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Mar 17, 2019 — The Muddy Mountains have been a symbol for me for the last few years, representing the Lake Mead area's desert solitude. They've felt inaccessible because the standard route comes in from the north on a reportedly awful dirt road that I wouldn't have been able to manage. So, the Muddies have loomed in the distance during the many Lake Mead hikes I've been doing, especially this year. I finally decided I'd find an alternative route to get up to them, sort of as a culmination of my routes in the area. It certainly wasn't the longest or most difficult, but the views hit the mark for me, and I got that euphoric experience of feeling like I've really explored the northern Lake Mead area to its near-maximum. Anyway, enough spiritual prattle.
Edit: a couple years later I repeated the Muddies, but made an epic loop of the entire range. You can see that more dangerous trip report here.
Park at the end of a dirt road leading through a wash at a wilderness boundary sign. Please respect the sign and hike the rest of the wash, since motorized vehicles aren't allowed in the wilderness. The wash slowly makes its way to the northwest, where I picked up an mostly completely deteriorated dirt road that led to a viewpoint of Lovell Wash, the main wash of this route that flows south from the Muddies. Follow a wash or ridge to work your way into Lovell Wash, and follow it to the saddle between the Muddy Mountains high points. Lovell Wash is pretty, but not particularly unique. At the saddle, you can see the awful-looking northern approach route up the scree slope (the standard route), but the super interesting red rock features to the north that I unfortunately missed out on by coming from the south. Some day I'll make it over there to explore those little peaklets, I hope.
From the saddle, I opted to do Muddy Peak first, to the east. A Class 2 slope leads to a really gorgeous ridgeline with a couple of scramble moves, before you are brought to the base of Muddy Peak. It looks intimidating, but becomes much more reasonable-looking as you start up the Class 3 gully. None of the moves are hard, but it is pretty sustained for about 30 feet. The rock was mostly solid and I was feeling safe in the enclosed feature where the scrambling happened. A small section of exposed, easy Class 3 leads to the summit.
Back at the saddle, head up toward Muddy Mountains High Point (Muddy Benchmark), which ended up being an interesting trial in route-finding. It looked like it would be straightforward, but a dnagerous-looking sub-peak blocks direct access. I was able to navigate around it to the north by first heading up to a pair of natural arches, scrambling zig-zag-like around to a slope on the sub-peak's north face, and then working my way on an animal trail to a single Class 3 move to pull over to flat, mellow ground which leads to Muddy Benchmark. The views are incredible from here. Not only do you see the iconic Muddy Peak, but you also get views of all the Lake Mead peaks and far beyond. I initially planned to go back down Lovell Wash, but a quick exploratory jaunt toward the southwestern ridge made showed me that route would be a viable option to make the day into a much-preferred loop. The ridge was Class 2 and went really easily. I followed a wash down to the head of West End Wash, which had a few obstacles, one of which was an unexpected impassable dryfall that I could fortunately bypass on the left. The red rock cliffs surrounding this dryfall were gorgeous. I followed the open desert back to where I parked.
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Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I'm not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!
