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Apr 09, 2019 — Valley of Fire is a great place to find some interesting scramble routes. I've been to this State Park a few times before to do some of the trails, and returned to bag a few peaklets in the White Domes area with Austin, forming the trip report here. I returned a couple of years later to get another minor summit with my friend Sam, but I've slipped this in as if it were part of a cohesive trip report. The peaks described below include White Dome, West White Dome, Peak 2431, The Orphan, and Boneyard Peak. Although I don't know how useful the attached map will be since a topo doesn't show the intricacies of these Valley of Fire peaklets, it should hopefully give you an idea. I've edited the map significantly to remove the typical GPS jitter you get from going through tight spaces, so use it more as a reference and have fun route-finding on this excursion.
Starting from the White Domes Trailhead, we first hopped up the single Class 3 squeeze-move to White Dome. We continued to West White Dome, with its slightly exposed Class 3 section near the top, where high winds made it more thoughtful than it normally would have been. Both peaklets had nice views of the colorful Valley of Fire State Park below. I recommend doing the one mile White Domes Trail if you haven't. It's popular, but still very pretty.
After the two White Domes, we followed the White Domes Trail north along the road, then left the trail and worked our way west to the eastern cliff of The Orphan. A wash led clockwise around the peak. Before going for The Orphan, it made sense to take a quick excursion over to Peak 2431. To reach this minor summit, a drainage leads northwest, and a Class 2 scramble leads west and up to higher terrain above. At the southern side of Peak 2431, a nice wide Class 2 gully leads up to the north side of the summit. From a notch at the top of the gully, head to the right where two short Class 3 moves in sequence continue to the summit.
We attempted Peak 2395 to the west, but there was certainly no way up without gear. We tried every angle and possible gully. I left our track out for our attempt at this guy.
Back at the southern side of The Orphan, head north through a boulder-choked gully on The Orphan's west side. We passed an interested grass-filled bowl to the north of The Orphan before locating a ramp that led into the maze of rocks that had us zig-zag to the summit. A couple of Class 3 moves serve as obstacles, and for the most part I'd recommend sticking to the grassy gullies between rock walls when possible, rather than on the appealing rock ribs. I thought this route was particularly interesting.
After bagging The Orphan, we dropped back into the gully north of The Orphan at a four-way intersection, and continued north into another gully onward to Boneyard Peak. A few big boulder obstacles slowed us, and an interesting Class 3 move got us onto the slickrock higher up. A Class 2 slab leads to Boneyard Peak's summit. After Boneyard Peak, we continued northeast to get out of the rock maze and traversed the desert to get back.
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