Catch Pen West | Deer Creek Road | Mt. Charleston Wilderness, Nevada
Catch Pen West | Deer Creek Road | Mt. Charleston Wilderness, Nevada| Visit https://lasvegasareatrails.com/catch-... | This adventure will take you through a climate and flora and fauna zone similar to traveling from Southern Nevada to Canada! If you added the Bristlecone Pine Zone on the Mummy’s Nose North Alpine Loop above Deer Creek Road, your journey would take you all the way to Alaska! https://lasvegasareatrails.com/mummys... The route covers a huge swath of wilderness below Deer Creek Road extending from the West side of Deer Creek Catch Pen Loop to the East side of Lee Canyon Road where it connects with the Blue Tree Loop. Along the way you’ll move through Ponderosa and Pinyon Pines all the way down to Joshua Trees and cacti. Journey through winding canyon gullies, along high ridges and in wide high desert washes. Emerge again and again into spectacular vistas. Travel a couple nice established, though largely unmarked trails, then head across pathless wilderness terrain with Mummy’s Nose and the Sheep Range as your guiding points of reference.
The route begins at the Deer Creek Catch Pen Loop Trailhead on Deer Creek Road in the shadow of Mummy’s Nose. I’d originally set out to circle the Deer Creek Catch Pen Loop Trail. However, on the unmarked lower end of the loop I mistakenly turned left and ended up on the lower Blue Tree Loop along Lee Canyon Road! Oh well, I made the best of it and decided this would be an adventure spanning the wilderness between Lee Canyon Road and the West edge of the Deer Creek Catch Pen Loop Trail. The entire adventure was spectacular! The descent begins on the left (West) side of the loop. At the upper end near Deer Creek Road, you’re passing through a majestic Ponderosa Pine and Mountain Mahogany Forest as you rapidly descend, winding through a narrow gully. Now and then spectacular distant reference points pop into view: Angel Peak to the East (your right); The Sheep Range to the North (ahead); Mummy Mt. and Mummy’s Nose to the South (behind).
It's very quiet, with only the sounds of birds singing and an occasional lizard scurrying across the trail. There is a high ridge to your right and to your left, so you begin in a deep forest. Eventually, as the tall pines give way to smaller, more heat resistant plants like Pinyon Pine and Juniper, the surrounding views really open up! You can see a unique view of Angel Peak and its ridgeline descending for miles toward Highway 95 below. The views of the other reference points mentioned above become more expansive and distinct. Now you can add Gass Peak, the Sisters, Macks Peak, McFarland Peak, Bonanza Peak, the Northern Las Vegas Valley and the Highway 95 Valley extending toward Reno. Looking behind to Mummy’s Nose and ahead to the valley at the base of the Sheep Range, you’re seeing at once a climate zone that would geographically span the distance between Southern Nevada and Alaska!
The first trail intersection far below the trailhead appears as a U-turn. There is no identification of which way to turn to stay on the loop. If you want to stay on the loop, take the U-turn to the right and keep to your right around the loop. As mentioned, I headed left at the U-turn, continuing downward to meet Lee Canyon’s main wash near the lower end of the Blue Tree Loop. Lee Canyon Road was clearly visible above the high ridge to the West of the wash. I turned left in the wash and headed upward alternating between a faint trail just above the East (left) side of the wash and traveling in the wash where the trail now and then gave out.
Knowing the route back to the starting point was making a beeline toward Mummy’s Nose, I began to traverse about 5 intervening ridges and washes. Hindsight and a map study revealed that if I had just topped the first high ridge to the left above the main Lee Canyon wash, that ridgeline would have wound around to meet up with Deer Creek Road only a mile or so below my starting point. However, I began traversing the 5 intervening ridges and washes until I finally topped the ridge that took me to the Desert Overlook Viewpoint on Deer Creek Road only about a quarter mile from my starting point. That said, the narrow winding washes and the high ridge ascents and descents were enjoyable (though draining), with their intimate narrow lower gullies and rewarding views on the high ridgelines. And there was always the wonder of guessing what was around the next bend or at the top of the next ridge. Traveling without a map or GPS opens a unique world of expectation and wonder!
It's pretty clear in the video that I didn’t always know the route I was on, but was well guided at all times by the distant reference points. In the process, I went places I had not originally intended to go, and that was all part of the joy of discovery!