Mount Patterson, Glass Mountain Ridge

21-Sep-91

By: Joe Young

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Only two hikers, Minor White & Bob Greenawalt, joined the leaders for these beautiful peaks in excellent weather. And, because of a mishap, even these followers dropped out after Patterson.

The driving directions in the DPS peak guides for the east approach to Patterson are confusing. The directions should simply read as follows: From Bridgeport travel northeast on SR 182 to the Nevada state line. From the state line travel 10.0 miles on Nevada highway 338 to a (presently) unmarked dirt road. Turn left and follow this road to its end in 5.3 miles at the Nugent cabin.

After the four of us convened at the roadhead, we began our hike at about 9:15 am. We followed the creek southwesterly a short ways then headed south up a steep slope to a ridge which joined the east ridge of Patterson. We contoured around one bump on the main ridge but still endured one 400' drop en route to the summit. We arrived on the summit around 1 pm. During our short stay on the summit we decided to make a loop hike by descending northwest along dirt tracks, then east down what looked like easy slopes to a faint trail leading to the Nugent cabin. This we did. However, what looked like easy slopes were in fact very steep, loose, and slow going scree slopes. We did pick up a faint trail just above the creek, and this trail became more and more pronounced as we approached the cabin. We arrived at our cars after 6 pm.

On descent we observed several routes which would serve as well as the route described in the write up. For example, one could start at the cabin and head up the creek a couple of miles, then head southwest up a dry wash to the main east ridge. This would save some ups and downs along the ridge.

Bob Greenawalt's car bottomed out on the drive out and his gasoline tank was torn loose. Bob jacked his car up and re-attached his tank and used bailing wire and jumper cables to support it. Bob was able to drive out but he decided not to chance loosening of the tank on more dirt roads, so he and Minor left us Saturday night.

Now down to zero followers, Patty and I drove to the roadhead for Glass late Saturday night. Our hike of Glass on Sunday was uneventful. We perused its register dating back to 1949. on descent we scooped up several specimens of beautiful obsidian as souvenirs of our hike. This was my fifth climb of Glass, my favorite desert peak.


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