Hike Southeastern Sloan Canyon NCA Peaks Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, NV

Apr 05, 2023 — The northern stretch of the McCullough Mountains has a developed trail system within Sloan Canyon National Conservation Area, where local favorites Petroglyph Canyon and Black Mountain can be located just outside of Henderson NV. The peaks on this hike are located in the southeastern part of Sloan Canyon's designated boundary, but are certainly far less-frequently visited. My primary goal was to find a way up to Peak 4121 from the southeast, but we tacked on a couple of smaller, ranked peaks lower down. There are no named featured anywhere nearby that as far as I could tell by looking at various maps, hence the generic naming of this particular hike, "Southeastern Sloan Canyon NCA Peaks".

There is a paved road leading through the Copper Mountain Solar Farm to here (35.81402, -115.01103), then turn left. Turn right here (35.81833, -115.01859), passable to Crossover vehicles or better from here on, and then make a left here (35.82081, -115.01613). I bottomed out a couple of times on likely the same big rock, but otherwise it's a fine road.

A water catchment system was situated near where we parked, but we didn't go toward it. Instead, Austin and I continued hiking along the degraded dirt road, heading generally north. This drainage separated our first two peaks, Peak 3116 and Peak 3139. After some easy hiking, we were met with some Class 2 due to boulders within, and then we located an animal trail leading up to the western base of Peak 3116. The slope was very steep leading up to this first peak, but never exceeded Class 2. There was one notable weakness that ascended diagonally on relatively solid volcanic slickrock shortly after starting up. Otherwise, it was just a loose schlep, especially toward the top.

We backtracked from Peak 3116 and meandered on an animal trail over to the base of Peak 3139. This peak has a couple of cliff band layers that wrap around it. To overcome the first one, we located a Class 2/3 gully full of loose boulders and brush that ended up not being as troublesome as it looked from below. We reached a slope after this gully, which brought us up to another gully within the second cliff band layer, similar character to the first. It was an easy final bit to the top past these cliff bands.

Peak 4121, the main goal of the day, was visible to the west and sigificantly taller than the two peaks we'd reached so far. It looked riddled with cliffs so we decided it would be best to try approaching its summit using the major draining that wraps around the peak's northern side. Well, I decided. Austin made it clear he didn't care, preferring to stare at the ground to prevent tripping. We backtracked from Peak 3139 and then dropped into the mouth of the major wash. This wash was not as effortless as I'd hoped, plenty of little rocks and brush making the going slow. I'd promised Austin a wash run today, but that clearly wouldn't be happening. Farther up the wash we encountered some colorful rocky terrain, as well as short Class 2/3 obstacles to overcome small dryfalls and larger boulders.

Rather than ascend directly within the drainage to its head since it became very choked with big boulders, we left the wash and ascended south on a progressively steepening slope. After a few hundred feet of clawing up this slope we reached the west ridge of Peak 4121, a much more tame walk to gain the summit. We could see the high point of the range to the south, McCullough Mountain, as well as the colorful eastern cliff faces of the range that few venture out to see this close-up.