Hiking Boundary Peak: How to Get Up the Highest Point in Nevada
Boundary Peak, Nevada, 13,147 feet
Distance: 11.7 miles (round trip)
Feet: 3,750 feet of climbing
Duration: Approximately 7 hours
Difficulty: 7/10
Well first, it needs to be said finding the base of Boundary is a challenge. You are WAY out there in rural Nevada, and things aren’t exactly marked very well. Do not expect phone navigation or All Trails to work and get you to the base.
We were coming on Route 264 traveling from South to North (before you vier West on 6). We made the mistake of taking the dirt road that looked like it would lead more directly to Boundary: do not do this. I have read that this is a longer version of the hike, but you will need a VERY durable vehicle. Our Jeep Compass almost got stuck on a boulder protruding from the ground. Take the second option which was flanked by a water tower. There are two entrances which I highlight but the join and lead back to the base. That little excursion cost us about two additional hours (and a lot of rapid heartbeats thinking we were stranded in rural Nevada.) It is slow going once you’re in the dirt and gravel roads. This route will also take you to a proper trailhead which should alleviate a lot on anxiety about where in the world you are.
We camped a little ways back up the trail that night by Trail Canyon Reservoir. There was plenty of space and we didn’t see anyone else until we got a bit closer to the trailhead. We left early and although it was Nevada on July 3rd, it was chilly at 6 am. It gets light around 5 am out there, so if you want you can set sail early. Just be prepared to either be cold until the sun gets a little higher or to shed a few layers.
You can’t really get lost at the start of the hike as the trail is pretty well defined. The thing that you may feel if you aren’t local is the altitude. We are both from back east, so the 9,000 feet we started at wore on us. That said, after a while we seemed to get used to it and hit our stride. Where you can begin to get lost (as others have said, there isn’t a well marked trail) is once you cross the river and get into the scree field. It doesn’t really matter if you stay on the trail here, as long as you get to the base of the mountain. If you really want to stay on the trail, stay mostly right towards the hill flanking the base.
Once you get to the base, there is no mistaking where you are headed. There seem to be two strategies to get up the mountain: the intelligent one and the foolish one. We chose the latter, but I highly recommend the rational path which heads FAR right.
As you are heading up, expect a lot of climbing in the sand. It’s a huge pain in the ass and makes life much harder than it should be. Finding solid footing anywhere is a blessing, but it never lasts long.
Not only did we not take the rational path, but we also made life harder on ourselves by veering left of the ridge we wanted to stay on. We had our fair share of scrambling and bouldering because of this. I think we would have been able to make it up the correct route in about 3–4 hours, but our detour took us into hour five. The traditional route isn’t much scrambling until you get to the top, which is a decent amount of rock formations to go over and around.
All told with our detour we took 5 hours to summit, which had us topping out around 11am. The weather at the top was predictably chilly and windy but manageable. We signed our names in the box that is left for the other highpointers.
The hike down was annoying as we had to trip back to our previous route to grab a few items we left. Then once back in the scree, we didn’t find the trail soon enough and ended up too far to the left of the stream. On the way back, stick to the stream or else you’ll find yourself annoyed you are off course.
All told the highpoint was awesome and one helluva adventure. I have to imagine that we would have lowered the difficulty had we stuck to the trail. We are relatively fit, but so far it was the hardest high point! More to come.
