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Feb 01, 2020 — Aftering doing a bunch of the canyons out in the State Line Hills, it was time to return to get a couple of the more prominent peaks in the area. Neither of these were particularly incredible, but it made for a nice day in the desert. I bagged Peak 5413 and Devil Peak. I'd say overall the route I took was pretty good if loops are your thing, but if slogging up scree for 1000+ feet isn't your thing, maybe skip this one or do Devil Peak as an out-and-back. Google doesn't take you the correct way to the trailhead. Instead, navigate to this underpass: 35.7151286,-115.3642429 and follow the dirt road southwest. The road was in decent condition, requiring moderate clearance and going slowly at points when it gets rocky.
I parked at the mouth of the canyon that leads to an old mine, but started south instead of entering the canyon, intending to do Peak 5413 first. The cliffs made it seem a bit tedious, but there are at least two routes up. Last year when doing Antenna Canyon, we ascended from the north (included on the attached map in purple, which passes the old mine). It was a steeper option and not as interesting, but worked well. The route I took today wrapped around the left side Peak 5413's northeast ridge, a route I learned of from Bob Burd. It requires following a nice wide Class 2 limestone ledge system using a fairly gradual ascent on the south side of the cliff face. It led to a mostly flat ridge that continued to the base of Peak 5413's summit, which appeared to be a maze of crumbly cliffs. A short Class 2+ couple hundred feet took a teeny bit of thought to get past these cliffs and keep the route at Class 2. From the simmit of Peak 5413, I scoped out the south face of Devil Peak, which looked just awful. I considered briefly returning the way I came and just doing Devil Peak as an out-and-back, and honestly I'd probably recommend doing it that way instead. The slope appeared to be pure scree the whole way up, and looked incredibly steep.
I dropped to the north along the ridge from Peak 5413, encountering a couple of Class 3 cliff band moves. You could down-climb a few of these, but with a little thinking I kept the route to very low Class 3. I ended up at the saddle of Peak 5413 and Devil Peak, the scree looking a little less rough from here than it did from Peak 5413. I started up, and it really wasn't too bad. There were a few slightly scary sections due to the steepness and poor rock quality, which is the main reason why I rated this route Class 3 even though there weren't any real climbing moves. I did find myself using all four limbs to try to be more efficient as the rocks constantly kept sliding out from under me.
Eventually, I made it to the summit of Devil Peak where I was surprised to find someone else up there. What were the chances? We chatted for a bit and then I headed down on the standard route along Devil Peak's east slope. There were cairns and a social trail until the end, where I just traversed the slope down into the mouth of the canyon where I parked. In hindsight, the hike would have been a bit more enjoyable had I just descended from the canyon separating the two peaks and then ascended Devil Peak via the standard route up its east ridge, but the south slope was definitely a bit more adventurous.
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