trail for Turtlehead Mountain was located (Turtlehead is in the far background directly behind me in the above picture on the right)! Turtlehead mountain, roughly around 6000’+, has a route leading up to the saddle which then leads to the peak, just before you reach the top is a cache, this was our mission for the day! While planning our trip, I posted our intent to climb Turtlehead and the cache owner contacted us asking if we’d replace the missing container, so our packs not only contained snacks, flashlight and water, I also carried an L&L! The air had a chill as we started off and we were wearing sweatshirts, but two old fat men rarely walk without working up a sweat, the shedding of clothes began early on!   

The trail led us across the desert floor via a dry wash (noticeable in above left picture…behind me), the gravel and sand made for tough walking and we weren’t moving at any record-breaking paces! That’s OK, Tod had health problems including a bad ticker (pumping only at 1/3 of its potential) and gout, we knew going in that we’d be here awhile and were enjoying the sights! Soon, we were making it up out of the wash and into a rockier section full of jagged boulders which loved to scratch at you and grab at your clothing and such! It wasn’t long before I was plenty ahead of a much slower Tod, but I stopped often to allow him to re-join me…he had the Hershey’s Kisses! After many stops and a lot of slow moving, we found ourselves to a “fork” in the road, the “trail” went to the right of a harder section, but I knew from previous climbs that you could, with a lot more work, make it by going left and through the section. This section made for a lot of fun, but was even more taxing on our time; Tod’s feet were also starting to bother him (gout) which slowed us even more. It was probably already well past 4pm and we were only about halfway up??  We had known we were being followed, we’d seen two guys and a lady start up behind us and had been watching their progress as they slowly closed on us…I laughed when I saw they followed us on the more difficult side, but gave little thought otherwise. I was starting to worry about Tod, I wondered how much longer he could go…plus I now knew time was definitely against us! We were having a blast though, commenting on the views and just ribbing each other as we always did, it was great!

Here’s Tod at one of the more technical of sections, the drop to Tod’s left is about 100’ straight down, behind him is a very steep slope which assures a lot of pain and agony at the very least…don’t slip Tod! I already made it past this and was encouraging him along while snapping the pictures!

Both pictures are from the same spot, just zoomed in. If you look closely at the left picture, you can see Lake Mead in the far background over the city of Las Vegas. The strip starts at the Stratosphere Tower (under Lake Mead, spire-like building) and ends with the Mandalay Bay (or did when this picture was taken at least). After snapping these and a few other pictures, I headed to the actual peak to sign the summit registry log which I have signed every time I’ve climbed this mountain. As I’m approaching the peak, I hear yelling, louder and louder, yelling a lady’s name, it was quite irritating and I wondered what was going on!? As I come up over a small cropping of rock, I see the two guys standing on the peak looking back toward the way we had come up…and yelling the lady’s name over and over. As soon as they saw me, they stopped yelling, I asked them if everything was OK as I was pulling the registry out and signing the log. Both guys looked amazed there was a registry and also signed it. I asked them where the lady was that had come up with them; they told me she had become dizzy and stayed behind somewhere along the summit slope. I was amazed now…how do you leave a person behind? Especially a person who could be in distress, one you have no way of marking as I had with Tod? For all we knew, this lady could be passed out and unresponsive, it could easily get dark and we’d never find her!! I saved the lecture for later, we had to find the lady and get these guys off the mountain! All the way back down, these guys are telling me how this was their first climb and that they saw us going up and decided to follow. No planning, no water or food and no flashlight? I was completely amazed by all of this!

About a half hour down, we found the lady sitting on some rocks. They all wanted to stop and chat, I snapped then, told them they were being careless with their lack of planning and really laid it out to them…I held nothing back. I then told them to follow me to the easier trail to get them started down. The trail is dotted with cairn stones (little “towers” used to mark a trail) and should be simple to follow, I told them as I handed them my spare bottle of water. I also told them they had less than an hour of daylight left and not to slow down, just keep moving at a fast but safe pace! Knowing I had to get over and find Tod before dark, I gave them all the info I could remember and sent them on. I have run down this mountain once (it’s hard on my knees when I walk down, running was better), so I knew they wouldn’t have too much trouble and I knew we’d be right behind them! Then, off I went to find Tod, my GPS pointing right to him even though I would have had little difficulty locating him anyways! We took a short break to let my knees rest, down truly is bad on my poor body! Lucky for us, we made it out of the more technical section just as the sun was setting, my knees slowing us down the whole way. We never did see the trio again, but soon found we needed the flashlight Tod had thought to bring. After another couple hours of slow descent now due to my knees as oppose to Tod's feet, we found ourselves out of the scramble section and back at the wash, my knees were killing me, but we were still having a blast! The flashlight wasn’t needed after the first hour as the moon came up bright and we were now casting shadows on the rocky wash as we trudged on out. Finally back at the car, we were glad to note there were no other cars present…the trio made it out safely!

I think it was Saturday (6 days later) when we finally decided to attack the tree…the tree won! WAY too big for Tod and I to handle without major equipment. We did cut out one of the larger branches which nearly took out the cinderblock wall separating the properties…OUCH! No Tod, I don’t think it’ll bounce back off that palm tree lol! The trip was a huge success though as we were able to bag several caches in Red Rock Canyon as well as The Valley of Fire, which now bans caching (glad we found them before the ban). Moral to the story, never listen to a pair of vacation-hungry friends and hire the pros, it’s MUCH cheaper in the end! J Dan actually just wanted company while on his vacation, so it worked out for all! This turned out to be the last time Tod and I made it out to Vegas, any plans of climbing and hiking in the future were stolen from us when a driver pulled into Tod's lane and caused a reaction which made Tod’s motorcycle go into a skid, then flipped 3 times before landing on the side of the road, Tod beside it.

Whether on the mountain or on the road, make plans for any emergency and PAY ATTENTION! Having the right equipment and supplies greatly increases your chances of making it home safely!

By Rockin Roddy

Comments(1):

1. Thanks!

   Great story well told, thank you!

   Tuesday, June 09, 2009 Ed