Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Mt. Moriah

We just returned from an adventure in the Mt. Moriah Wilderness of Nevada. It's not the kind of trip we do very often; in fact we haven't tent camped in years.....now we know why! However, camping was necessary due to the remoteness of the Mt. Moriah Trailhead. We traveled over two hours on 23 miles of dirt roads and never saw another vehicle. The scenery along the way was different in every direction; it's was fun to come upon a spring & guard station. We set up camp and explored the area in the evening. The wind kicked up during the night, so we got very little sleep. After a hot breakfast we set out to climb Mt. Moriah. It was tough, I knew it would be after my first glimpse of the mountain peak; after all, it is the highest in the North Snake Range and 5th highest in all of Nevada. The fierce winds didn't stop us from reaching the top; we were definitely challenged beyond our normal strength. Awesome views from the top made it all worthwhile, another once in a lifetime hike.

Starting up the 11.4 miles of dirt road to the trailhead

View of the valley below and the Schell Creek Range

Our first glimpse of Mt. Moriah

Nice grassy meadows along the way

Looking south to Wheeler Peak which we hiked in 2012

Dog Spring Guard Station is over 80 years old

Dog Spring was flowing with clear cold water

This is where we will start hiking in the morning

The sign shows there isn't an actual trail for Mt. Moriah

Old Basque sheepherder carvings

The closest lodging we could find

Okay it's not the Hampton Inn, but it'll have to do

Thursday evening we took a walk down the Big Canyon Trail

This would be gorgeous in the Fall

Evening sunset

The wind blew all night, the tent did a flip just after we crawled out of our sleeping bags

I decided to cook breakfast in the tent and out of the wind

Heading out on the Mt. Moriah Trail.....3 miles, oh boy!

A tagged Bristlecone Pine

We still have a long ways to go

A strange trail marker

Corral in the middle of nowhere

A lone Bristlecone shows how windy it can be here

Up above the treeline, it's about to get hard

At least we had lots of pretty low growing flowers to look at along the way

Great views along the way, too

A nice and necessary windbreak on the top

We made it!  2,200 ft. elevation gain.  Mt. Moriah is 12,067 ft.

Kent gives this hike 2 thumbs up, meaning it really challenged us

We signed the Summit Register, we are the third party to sign this year

Awesome views in every direction

Kent is looking towards The Moriah Table.....a hike for another day!

See we really did make it!  3 hours up.....not bad for us!

Hiking back down was easier than we thought it would be


Aerial view of our ascent of Mt. Moriah

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