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Sep 05, 2021 — North McFarland Peak (also known to some as Mount Everest) sits deep in the Spring Mountains and isn't easily accessible. It also doesn't get much visitation, but it's a pleasant enough hike to warrant more attention. Some seem to choose to access the peak from the north, but Yossi, Jon, and I decided to skip the potential for bad roads and came in via Macks Canyon, accessible by any vehicle. To increase the day's fun, we included Macks Peak on the way back. A couple of years ago I did the sketchy Macks Traverse with Austin, which descended from Macks Peak, but this route visits the high point and skips the traverse, keeping the whole day Class 2.
From the end of the busy Macks Canyon Campground, we headed along a surprisingly well-traveled trail. While it may appear to be a road on some maps, it's not accessible via car. The trail hugs a lush creek for a while, which somehow held water this late in the year. We left the trail as it continued south, instead ascending to a saddle to the west. This saddle gave us a nice viewpoint of Macks Peak and the route to come to reach North McFarland Peak. We could also see McFarland Peak, which dwarfed North McFarland Peak. From the saddle we descended into a northwest-draining canyon. Of course we'd have to regain all this vertical on the way back, but it was easy walking through sparsely-vegetated terrain, not a single bush requiring whacking.
As we descended the drainage, we kept an eye out for a good spot to wrap around the slope on our left to get into a side-drainage that would lead to the base of North McFarland Peak. You could follow the drainage until you see the side-drainage come in, but we left prematurely to knock off an additional big of vertical gain. The slope was easy enough to side-hill, and we found ourselves within the previously mentioned side drainage. This ascended pretty steeply, heading west. I recommend keeping to the south side as long as possible becaue the drainage itself has lots of big boulders and brush to contend with. The sheer face of North McFarland Peak was impressive when views from below, but a nice weakness would allow access to the ridgeline. This was achieved by scrambling on loose Class 2 talus/scree to the north when the weakness came into view. Once on the ridge, we continued to the summit. Along the way was a optional Class 3/4 section, avoidable on the left via a Class 2 loose gully. A couple more Class 2/2+ moves led to the summit, where the views were great.
We backtracked to the canyon we descended from, and rather than re-ascend to the saddle we started from, we diverged from that route and headed east up a different drainage, our goal to efficiently get to the south ridge of Macks Peak, our next peak for the day. The drainage becomes steeper and had some downed trees to navigate around, but overall it was easy enough. The drainage seemed to sort of open up a bit and we decided to simply ascend a very steep Class 2 slope to reach the south ridge of Macks. From here we wrapped around to its southeast side where we picked up the fairly well-worn Macks Peak approach trail. We followed the trail to the base of Macks' eastern cliff and located the key Class 2+ ramp that would serve as a way to get around the cliffs. The ramp ends with a somewhat miserable and eroded Class 2 slope that leads a hundred feet or so into sunlight on the south ridge of Macks peak. The Class 2 south ridge got us to the summit.
On our way down from Macks Peak, we descended along the standard Macks route, a spur ridge on the peak's east side. Howevere, there are many social trails leading all over the ridgeline and I'm not sure we were on the "standard" route. We got down fine using a somewhat steep slope and a nice drainage, and ended up back in Macks Canyon, completing the loop.
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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!