Hike Sitting Monkey and Northern Valley of Fire Valley of Fire State Park, NV

Jan 09, 2023 — The peaklets of Valley of Fire State Park have consistently been excellent route-finding objectives with quick approaches, but I've had my eye on a couple of peaks farther north just outside the park. With bad weather changing our plans multiple times, these peaks seemed like a nice grouping of fun for the day, especially since we were all psyched on trying to route-find up some peaks without any info about them. However, I think all of us expected a bit more solitude since we'd be so far from the state park crowds, but without realizing it beforehand this area is swarmed with ATVs, folks looking to check out the Valley of Fire OHV Loop on the sandy roads. We wouldn't be reaching the peaks by motorized vehicle though, instead starting at the northern end of the park at a pull-off next to a locked gate. One peak had already been named by a previous visitor, Sand Finger Peak, but the other we called The Momo because of Whiley's insatiatiable need for those little stuffed doughy treats for the last week. On the way to our main peaks, we figured we'd check out Sitting Monkey, another fun sandstone puzzle.

After hiking along an old road for a bit over a mile, we took a left on a spur road that wrapped us to the south side of Sitting Monkey. The tower is impressive-looking from below, but like almost all peaks in Valley of Fire there's a key set of moves that allow access to the summit. We approached an extended, narrow weakness and ascended on a Class 2/3 boulder-hopping and a slabby scramble, gaining the majority of the vertical elevation to reach the east side of the peak's summit block, where a series of zig-zagging Class 3 moves brought us to the top.

We headed back down from Sitting Monkey and wrapped around its west side, choosing to stick to a wash as it led us north in order to avoid copious cryptobiotic soil. We could see our next two summits in the distance, The Momo looking to be a bit more of a puzzle than Sand Finger Peak so we headed there first. We reached the ATV loop road and followed it to a wide opening on The Momo's southwest side. I imagine there are other route choices for gaining this peak, considering we were able to find an ascent on this side as well as a descent on the east side later, but we liked our route choices and were happy they didn't take too much effort, while still included some puzzling-out.

After hiking through the sandy gap on the southwest side we were funneled into a major gash with a clear cliff ahead. Yossi noted we could escape the gash by using the lower-angled right face, which brought us then to higher ground and Class 2/3 scrambling through a wide and sandy landscape and ultimately just east of the summit, which required some more easy scrambling. Excited from the route-finding up The Momo, we all decided we wanted to try exploring an alternative adventure route back down, so we headed east along the flattish summit area until locating another gash on the east side of the peak that we dropped into. There was some catclaw that we all took turns complaining about, but the route descended quite nicely through this gash as it led Class 2/3 to the desert floor below.

Sand Finger Peak's west face was impossibly sheer, so we decided to tackle the summit by wrapping around to the peak's south side where a large and steep sandy slope stretched to nearly the summit. I assume this "sand finger" is why a previous hiker named the summit as such. Unfortunately ATVs like to drive as high as they can on this slope, but the tire tracks did help us to get our footing more easily, though toward the top of the slope it was steep enough that I can't imagine any vehicle can drive this high. We clawed our way up the sand, and I bullied Whiley with a light push. She wasn't thrilled, but giggled anyway, seemingly plotting her payback. A headwall at the top of the sand forced us to guess at which way made more sense, and we chose to go toward a small notch on the right. Some Class 2/3 wrapped us around the headwall and over to a steep, easy slope required to gain the summit.

We all enjoyed the descent from Sand Finger Peak immenssely, and Luke ran down at what seemed like an impossibly fast speed without eating sand. Whiley attempted to push me into the sand, but just fell herself. Payback foiled. At the base we followed a sandy road southeast and picked up the original old road we'd hiked in on, taking this back to the trailhead.