Backpacking Trip Report / Route Description
Pictures from Bonanza Trail 1998
Quick Facts
Area - Mt. Charleston Wilderness area
(Spring Mountains), Nevada.
Route - Lower Bristle Cone trailhead to Bonanza
trailhead at Cold Creek.
Distance - 15 miles
Date - 7-17-98 thru 7-19-98.
3 days, 2 people, 1 dog
Points of interest along the way
Lower Bristle Cone trailhead
Wood Spring
Bonanza Peak
Not much else was recorded for this trip since it was before I started
collecting route information for trips.
General Comments
The trailhead is located near the end of highway
156 in the Mount Charleston Wilderness Area Nevada. We traveled
along the Bonanza trail which ends in the community of Cold Creek
Nevada. This 3 day backpack trip is one I would like to repeat
some day just for fun. In later years I hiked the entire trail in
one day.
Maps
Click for the High Resolution version of the map.
Right click -HERE- and select "Save Picture As" to save the high res version.
GPS Waypoint Information
Trailhead - - - - tBrisCnLwr
8507 feet - - - - N36 18.725 W115 40.648 (WGS 84):
This is the lower trailhead for the Bristlecone Trail.
It starts going up a fire road.
Camp night one - - - - lCmpNoWnd
9796 feet - - - - N36 19.078 W115 42.290 (WGS 84):
This is the approximate location we camped at on night one.
It is approx. since I did not carry a GPS at that time.
Wood Spring - - - - WoodSpring
9062 feet - - - - N36 21.140 W115 44.709 (WGS 84):
Wood Spring is close to where we camped on night 2.
Bonanza Trailhead at Cold Creek - - - - tBonza151b
7429 feet - - - - N36 22.926 W115 44.447 (WGS 84):
This is the lower trailhead for trail 151b (The Bonanza Trail).
This is where we ended the TREK.
Details
Friday 7-17-98 - 4 Miles
Pictures from Bonanza Trail 1998
Start - Lower Bristle Cone Trailhead
Along the way - No side trips were taken.
End - Unnamed camp spot.
I finished packing before we left that morning. Ron and I
had both just bought some collapsible coolers. Inside mine
I packed some frozen turkey burgers surrounded by frozen juices.
the rest of my stuff packed around the cooler in my pack.
Even with the new light weight sleeping bag my pack was still
heavy.
I went to Ron's house to meet him and Lisa, who was our ride.
She didn't want to leave the house until after 10am so we had to
wait and get a late start. While at Ron's we weighed our
packs. Ron's was 55 lbs and mine weighed a whopping 80
lbs! Before we left, Lisa added a twist to the day, she
wanted to drive all the way back to town for gas and a pot of
subs sandwich. We didn't leave town until 11:30am.
We stopped at a camp ground along the way and had our sandwiches
then got dropped off at the fire road. We hiked almost 3
miles up the steep fire road to the trailhead. Both of us
needed frequent breaks from the weight we were carrying.
Ron ended up taking the tent which took me down to 76 lbs. and
him up to 59lbs. After getting to the trailhead via the
fire road we found the next portion of the trail was steep as
well. On one of the switchbacks we found a baggie full of
pills, band aids and a pair of reading glasses. We placed
it in a very visible spot so the owner would find it easy if he
came back for it.
Later we came to a fork in the trail and took it to the right
since the map showed the left one as a dead end. about 4
switchbacks after the fork the trail leveled out a bit and we
started making much better time. We stopped before
reaching our planned camp location that night. We were
running out of time, mostly due to Lisa.
After we rested a few minutes we set up camp. As soon as
the tent was up Window (my dog) was in it, she was obviously
tired. We ate Ron's hot dogs from his cooler for dinner.
We saved the turkey burgers from my pack until morning since
they were still frozen. While I was cooking Ron starting
jumping around saying he stabbed himself with his Leatherman.
It just sounded funny and I started laughing. He had
shoved the side of his foot into his Leatherman he had left open
on the ground. It went right through his shoe and into his
foot. I broke out my first aid kit and we doctored up his
foot.
Just before it got dark, we started a fire. Ron went to
bed shortly after. I was tired too but was enjoying the
fire. I threw on another log and stayed up until it died
down then went to bed.
Friday 7-18-98 - 5 Miles
Pictures from Bonanza Trail 1998
Start - Unnamed camp spot
Along the way - Passed by Wood Spring and
used it for drinking water and clean up water..
End - Unnamed camp spot.
When we got up we cooked the turkey burgers. They turned
out very good. What a treat! Ron's foot was hurting
and we were trying to decide if we should turn back or continue.
He decided he may be slow but would most likely be ok.
Later we sat down with the maps and tried to figure out where we
were. As it got later in the day we decided we better pack
up and get moving to make good use of the daylight.
After a while we got to the other side of Mc Farland Peak.
Lots of cool scenery and still a good view of Charleston Peak,
which still had snow on it. There was a large rock near
the trail that hung a bit over the side of the trail. Ron
scaled up it first and his first word was WOW!!! He said
the view was great. I then took my turn up there then had
to come down for my camera to go take a picture from there.
Window was not happy with not being able to follow me so we had
to make a leash for her and have Ron hold her back.
Shortly after the large rock we started hiking up more steep
switchbacks and took a break part of the way up them.
While taking the break we got out the maps and tried to see
where we were. We never really got it figured out 100%.
