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Jan 17, 2022 — This nice loop visits the peaks south of Arizona Hot Springs. It's a seldom-visited area, but has some great views of the Black Canyon and the more tame portions of this part of Lake Mead. Peanut Peak is the only true "peak", but it seems locals like to group it with other bumps along the ridgeline. Each of the four bumps have been dubbed names that slowly complete the full "Peanut Butter Jelly Sandwich". It's cute and despite a couple of the peaks being nothing more than bumps, I like cute shit and so I added the bumps onto my attached map.
Austin and I parked just off Black Joe Mine Road and dropped through an overpass underneath AZ-93. From here we descended a wash for a half mile or so before leaving the wash and continuing south toward Peanut Peak. There are a few little arroyos around here that we had to drop in an out of before making it to the base of the northern ridge of Peanut Peak. The ridgeline is steep, but barely even has any Class 2 stuff. Peanut Peak was prettier than I thought it would be. We continued along the ridgeline, quickly passing over Butter Peak (literally just a hump), and descended the rocky ridge toward Jelly Peak. There was some Class 2 on the way up Jelly Peak, and the slope on the peak's north side we used to descend was Class 2 and a bit loose.
More ridgeline traversing led us along an animal trail toward Sandwich Peak. A bit of descending took us to the eastern saddle of Sandwhich Peak, where a bit of fun Class 2 led to the mesatop above. Easy walking led to the high point. Here we got excellent views to the north, and we could see a bunch of the other little Lake Mead peaks that are so, so lovely. We backtracked from Sandwich Peak, deciding the best way back would be to continue halfway to Jelly Peak and start descending to the north and back into the wash we hiked in on. The ridge to get down was steep Class 2. There might have been a more pleasant way down, but this felt the most intuitive at the time when we were up above. Once back in the wash, tt was a couple miles back through this wash to get to the car.
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