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Apr 09, 2020 — This loop just near Summerlin is a really nice Las Vegas hike, with a fair amount of vertical gain and a pretty limestone ridgeline. It hits a few small peaks and gave me as much of an isolated feel as I could get being this close to the city. We did the canyons, Box Canyon and Hidden Canyon over a year ago, seeing the lows of this suburban-ish area, and now I got to see the high points.
Starting from Buckskin Cliff Shadows Park, I headed up the major wash until reaching the least intimidating-looking ridge that would take me up to Summerlin Peak. Alternatively, you could scramble up its southeast ridge on Class 5 if you're into that sort of thing. My ridge choice was pleasant Class 2 with lots of typical Vegas area limtstone sticky slab, and a few loose sections. There was one Class 2+ section to get around a cliff band, with some minor exposure. Once at the top of the ridge, I curved south and headed up Class 2 to Summerlin Peak. I continued along the ridgeline, passing over Mt. Woody, Little Red Rock Peak (Class 2+), and then up to Gottleib Peak. The views toward Damsel Peak and the La Madre Mountains was quite nice. I headed back down off Gottleib Peak and along the base of Red Rock Peak before descending to the north to a saddle. From the saddle, I continued descending to the east, noting Hidden Canyon's pretty narrows on the right. Keep left here. It might be temping to go into this canyon, but it has technical rappels. The route down I chose had some Class 2 boulder-hopping and a small section of minor route-finding around massive boulders. Once at the mouth of Hidden Canyon, I followed mountain bike trails for a bit, passing an old car, and then realized the trails were super inefficient since they switchback a ton to keep the steepness reasonable for bikers. I instead just headed up the ridge to Peak 3767 (Class 2) and then down its east side. I unfortunately couldn't use the trail system because the trails were a jumbled web and didn't seem to want to take me anywhere I wanted to go. I was now at the base of Peak 3767, where a Class 2 slope brought me to its minor summit. I continued south along the Cheyenne Mountain ridgeline to that peak, where the views of the Las Vega suburbs were sublime, lolz. A social trail (the standard route up Cheyenne Mountain) headed generally north down the ridge, but it wasn't clear what the true trail was, if there was one. It seems people go all sorts of ways. I wrapped around the ridge and headed south back to Buckskin Cliff Shadows Park, paralleling a road as I went.
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