North tip of the Cedars 2017

I've always been curious about the bizarre crags on the very northern tip of the Cedar Mountains. The crags are just north of a canyon that I have hiked a number of times, but until now I had never checked them out.

I decided on a route on the west side that wen up the steep canyon below the crags, then ran along the ridgeline from the “gunsight” crag on the north end to the sheer-walled “mesa” on the south end, returning via the canyon to the south.

This route was moderately challenging, mostly because there is a cliff band near the bottom that has steep and loose footing below and above the most reasonable crossing point. There are two draws that plunge over the cliff band, and we crossed through a class 3 step just to the south (right) of the southern draw. My goal was the crag at the top of the northern draw, however, and the traverse from the crossing point into that draw was quite steep, with lots of loose scree. The climb put us at the base of the second big cliff band, in between the two draws, and we followed the cliff down into the northern draw.

Crossing the second cliff band was almost anticlimactic — the draw cuts an easy route through it. We mostly stayed in the draw after that point, only traversing out onto the slope to the south when the draw filled with scree near the top. That put us right below the “gunsight”, which was just as cool close up as it was from a distance. It's a class 3 scramble up through the notch and down the other side. We worked our way over to the notch just south of the “gunsight” and had lunch in a sunny spot, enjoying the wonderful views to the east and west.

After lunch, we followed the east side of the summit cliff band south toward the “mesa”, checking out a number of other notches on the way. The footing was a bit tricky on the slippery cheatgrass. The walls were sculpted into odd shapes, with solution cavities / tafoni and even some stalactite-like formations.

It turned out that the northeast corner of the “mesa” had some convenient cliff breaks that allowed us to get to the top. The view from the summit was amazing in every direction; we could even make out Mt Moriah in Nevada way off to the southwest. We looked for a USGS marker, but we didn't find one. My GPS gave the summit elevation as 6526 ft.

I decided to drop off the summit to the east into an interior basin, since I knew from past trips that the east side was free of major cliff bands. We followed the drainage south and then west where it punches through the cliffs out to the flats. Well, almost all of the cliffs — the biggest cliff band requires a traverse south from the top of a gorgeous pour-off to the next draw, where there is a steep but but walkable route down just past that draw's own pour-off. After that point, it's just a walk down to the mouth of the canyon.

Thanks to Sue, Stanley, Yi and Phil for coming along on this adventure!

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