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Apr 16, 2018 — Spirit Mountain is a gorgeous granitic desert peak within the Spirit Mountain Wilderness of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, the high point of the Newberry Mountains. It looms over Laughlin/Bullhead City, a casino-driven town at the southern tip of Nevada still so relatively close to Las Vegas that it's weird that the place exists. Any car can reach the trailhead, accesed via Christmas Tree Pass Road. The bushes on either side of the road are laden with holiday decorations, and perhaps the absurdity (and sheer quantity) of the decor has prevented NPS from removing the litter.
Spirit Mountain can be seen from the trailhead, but reaching it requires first heading up and over a small hump before dropping down to the peak's southwest slope and then ascending the peak in earnest. From the parking turnoff, I headed along an old dirt road which pretty quickly turns toward the wrong way. I continued cross-country away from it until locating a social trail that leads up to the hump, only a minor obstacle really. The social trail then heads north down the slope, losing about 300 vertical that would need to be reascended on the way back, before weaving in and out of some foothills and small arroyos. I had a little bit of trouble sticking to the trail during this section, but cairns help point the way.
Once the trail nears 3900', I recommend making sure you find the trail if you've lost it at this point since it becomes fairly well-established. After ascending for a few hundred feet, the trail continues north along the base of some cliffs, drops into a small drainage, and then starts to ascend more steeply up the southern slope of Spirit Mountain. Overall the trail continues to be easy to follow, though I did get off-route a couple of times. I found it pretty odd the NPS hasn't decided to create an official trail at this point since there's getting to be some heavy erosion due to spots where it's clear previous hikers got confused and accidentally made incorrect spur trails. The slope continued as Class 2, and was mostly pretty steep and rocky. As I neared the southern ridge of Spirit Mountain, looking back awarded me nice views toward the cool pinnacles of the peak's southern ridge.
Once at the ridge at about 5400' the trail becomes a lot less steep and rocky and leads north. A low Class 3 move is required to hop over a rock rib, followed by some Class 2 to gain the summit.
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