Hike Snake Range Traverse (Pyramid, Washington, Lincoln, Granite) Great Basin National Park, NV

Oct 08, 2020 — I've found a new appreciation for Great Basin National Park after this year's silly amount of exploring the overwhelmingly large Great Basin Desert. The park itself has a bunch of Nevada 11ers and these peaks are mostly free of foliage, which seems to be not the standard for most out here. After an embarassing amount of research and planning, I formulated a route that could potentially hike the more obscure peaks of the Snake Range: False Pyramid, Pyramid Peak, Johnson Peak, Mount Washington, Lincoln Peak, Peak 11040, and Granite Peak. Nothing else really seemed efficient, requiring multiple days from different trailheads to get to all these peaks. Alternatively, people seem to like driving to basically the summit of Mount Washington, but that removes most of the uphill hiking and force out-and-backs. I toyed with the idea of somehow making a loop somehow, but that would have orphaned a a peak here or there. So, a traverse it would be. There was the added bonus of being able to also see Lexingon Arch, too. I got in touch with Sam Grant, a prolific and impressive peakbagger/runner from SLC who, despite already hiking a few of the peaks on the traverse, immediately agreed to shuttling the route with me. We were both excited. I would soon be humbled by his speed, but he didn't make me feel badly about likely slowing him down a bit, and what a great day.

To get to where we would leave our end car, we left the pavement here: 38.8744134,-114.0038117 and followed signs to Lexington Arch. The dirt road is accesible by any car, with maybe a couple of trickier humps toward the end for anything less than mid-clearance. We parked the end car here: 38.85156, -114.17764, where the road became inaccessible for my Subaru. Better cars could make it to the 4WD parking spot here: 38.84651, -114.18598. We then drove to the Baker Creek Trailhead within the National Park ("Trailhead" button above).

We set out as the sun was rising along the Baker Creek Trail, following the lovely trail for a few miles. Sam had done False Pyramid before, and was happy to try to find a less-bushwhacky route than what he had taken. So, we continued along the trail until we spotted a significant gully on the left that seemed to lead directly to the summit of False Pyramid, avoiding mostly all the trees/brush. I recommend scoping out your route up this gully to avoid some of the aspens that could add bushwhacking. We left the trail, crossed the North Fork of Baker Creek, and headed up the talus slope. The slope slowly narrowed into Class 2 and quicky became quite steep. We were able to avoid excessive scree-hiking by staying on solid ground when possible, and while the gully wasn't necessarily fun, it also wasn't miserable. The last few hundred feet below the summit, the rock became more solid and turned into some true Class 2 fun. From False Pyramid, we continued along the talus ridgeline to Pyramid Peak, where we took in the views, tracing our route to come. We were moving pretty quickly, but seeing Granite Peak's silhouette (our last peak of the day) so far away made me laugh.

Pyramid Peak to the Pyramid-Johnson Saddle included more talus, and we crossed the unofficial Baker-Johnson Lakes Loop Trail. Johnson Lake to the left was looking a bit sad since the year was so dry. The ridge to Johnson included lots of Class 2, and was easily the longest and only stretch of anything resembling technical ridgeline for the route. We passed over a minor bump called Quartzite Peak along the way. The ridgeline from Johnson Peak to Mount Washington was likely the prettiest section of the hike, in my opinion. We passed over land colored brown, yellow, purple, and white. We were mesmerized by the interesting white eroded hoodoos on Washington's north face. Mount Washington took a small Class 2 move to reach, but otherwise was just a nice stroll on nutty-colored terrain with some steepness thrown in.

We briefly followed the dirt road from Mount Washington's summit, but realized it turned away from the most direct route and instead continued along the rim, heading south. Lincoln Peak was visible ahead and still seemed very far away. We rejoined a forest road at a certain point, which led us to the saddle of Mount Washington and Lincoln Peak. The route from here required walking through the forest, where we were surprised to find there was no trail of any sort. We hopped over a few downed trees, but overall it was a nice shady walk in the woods. As we neared treeline below Lincoln Peak, the ridge became quite steep, ending with a small talus field (Class 2). Lincoln Peak became visible again at the top of the talus field, a beautiful grassy approach leading to its base. Lincoln Peak from this direction included a Class 2+ (maybeee Class 3) move, but with some route-finding, you could keep it Class 2 if you wrapped around. It certainly wasn't serious enough to call the whole route Class 3. The views from Lincoln Peak were outstanding, the colorful ridgeline we'd traversed visible to the north ending with Wheeler Peak, and the remote and canyon-riddled landscape to the south still to come.

We continued south off Lincoln Peak along a sweeping tundra. This massive next stretch was impressively gorgeous and fast-moving. We made our way down the light grade, taking in the views of the canyons to the east. Peak 11040 (our next objective) and Granite Peak (our last objective) were both visible. Peak 11040 is set off from the main ridgeline, and it's this peak that caused so much difficulty in trying to plan an efficient route of the southern Snake Range. It's seldom-visited due to not being along the primary ridge and from being so far away from any trailhead. Plus it's unnamed and forested, and therefore not very interesting. However, being a Nevada 11er, Sam and I both wanted it badly. The ridgeline leading to Peak 11040 included two bumps that added some vertical gain and annoyance, but the peak itself was overall just straightforward forest/slope walking. The views were surprisingly nice from the summit, an interesting perspective of basically the entirety of Great Basin National Park. We were able to avoid one of the bumps on the way back to the primary ridgeline, side-hilling on an animal trail.

Next up was Granite Peak, which required more forest walking along the ridgeline, progressively getting steeper toward the summit. The true summit is set just south from the ridgeline, some minor Class 2 to reach it. We weren't done yet, though! Along the ridgeline was another bump not prominent enough to be ranked, but we'd need to ascend most of it in order to continue along the ridgeline and ultimately start our descent. In fact, there were two more minor bumps to the east of Granite Peak, but our route would lead down to the saddle between the two of them, avoiding both of the minor summits. From this minor saddle, we started down a steep, pinecone-filled forested slope, extremely happy we had to deal with no bushwhacking most of the way. There was some low brush that scraped my ankles, but definitely nothing to complain about.

As we descended, we noted a low ridge we'd have to ascend to in order to drop down into the correct canyon where Lexington Arch lives. After dropping over 2,000 feet from Granite Peak, we headed into the trees where deadfall from an old fire and from thick aspens slowed us significantly. We eventually made it to the low ridge where some more steep slope hiking brought us down into the Lexington Arch Canyon. We could see Lexington Arch now, and took an animal trail to the official Lexington Arch Trail. It was nice to be on a trail again. We took the minor detour up to see the large and impressive limestone arch before continuing along the trail. We felt silly switchbacking on an official trail after such an aggressive day on rarely-traveled terrain. The official Lexington Arch Trailhead isn't clear since Google marks part of it as a "road" that is definitely more trail than road. It was easy getting back to the car.