Mount Dubois, Mount Hogue

11-Sep-92

By: Steve Smith, Campy Camphausen

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This was a continuation of last summers attempt to traverse the entire white Mountain Range from the Barcroft roadhead, north across White Mountain and along the crest to Queen Canyon. Unlike last year, the weather this year was perfect and the trip was completed as planned.

Campy and I were joined by Morgen Irby, Dave Mason, Ted Pinson, and Gail Hanna. Dave was our only returnee from last year and was also wanting to finish hiking the central portion of the crest. Ted's motivation was Mt. Dubois one of his remaining four DPS peaks to finish the list which he has been working on since the 1950's.

Last year we had snow, wind and cold temperatures the whole time but were able to climb White Mountain and traverse the crest to climb Headley Peak and get as far north as Chiatovich Flats. At that point, we headed east and exited the range via Indian Creek and walked out to Nevada highway 267.

This year we returned to Indian Creek and with 4WD vehicles were able to drive in to 8,100'. We retraced our route back into upper Chiatovich Flats and made camp on a bench at 12,000' with good views looking south to White Mountain and down Birch Creek. Next morning, it was easy walking up to the crest and northward a short distance to Mt. Hogue. The crest goes real nice northward but it is a hefty distance to cover. coming in from the traditional ridge above Middle Canyon is certainly more direct although Indian Creek offers a much higher starting point.

Hiking north to Mt. Dubois, we observed six Bighorn sheep run across the crest and drop down into upper Davis Canyon and then a mustang which stayed around for awhile, seemingly interested in seeing some people. We reached Mt. Dubois at midday, having just missed Bill Banks who had day hiked up from Middle Canyon.

Four members headed back south to camp in upper Chiatovich Flats while Morgen and I headed north to finish hiking the crest. We reached The Jumpoff by late afternoon and ended up camping in the saddle below Montgomery Peak. The plane wreckage on the east side of the pass, just a few feet below the saddle was about the same as when I first saw it 20 years earlier when my dad and I had done this loop.

Some recent footprints were visible in the scree and the next morning, the Montgomery register showed that Bill Banks had gone across ahead of us and done the entire loop in a day. Our hike on down to Boundary and out to Queen Canyon was fast with Campy and Dave both driving vehicles around and arriving just an hour before us. From there it was on to Bishop for a group dinner at El Charro to end a pleasant trip and finish to our year delayed completion of the crest traverse.


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