Hike Currant Mountain and White Pine Range Traverse Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, NV

Jun 13, 2021 — Currant Mountain is a big peak with an impressive summit ridge. The standard route for the peak is garbage, so Jon and I decided to make a traverse of the range instead, tacking on a couple of Nevada 11ers. We roughly followed Scott Kruis' route, with a major alteration using a very fun ledge scramble, compliments of Chris Kerth. More on that later. Navigate here (38.94405, -115.36119) and turn left, then turn right here (38.92377, -115.37887). 2WD will likely have to park here (38.92479, -115.37846), adding an easy mile to the hike stats, and burlier vehicles than mine can probably drive another quarter mile from where we parked.

We set out along the old road as it switchbacked toward Currant Mountain, and then headed north. After wandering along the east slopes of the White Pine Range for a while, we left the road and headed west along the minor ridge running directly east from the summit of Duckwater Peak. This ridge was steep and sometimes a little loose, but rarely unpleasantly so. It also introduced some Class 2 limestone slabby elements. I recommend sticking to the crest as much as possible as the slopes on either side have more scree than the crest. The summit views from Duckwater Peak toward Currant Mountain were really exciting, and we left the summit shortly after getting there. Starting south along the ridge was easygoing at first, then the crest became slanted with limestone slabs covered in often loose rock, slowing progress for a while. We mostly stuck to the crest, but kept left or right of it and side-hilled instead if the rock outcrops became too annoying. There was a single major hump along the way to the base of Currant Mountain, but we didn't mind since it gave the best views of the day of our featured peak.

A social trail led up the scree from the base of Currant Mountain, and then we found ourselves on the west side of the ridge. I'd venture to guess staying along the crest is impossible, or at least quite technical. While staying west resulted in some gnarly side-hilling, it was only Class 2 and not as long as it appears. The social trail faded away and we just kept to the base of the limestone cliff face, dropping down in elevation when necessary, totaling around a loss of 200 feet. Finally we were at the base of Currant Mountain's northern ridge. It looked incredibly sketchy, so we wouldn't be attempting it. That was one option down, but we had two others. The first would be to descend farther and side-hill on garbage terrain and reascending from the west side of Currant Mountain. This would keep the route Class 2. The second option was to ascend to a notch above, where Chris reported finding a Class 3 limestone ledge that stretched just below the ridgeline. From below the ledge in question looked laughably scary, but we figured we'd try it. We ascended to a notch in the ridge where we were able to get to the start of the ledge without too much hassle. Getting here required some Class 3 scrambling on fun, solid limestone, followed by a short section of loose Class 2/2+ created from erosion coming down from the aforementioned notch.

Once on the ledge, it felt a lot more reasonable. The ledge stretched for a few hundred feet, and I couldn't believe such a cool feature existed. The exposure is certainly there, but we never pulled any more harder than Class 2/2+. There were ample handholds the entire way across the ledge, and the ledge created a small divet where we could stick our feet in as we progressed. I felt quite safe overall, despite my tendency to avoid unnecessary exposure. In fact, it was the highlight of the route and one of the most fun scrambles I've enjoyed in central Nevada. Good recommendation, Chris! Once we made it to the end of the ledge, easy Class 2 brought us up a short slope to yet another gorgeous feature, a rounded wannabe-knife-edge. Crossing this was trivial and at its end a massive boulder offers a Class 3 option to gain the summit of Currant Mountain. Jon naturally chose this route, but I kept left of the boulder and ascended to the peak on a Class 2 ramp. We were thrilled how well this route worked.

From the summit of Currant Mountain we countinued south toward White Pine Peak. The descent followed a steep limestone slab, and the only real obstacle was to keep left of a rock outcrop, but was no more than Class 2. After reaching the base of Currant Mountain along the ridgeline, the ridge continued to be interesting. We weaved around and over minor Class 2 limestone obstacles and had to drop down to a saddle. A steep, short section brought us from the saddle to a minor bump. This bump would be our descent ridge, but more on that shortly. Easy limestone walking got us from the bump to the summit of White Pine Peak.

Now it was time to get back somehow. This would require descending the standard route of Currant Mountain, but it didn't seem like any previous summitters had a route they preferred, so we got creative. We returned to the aforementioned bump and scoped the ridge, which would take us east. We noted a scary-looking shark fin lump of limestone that would stop farther ridge travel, and decided to get down to its base and then just pop off the ridge and head north. All of this worked perfectly fine, but it was steep and loose. I can see why people coming up to Currant from this general route/area would call Currant a bad peak. They're right, this route is awful. However, descending this way was pretty fast and painless so Jon and I agreed we really enjoyed the peak and traverse overall. Once down the steep crap we found ourselves in a small valley. I highly recommend not staying in the drainage, instead keeping to the left of it and descending through the forest. It will be tempting to drop out of the forest and head into the drainage multiple times, but don't. We found the forest here is always less rocky than the drainage and we got down quickly. Eventually we stumbled on the old dirt road we hiked in on and followed it back to the car.