Feb 01, 2019 — The River Mountains are a small range just north of Boulder City, Nevada. I've driven past them a million times on my way to Lake Mead, so finally decided to bag some of the high points. Start from Lakeshore Road and head up Sheepbone Canyon, where a series of dryfalls have consistently had ropes to aide in climbing the hardest ones. After the canyon's head, take a right up a gully and head up to Falls Peak for some nice views of Lake Mead below.
Drop back into the Sheepbone Canyon and head up the wash through a wide section before entering another short section of narrows. The wash gets a little trickier to follow after this, since there are spurs leading in all directions, but eventually you'll find a reasonable-looking ridgeline to take up toward a saddle decorated with lovely power lines. Gain the ridgeline and pass over a couple of small bumps before summitting River Mountain Benchmark. Drop down to the saddle north of the high point and continue up to River Mountain Peak, a short jaunt away. It might be necessary to do this since the only viable route down is a ridgeline just south of River Mountain Peak, without sliding down awful scree slopes. This ridgeline includes some not-completely-unpleasant easy Class 3 downclimbing on colorful, rotten rock and leads to open desert. Take a wash north-running past a hidden cholla cactus forest, and then into Seven Dry Falls Canyon. This canyon has some gorgeous colored rocks and all dryfalls can either be downclimbed, avoided, and in one case, descended via a small talus cave crawl.
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