Shortly after our break we came to a spring coming out of a
pipe, then a little further up a fork in the trail. I
scouted ahead on the left fork and found a great camp site that
had someone had put a lot of time and effort into. We got
our packs and stayed there for the night.
While at camp I went over to a ridge and was taking pictures.
I noticed the camera said I had taken 30 pictures. I only
had a 24 exposure roll of film in the camera. All the
pictures taken on my camera before now never happened. The
roll of film did not load properly. We would still get
some pictures from Ron's camera. But we lost some good
moments I thought were on my camera.
We set up camp and once again, Window was right in there.
She didn't want food or water. She just wanted to lay in
the tent. While reorganizing our packs we found we both
had just about the right amount of water left and Ron had just
enough food with a little left over. We both dropped our
jaws when we saw the food I had left. I easily had enough
food for 3 or 4 more days! Over packing food is something
that took me a lot of time to out grow.
We went back to the spring with wash clothes to clean up.
Ron washed just his face off but I wanted to clean up more.
I washed everywhere but where my shoes and shorts were covering
me. It was getting chilly and the cold water made it
worse, but getting clean felt nice.
As it got dark we lit the fire and ate. We played with a
laser pointer I had brought along and a flashlight Ron had with
a red lens. When he played with the focus on his
flashlight it looked like a big red mouth on the ground talking.
We enjoyed the fire for a while then buried it before heading to
bed.
Sunday 7-19-98 - 6 Miles
Pictures from Bonanza Trail 1998
Start - Unnamed camp spot
Along the way - No side trips were taken.
End - Cold Creek community
After we got up we started packing then went over to a ridge to
try to figure out what city we were looking down on. Ron
figured out it was Pahrump.
Shortly after leaving camp we started up a lot of steep
switchbacks. Ron mentioned he would not have been prepared
for these switchbacks the day before with his foot hurt.
We ran into a couple with a dog headed the other way. They
told us we were coming around Mc Farland Peak, not Bonanza peak
like we had thought. Later window treed a squirrel.
At the top of the switchbacks we took a break and ate some left
over cherries I had. We looked at the maps and found the
guy was right about it being Mc Farland Peak. After break
we left and soon ran into a family taking a day hike.
After hiking around Bonanza Peak we got to an area with lots of
flowers. It was beautiful, lot of flowers and a view down
to Cold Creek (our destination to exit the trail).
Then we started hearing loud thunder and seeing lightning.
We decided it would be a good time to get moving and get off the
ridge we were on. As we hiked I told Ron it would be great
if we 3 or 4 minutes of rain just to cool us off a bit.
After a few more minutes, it did start to sprinkle. We
were getting closer to Cold Creek and started running into more
day hikers.
After it stopped sprinkling we stopped for a break. We had
a lot of time left before my sister (Renee) was going to be
there to pick us up. While on break Ron said it was
sprinkling again. I said "Oh yeah, it is!? He was
shocked I didn't know it was sprinkling again since it had been
for a few minutes and he was getting wet. Then we realized
I was right under a tree branch that was protecting me.
After our break it began to rain hard. We stopped under a
tree to keep from getting too wet. Then it started to hail
along with the heavy rain! We saw a family on their
way out and offer to share protective space under our tree.
They joined us. Soon after we all decided it was not going
to let up and thought we better get moving. WE were
worried about the trail getting too muddy to safely travel on
and the trail getting flooded out.
Just after the family went ahead out of site I found the spot
where I had hidden water before our trip and went up to get the
2 bottles of water for us. Soon the hail got very
large and was hurting even through the hats we had on.
Poor Window had no cover and was diving from tree to tree to
keep from getting pelted. We took another break with
Window under a tree to wait it out a little. AS we sat
there we got our wind breakers on. I pulled out windows
blanket and wrapped it around her to keep her warm. Even
with the blanket and me holding her she was still shivering.
Soon we decided we needed to get moving again. The trail
was getting muddy and parts of it were beginning to look like
streams.
We hiked along as fast as we could and would stop under trees
when the hail got large enough to start hurting Window again.
It looked a bit like Christmas. The hail was about an inch
deep in some places. We both mentioned it was pretty.
What ruined it was the large painful hail and the streams now
running all around us. At one point Ron asked if we were
still on the trail or if we were now hiking in a wash. WE
really could not tell until a little further up we saw the water
go to the right and the trail went straight. My feet were
now swimming. The water proof boots I had were great at
keeping water out. The down side was they were also great
at keeping water in! The water that was running down my
legs filled my boots and I was now hiking in little buckets of
water on my feet.
When we got to the meadow at the trailhead it was still raining
and we wanted to find a park bench to get under or bathrooms to
go in while we waited for our ride. We noticed a white
truck and found it was the family we were hiding under the tree
with. They had waited for us and were going to give us a
ride since they knew it was a few hours until 5pm when we were
going to be picked up. I was surprised they wanted to give
us a ride even though they had noticed I was carrying a gun
earlier.
On the ride back to town with the family we all shared stories
from that day and were loving the heat from the heater.
They were going a few blocks from Ron's house so they dropped us
there. Lisa had Ron's keys and we could not get back into
his house, so we went to my house to wait for Lisa.
I could not get a hold of my sister on my cell phone, all I got
was her answering machine. We drove back to the pick up
point to meet her so she would not be there wondering where we
were. Shortly before getting there I got a call on my cell
and it was her telling me she was still in town. So we
headed back home. On the way back I bought Ron and I Del
Taco.
Pictures from Bonanza Trail 1998
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