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| - It's been over or around 16 years since I last visited Turtlehead Peak (THP). My how the memories of my late 20's have seemed to fade. Back in the 90's, I bought Branch Whitney's, "Hiking Las Vegas." It was a book about 60 hikes within 60 minutes of the Strip. Back in the those days, the information in this book was pure gold. I sumitted THP a minimum of 2 times and a maximum of 3 times. Again, time escapes me so I cannot say for sure.
The evening before May 9th, the GF, who has had THP on her bucket list for many years and I came up with a plan to conquer the peak.
Armed with a newly purchased National Parks Pass, we arrived in the somewhat early morning hours. I was a bit taken back by the about of traffic on a Monday. Through the gate we went to the Sandstone Quarry parking lot. Again, I was taken back by the other vehicles already parked there.
We prepped and I threw on my shoulders, the already field tested Tenzig. Bucket list check off for the GF....a training op for me (THHE). A quicker check of Whitney's publication, confirming what I thought I already knew about there being no trail but only a route to the summit, we followed the written words and proceeded as it instructed.
Something seemed off. Something seemed amiss. Was it Father Time playing hell with my senses. Nothing seemed familiar to those days....now....so long ago.
We would eventually make our way to the chute after trail blazing to it's base. The sounds of other hikers confirmed our suspicions we were in the right place.
Up the chute we went. Beware....there are many trails. The only one that really matters is the one you are on that goes up. There was for a time a sequence of green dots painted on rocks. We assumed this was route. In retrospect, I am not sure when those dots were placed. All that mattered was the accent.
Eventually, we would make it to the ridge line leading to the backside of the turtle. The backside was a little more radical than I remembered. I had told the GF once we made it to that point, it would be a gradual climb. Damn you Daddy Time! It was more of an angle than I remembered.
Some two hours and forty-five minutes later we would find ourselves at the summit. The GPS had us at over 2000 feet of elevation gain in 2.5 (approximate) miles. The view from the top is one to behold.... You are actually above the many man-made whirly birds flying in the immediate area. Hearing swifts zoom by like Sidewinder missiles and performing organic aerobatics was better.
We hung out for little while under the shadow of a Juniper Pine taking in the sights and sipping JetBoil tea. I also got to manipulate the Vortex spotting scope I was lugging around with me.
We headed down after a while. Following the natural flow of things led us to a refined trail unlike the one we had followed up. There was no green dots. Just the a well defined path that took us down the chute above other hikers following the same route we had up. This particular path is the furthest right you can go heading down. If you're going up....it on the left.
Once down from the chute, we followed an even more refined trail that actually had markers. This was not the book and must have been placed after its publication.
One interesting observation I made was that 99% of the people we found on the trail up and down were friendly and returned our greetings. The closer we got to the parking lot, the more this type of courtesy became infrequent. I have a theory I will address when I write my Red Rock Conservation Area review.
All in all, I absolutely recommend you check this off your list. I will say that regardless of the time of year....no summer....bring water. I passed several people going up and or coming down with no water! BRING WATER! Again, I have a theory about this to be addressed later.
Respect & ENJOY!! Kudos to all those that have given a description of the experience and logistics of this amazing experience.
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