Hike Bridge Mountain Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, NV

Apr 23, 2022 — This is the standard route most people use for accessing Bridge Mountain in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. This classic peak can be seen from below on the east along the scenic drive poking into the skyline as a lightly colored sandstone dome. However, accessing the summit is most easily done from the west off Rocky Gap Road. The issue with using this standard route to Bridge Mountain is the bad approach road. If coming from Rocky Gap Road from Mountain Springs (south) you can skip the scenic drive, but will need rock-crawling vehicle or expect to walk an extra 3 miles or so along the road. The better option is to come from the scenic drive where a somewhat rugged vehicle could get to the trailhead, but even Crossovers might only make it about a half mile from pavement. The trailhead coordinates I have listed above uses this option, but assumes you only have 2WD and had to walk the entire Rocky Gap Road to the start of the trail. Reaching the start of the trail by car would cut off about 5 miles and 800 vertical gain of hiking. Some maps may mark a spot farther south along Rocky Gap Road as the "Bridge Mountain Trailhead" here (36.13104, -115.53318), but this trailhead makes more sense only if you're coming from the south via the much worse side of Rocky Gap Road. Both options ultimately lead to the west ridge of Bridge Mountain, though.

After hiking along Rocky Gap Road from the Petroglyph Wall Trailhead, we headed off the road on the left at a point around the 5400' contour where a cairn marks a well-traveled trail, the unofficial North Peak Trailhead. This trail leads steeply for about 1500' to gain the crest of the Keystone Thrust (the point on the ridge where the limestone visibly shifts to sandstone). The last few hundred feet ascends over Class 2 sandstone slabs/talus with cairns marking the way. Once at the crest we headed south, more or less following the Keystone Thrust line on a social trail well-marked with cairns. The route wraps above the heads of Ice Box Canyon and then Ice Cube Canyon before ascending a tiny bit to gain the west ridge of Bridge Mountain.

Once on Bridge Mountain's west ridge, we had to descend roughly 500 feet in order to reach the saddle on the west side of the peak. To get to the saddle, the route traverses the beautiful and lumpy sandstone landscape that forms a bit of a Class 2/3 maze. Cairns mark the way, but even if you can't locate them at some points there are multiple options to get down to the saddle. The "standard" route seems to keep mostly to the right (south) side of the ridge, using a series of gullies/cracks to avoid cliffs on the north side.

Even though I've hiked Bridge Mountain a few times, the view of its impressive dome-like face never stops amazing me. A route to gain the summit appears impossible from below, but of course that's not the case. From the saddle, a protrusion on the left introduces a nice crack that keeps exposure minimal and the Class 3 scrambling fun for a hundred feet or so. A cairn marks a significant ledge on the left, marking the best spot to leave the crack. Just after starting on this ledge, another crack (this one much shorter) pops in on the right and took us to the base of the arch for which Bridge Mountain is known.

There may be other ways to gain higher ground from the arch, but we chose to hike through the arch and ascend a Class 3 ramp from within the grotto where the arch is housed. Above this ramp, keeping left leads to a nice viewpoint of a large tank, while right heads toward the summit of Bridge Mountain. Just in front of the peak is a cool feature known as the "hidden forest", a pretty group of coniferous trees snuggled together in a large tank. A cool-looking rock rib on the right of the "forest" is the route to gain the summit. The view along this rib down into the canyons below is immense.

Just past the rock rib, a Class 2 section of ascending on a sandstone slope leads to a steep Class 2 ramp that lasts about a hundred feet, making an ascending traverse to the left up the summit dome. A single Class 3 move took us from the ramp up to flatter ground above, where we could see the summit block just ahead. Reaching the summit from here was Class 2. We enjoyed the views for a bit before taking the same route back.

If you're looking for a more exciting and longer outing, check out my trip report for Bridge Mountain via Pine Creek Canyon, a route that comes up from the east side.