Hike Thomas Peak, Full House Peak, Snow Lake Peak, Mount Fitzgerald Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, NV

Jul 26, 2022 — Five years ago my friend Shawn and I hiked to a bunch of the lakes in the Ruby Mountains Wilderness. At the time I didn't know much about peakbagging, so we had set out to just see all the beauty the area had to offer. I returned with Chris to tackle the peaks surrounding that original loop: Thomas Peak, Full House Peak, Snow Lake Peak, and Mount Fitzgerald. We were now seeing the lakes from above rather than up-close, so it was fun to see a new perspective and also to be surprised by how little I actually remember from my last visit.

We started out from the end of Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway and headed up the Island Lake Trail. A few switchbacks and some initial nice views and we were up in short time, where we scoped out the route to Thomas Peak to the northwest. Leaving the trail, we beelined our route up the slope toward an obvious weakness in the cliffs above. Class 2 got us to this spot, where we scrambled up a section of Class 2+ to reach the steeper slope above. Here there are two options (I left both on my attached map). Going left leads to a Class 2+ chute with some loose rock, while keeping to the right switchbacks on a Class 2 ramp system. Both lead to the summit. We were surprised to find someone else on the summit, but even more so when it was someone I knew, Marko. He joined us for the next peak.

After backtracking from Thomas Peak, we descended a bit and traversed a talus field beneath the southern cliffs of Thomas Peak, then ascended to the saddle separating Thomas Peak from Full House Peak. Class 2/2+ brought us along the ridgeline (or just left of it) to just below the summit of Full House Peak, where the ridge became scary-looking and we instead found a wrap-around Class 2 ledge on the left (east) side of the summit, which got us up with minimal effort.

Ahead we could see Snow Lake Peak, our next summit. This guy has been nagging me for a while because it's been reported as the hardest Nevada 11,000' peak, and it certainly looks quite dangerous in photos. Chris, as usual, had little concern about the potential hazards (after all, we had helmets so it's fine!). The goal was to reach the peak's west ridge and navigate ledges that wrap around the peak. We determined the best course of action would be to wrap around the southern side of the peak to get over there since the north slopes looked pretty steep and would require a lot of extra vertical loss. We continued along Full House Peak's southern ridge and when the terrain was clearly about to become treacherous, we dropped to the left using a Class 2 gully. This was the right choice, since the ridge did turn into an impassable drop. Now below the ridge, the traverse to Snow Lake Peak's southern ridge required a bunch of boulder-hopping, but you could minimize it a bit by dropping a bit more and choosing a more clear path. Now on the southern ridge of Snow Lake Peak, we laughed at the face we were supposedly going to be climbing, a mess of loose rock just above us. Fortunately Bob Burd left some good beta behind that helped us feel confident there was in fact a route. We continued wrapping around Snow Lake Peak to its west ridge, where Mount Fitzgerald came into view in the distance, a nice-looking summit that we'd get to after.

You may notice two lines very close together on my attached map near the Snow Lake Peak summit. The northern one assumes you go all the way to the ridge crest, where a series of loose, steep Class 2+ and 3 moves lead up the north face of Snow Lake Peak to the base of the first crux. This option adds exposure and danger where there doesn't need to be any. Instead, before getting all the way to the west ridge crest, head up the southwest slope and follow a mostly hidden ledge that wraps around on Class 2 terrain and leads to the base of the first crux. Once here, we nervously inspected the rock, which was mostly solid. About 50 feet of Class 3+ led up blocky moves and then through a chute, followed by a bit more Class 2/3 onto a grassy ledge. Just to the right we saw a cool-looking keyhole that Bob's beta said we should go through. Now we were on the southwest side of the peak and a fortuitous ledge wrapped us farther south (Class 2). Be careful, though, because this ledge continues for a few hundred additional feet and reaches the east side of the peak and it will be tempting to continue there, but this leads to an extremely exposed Class 5 ridge option. Instead, when the ledge opens up a bit into a rocky slope and before it continues along the southeast side, head north up the slope. Starting with some low Class 3,  the slope leads up to a dihedral, which you can recognize by a massive flat rock just above that forms the right side of the dihedral. We picked our way up blocky, fun Class 3+ moves, the exposure becoming more severe by the second. A Class 4 move about halfway up which required some thought had us second-guessing if this was the correct route, but past this the dihedral/chute eased up a bit. Class 2/3 continued for another 50 feet or so and we were at the summit of Snow Lake Peak. We 'whoooo'ed at each other in high-pitched voices as we are prone to do after being stressed in the mountains, then enjoyed the views from this unlikely summit.

On the way down the upper crux section, the Class 4 didn't seem to give us any trouble, but a Class move below it did since I'd forgotten about a massive crack I couldn't see from above. Try to remember your hand placements on the way up, since they seem to disappear on the way down. After backtracking from Snow Lake Peak and using the much better ramp option I described earlier, we set off toward Mount Fitzgerald. This final summit for the day has two points, but apparently the southern one is slightly taller. Not really knowing what to expect, we followed the ridge crest from Snow Lake Peak to Mount Fitzgerald's east ridge. Along the way there were some cool slabby granite sections and Class 2. From the peak's base we stuck just left of the cliffy crest and ascended in zig-zag fashion up fun Class 2/3 moves to gain the northern summit. A pleasant stroll followed by a surprisingly cool, though short, knife-edge (exposed Class 2/3) led to the true high point.

After returning to the south ridge of Snow Lake Peak, we dropped east, the goal being to reach the Lamoille Stock Trail. We didn't realize there'd be a long slabby cliff that would force us to traverse quite a bit to the east, preventing a direct descent. After getting below the cliff, we had some minor bushwhacking in order to reach the trail, which we followed back to the trailhead.