Iron Hiker: Split Mountain West

Sunday, December 17, 2017

Split Mountain West

Hiked: 12/17/2017
Distance: 5.4 miles round trip cross country
Summit Elevation: 1680'
Prominence: 420'
Elevation Gain: 1929'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 1.54
Round trip time: 3 hours 35 minutes
Recommended water: 48 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Fish Creek Wash Jeep Trail
Difficulty: Moderate (navigation)

administrative note: I posted an abridged version of this report on steemit.com (@tekewin)

Split Mountain West (SDC #90) is on the other side of Fish Creek Wash from Split Mountain East. These peaks should be done together but my lack of preparation the first time led me to summit the USGS marked Split Mountain instead of the official Split Mountain West. The trailhead is only a half mile from the wind caves trailhead used for Split Mountain East. It is a pretty rough road with deep sand and big rocks, 4x4 recommended. The alien geology took some of the sting out of making the long drive twice. I parked near the West trailhead, stopping before some big rocks in the road that might have scratched my fender.

I started up a slab on the right to drop into the wash. There were a few class 2 scrambling sections, boulders of all sizes, mud pits and mud slabs. Steep walls rose up on both sides. The topo map is not as useful here where smooth 40' contour lines hide 30' cliffs. I followed the wash a little more than a mile before I reached a three way fork. I continued straight up and over a small rise to drop into another wash with high, pock marked walls on the right. I hugged the wall until I reached another fork. This time, I went left and climbed steeply out of the wash. I angled up toward the visible high point, unable to see the true summit. When I gained the ridge and local high point, I got my first view of the double peaked summit of Split Mountain West.

The slab on the right leads to the ascent wash

Dropping in

Scramble section

Approaching a triple fork, I continued straight over the rise to enter the next wash

Looking back after climbing out

Double summits, Split Mountain West is the far one on the left

From Ben Baumann's report, I knew the farthest summit was the highest. I descended part way down the hill, then drifted to maintain elevation as long as possible. Eventually, I dropped into a shallow gully and started directly toward the highest summit. From this side, the summit presented a wall. You can go around to the other side for a class 1 walk up. Instead, I found a class 2 move to get me to a ledge, then followed it away from the summit to a point where a 3' step got me onto the summit plateau. The standard double red cans held the register. There were two register books. The first was placed in 1993 by Wes Shelberg and Paul Frieman. It was only about half full with the most recent entry from March, 2016. The other register was empty. Wes Shelberg had actually used a surveyors level instrument to verify that this location was higher than the other ridge. It turns out the summit location on peakbagger was not near the true summit (as of 12/17/2017). Many of the GPS tracks on peakbagger stopped at the lower ridge. I sent an email to Greg Slayden presenting my case for moving the summit location. Stirring this pot will probably make me quite unpopular, but my interest is in accuracy, not to force anyone to revisit the area. Like Split East, Split West doesn't get much traffic. After a short break, I visited the lower half of the double peak which had better views of the entry to Fish Creek Wash. I headed back toward the ridge I came up, but decided to try to descend the wash from a higher point than where I left it. It didn't work out quite as I expected and I ended up going down a feeder wash that required some trickier down climbing to get back on my ascent route. That just hammered home the potential navigation issues. Toward the bottom, I tried to end with a twist by exiting on the right side of the wash (going down) instead of the left where I dropped in. That led me to cliff out in two places before I had to return and exit at my original drop in point. I think the scenery on Split West was even more impressive than Split East. I picked up two mylar balloons on the way out. I really enjoyed hiking around this area and would love to come back and explore deeper into Fish Creek Wash.