Hike Mormon Peak and Wasp Throne Mormon Mountains Wilderness Area, NV

Oct 24, 2021 — The high point of the Mormon Mountains is a coveted objective by those with burly vehicles. I've driven past Mormon Peak countless times to and from Las Vegas, and over time it became a curse more than a fun hiking adventure. I dreaded the long-ass drive on bad roads. In fact, the reason Jon and I are friends is because he got in touch with me a couple of years ago, hoping to "use" me and my nonexistent good car to get Mormon Peak. He deflated to learn that I also only had a crossover vehicle and we were therefore now two people looking to hike to Mormon Peak, but with no means of getting there. The peak has come up in conversation many times and we finally decided to just try it, even if the day ended up being a flop due to a flat tire or whatever. Spoiler: we made it. It was weirdly poetic in an esoteric and OCD-fueled sort of way. Our friendship had come full-circle and we no longer had a reason to be friends anymore. ;) In hindsight, I'd say the standard route for Mormon Peak is likely easier and possibly better, but our route visits an old plane crash and is more car-accessible, if only slightly.

Any car can make it to this point (36.82361, -114.65722), which I'll call Car Route Junction. This is the point where continuing northeast leads along the road to the standard route. We initially intended to attempt the standard route for reaching Mormon Peak, but we were shut down almost immediately at the first stream crossing. Even after Nevada's extended drought and attempting the route in October when water levels would presumably be at their lowest, the creek was about a foot deep and neither of us were excited to attempt it with our cars. I don’t know that it gets much lower than this, despite what we read elsewhere. I included a photo of the crossing for reference, but we backed off and decided to try another way.

Back at Car Route Junction, we crossed below a very low bridge and decided to try heading north. The road begins perfectly fine and then deteriorates. Of note, there is a short (far less deep) creek crossing, a rocky dip to pass under a train track, and a couple of larger drops that Jon was confident he wouldn't be able to get back up in his Outback. He left his car behind, but my Jeep Compass Trailhawk was able to carry on and the road became a lot better starting around here (36.89187, -114.66383). The next road junction is here (36.93677, -114.65429), where we turned right and headed up an easy wash. The road was great almost the entire way to our parking spot, with the exception of a few rockier segments that decent tires would be nice to have way out here. Two hours after leaving Car Route Junction, we'd made it to our trailhead. If you want a GPX of the drive, I'm happy to send one; just get in touch.

We set out to the south within the wash after the road seemed to end, and headed toward a Class 2 gully. We passed an old RV, which we presumed was for a repairperson who might come out to work on a small radio tower on a sub-peak we noticed, but who knows. The desert is weird. We made it to the top of the gully after lot sof boulder-hopping and took a minor detour to check out an airplane crash (thanks for the info, James Barlow). It was a mostly intact plane, moreso than any I'd seen to date. Very cool.

We continued east along the ridge crest, ascending Class 2 limestone mini-cliffs and otherwise pretty pleasant, if steep, terrain. If you're only looking to get to Mormon Peak, I recommend taking our descent route (the northern section of the mini-loop on my attached map), which avoids Wasp Throne and its additional vertical gain. We wanted Wasp Throne though, and continued along the ridge, leading to Peak 5215. This is just a little nubbin along the ridge that required backtracking to get around since its east face was a cliff. Wasp Throne came into view, the first peak of the day. To reach it, the terrain looked a bit gnarly and side-hilly, and it was. I might recommend dropping a hundred feet or so and just ascending via the drainage below, but we stuck to the higher ground and made our way to the gully on Wasp Throne's west side. Once within the gully, we encountered some Class 2/3 boulder hopping, and then as we progressed toward the summit, steep and loose terrain. We headed toward a conical-shaped pinnacle on the left side and found a Class 3 weakness in the cliff bands, followed by some fun Class 2/3 route-finding to the summit block.

Mormon Peak was visible ahead, still a long hike from Wasp Throne. We continued north along the ridge to get down from Wasp Throne on some Class 2/3 terrain, with a single Class 3 move to get down a crack feature. The Class 2 slope leading northeast introduced a bit of brush and more rugged terrain, but we eventually made it to around 5800 feet, and the going became a lot more pleasant. We hiked along the ridge crest toward Mormon Peak. Along the way was a rock outcrop that we avoided on its south side using an animal trail, but otherwise we had no complaints. The last thousand feet of vertical or so to the area around the summit was steep and mostly on solid limestone slabs. There is a Class 3 section toward the top that can be avoided by sticking just to the right of the ridge crest on brushier terrain. Mormon Peak itself is surrounded by lots of slightly larger shrubbery and the last few hundred feet of hiking was on mostly flat terrain with no views. And then we made it to the high point, which overlooks the very impressive Sharks Tooth and surrounding Mormon Mountains. Happy to make it here, never coming back.

On the way back, we made it almost all the way back to Wasp Throne, but rather than re-ascend the peak, we tried instead to drop around the north side of the peak and wrap around its base. This included some Class 2 steep descending on dirty terrain with some easy dryfall avoidance and then continuing through a rocky wash for about a half mile. We noticed the drainage would have continued to a cliff and instead started side-hilling on surprisingly mellow terrain, except for lots of ankle-high brush that cut us up. We foun dourselves basically back at the plane crash, and we descended to our cars the same way we came up from there.