Lone Mountain or Nannies Peak, it seems to have 2 names. There are a few "big" mines, well big for the late 1800s, around the peak, and dozens of small mines and prospects. They mined silver, lead, and zinc, commonly formed around felsic bodies that intrude into carbonate rocks
Lots of dirt road driving to get here. spending my whole life in texas, it's very weird to come to Nevada where you can go through any gate that doesn't say private property. going through random gates in texas will get you shot
some sort of grouse? it was pretty big, bigger than a domestic chicken
starting the climb. i followed the ridge on the right, but i should have gone left, would have been much easier
lots of random cows in nevada. they were very skittish, must spend most of their time out in the boonies.
the tallest point of the ridge is one of the two peaks on the left. i'm going to follow the ridge over there.
there's a named mine over that ridge, but i was too lazy to walk over there and check it out
these willow looking shrubs started popping up. they got so think it was hard to make forward progress :rofl: the ridge to the left was clear, ahh hindsight
it took 45 minutes to get 1000 feet up to the base of the willow crap, then 45 minutes to get the last 500 feet
i thought the willows would thin out at the top of the ridge, nope.
looking over the ridge to the west, the Ruby Mountain Pipeline running over the ridge
the main part of the Independence Mountains. lone mountain is a 6 mile ridge that is structurally related to the Independence Mtns, so they group them together even though they're separated by 10ish miles
should make for good scrambling, which will be needed, because this ridge looks worse than i thought. and i'd rather scramble than fight those damn willows anymore.
fire up here at some point :hs: most of the peaks i've been on out here have burned trees at the top, guess it's more common.
more scrambling
the two highest peaks on the ridge coming up next.
on top of the first high peak, looking at the second. that peak looked lower, so i thought i was at the summit. couldn't find a benchmark, but thought there just wasn't one. got home and checked the topo, this peak is 1 foot shorter than the next one.
big pano looking back north along the ridge
http://i.imgur.com/NuIxM.jpglooking east towards the Rubies
http://i.imgur.com/Gn65G.jpgsmall prospect, not sure what they were looking for. most likely silver. there were 3 small pits and a trench
there was a bleep of Malachite (copper carbonate), but just this one little scrap of Azurite i could find. normally they occur in generally equal proportions. but azurite oxidizes INTO malachite, so you can tell this is a pretty old prospect, because it's mostly all oxidized
look at all that copper
can you find the jeep?
the lighting was good, had to get one more picture
the overall route.
1800 feet of gain, 3 or 4 miles?
