Our good friend, Howard, lives at the base of Frenchman Mountain. He knows that there are two reasonable ways to climb it, but insists that there is a third (his) route. Six of us (3 men and 3 ladies) tried to climb a similar route last year but had to stop a few hundred feet short of the top (for safety reasons). This time he made it clear that "safety will not be an issue". This time just two of us tried it.
The
canyon that we chose to ascend got steep very quickly and the loose scree
made for treacherous footing. We worked our way along the side so we could
have something to hold on to. Then we spotted
a solid rock channel on the other side of the canyon and slowly worked our
way across the scree to solid ground. The good news was that we were off the
slippery scree. The bad news was that the rock channel needed to be climbed;
not hiked! I commented that going down was going to be really dangerous. His
response was "then keep going UP!" For a long time, we couldn't
see the top and didn't know how much farther we had to go. Suddenly, we cleared
a ridge and we were there. Howard had me take
a picture of his watch to show that we made it up
the 2,000 feet in just 2 hours.
The
view from the top was outstanding. We had been watching the Las Vegas valley
all the way up, so the view of the lake and interim
canyons with mining roads stopping half way up
their ridges was a treat. The east side of the mountain is even steeper
than the side we came up. It might not be shear, but you wouldn't do much
more than bounce for the first 2,000 feet. Our first order of business was
to hike along the ridge so we could add a rock to Roger's
cairn. Then it was back past the towers to bag a geocache. Howard found
a comfortable perch while Bob logged the cache.
Since
we didn't (couldn't) return the way we came up, we decided to try hiking down
a canyon that began at the low point of the road to the towers. The wash looked
promising for the first 3/4 mile; we even came to a 30'
dry fall and found an easy way around it. Then, just when we thought we
had it made, the canyon narrowed between sheer rock walls and the bottom dropped
out at another dry fall with no way around. Howard was sure that we could
go over another ridge or two to find a passable canyon. Since we were dangerously
low on water, I insisted that we retrace our steps and return via the road.
It would be a LOT longer but at least it was a "known" route. I
kept thinking about those guys who died last year hiking out of the hot springs
and didn't want to chance running into another "dead end" (excuse
the pun).
p.s. When our California friend Joan (a surrogate older sister who will be climbing Half Dome on her 70th birthday this year), heard about us finishing this hike, she sent me an email saying "He's older than you are. Don't hurt him!" From the tenor of this narrative, the world can see who is more likely to be the "hurter" and who more likely would be the "hurtee". When I get as old as Howard, I hope I can be just as ornery.