Tucki Mountain

6726 feet

1/29/06

Tucki from Emigrant Campground 

For this occaision I opted to start from near Emigrant Campground to avoid the more challenging driving approaches. This added additional hiking miles and gain but looking at the topos it didn't seem unreasonable. I had no knowledge of any routes up the West side but figured I could just pick a ridge and follow it up. 

I started late. It was already 10:30am. This would leave me only 7 hours of daylight but would be a good incentive to travel fast. I brought my GPS just in case. My starting elevation was about 2320 ft (I would reach a low pt of 2000 ft on the way back). 

From near Emigrant CG I crossed Emigrant Wash on a direct bearing to the peak. Upon entering the foothills just beyond the wash I jumped from gully to gully a few times to keep my heading. This required a little more navigation than I expected but soon the West ridges lay before me and it was time to pick a ridge. With a closer perspective the ridges looked a bit more complex than they did from a distance. It took me several minutes to finally choose one. 

Up I went. The ridge and terrain reminded me a lot of the Inyos. There was some loose rock, some ups and downs, a little scrambling, but no major obstacles. After several hours I finally began to top out on the ridge and then had to locate the high point. Fortunately sometime last year I must have uploaded a waypoint for the summit into my GPS. Without that it would have been a little difficult determining the high point. My ridge came up a little south of the summit requiring me to drop down a little and then north to reach the summit. The temperature the entire day was wonderful: cool, not too cold and not too warm. 

I figured if I could make the summit by 2pm I would be in good shape. I reached the summit at 2:14pm -- close enough. The hike to the summit took 3 hrs 43 mins. From the summit the view was not as good as I was hoping, but some of Death Valley was visible and I could see both Telescope Peak and Mount Whitney. 

With the remaining daylight I felt I had a reasonable chance of getting out before dark. The question was should I return by the same route (a known path with GPS track) or descend a different ridge with perhaps unknown obstacles and the risk of encountering these obstacles in the dark? Well, naturally I chose the latter. 

For the return I descended the West ridge that connected directly with the summit. The upper half of this ridge was good and made for a nice rapid descent. The lower half had a few obstacles and a fair amount of loose rock but nothing challenging. The bigger challenge was in navigation. How would I get from there back to my car? I was now further North than I wanted to be and the drainages that feed down into Emigrant wash tended to force me even further north. Also, the lower part of the ridge branched out a couple of times. I ended up dropping down one of the branches toward the south and eventually into one of the larger washes. Eventually I exited back into Emigrant Wash about a mile and half north of where I parked. At this point I made a bee line directly to the old Emigrant ranger station / campground and then finally back to my car. Though it seemed like it took a lot longer than it did the descent only took me 2 hrs 35 mins back to my car and I made it back just before dark. Perfect! 

Roundtrip distance was 14 miles. 
Total gain with some ups and downs was over 5000 ft. 

Log

10:31am - Started hiking across Emigrant Wash
02:14pm - Reached summit
02:32pm - Left summit
05:08pm - Reached Emigrant CG
05:17pm - Returned to car

Stats

Time from car to summit: 3 hrs 43 mins
Time from summit back to car: 2 hrs 35 mins

Elevation Gain: 5000+ feet
Total Distance RT: 7 miles