Pyramid Peak and Funeral Mountains Wilderness High Point
Death Valley National Park, CAInfo
Distance13.3 mi
Elevation gain5,600 ft
Route typeLoop
Duration7.5 hr
CruxClass 3
Quality8/10
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Trip report
After hiking Eagle Mountain and Brown Peak in the morning, I drove north past the ghost town of Amargosa to a free campground known as The Pads, which consists of dozens of large concrete slabs suitable for RVs and campers. The next morning, I departed my campsite by foot, crossing Highway 190 en route to a northwesterly wash bisecting Pyramid Peak and Funeral Mountains Wilderness High Point. The original plan was to climb Pyramid Peak by itself, but motivated by good weather and a pesky fear of missing out, I decided to extend my outing and bag Funeral Mountains Wilderness High Point as well.
After climbing Pyramid Peak, I returned to the wash and turned left into a tributary drainage, which I followed up to the western ridge of Funeral Mountains Wilderness High Point. The ridge crest itself was cliffy, but I was able to keep it mostly Class 2 by dropping down to one side or the other. I skirted around a false summit before climbing the final 300 feet to the true summit, which lies about 0.1 miles northeast of the point marked on the USGS topo. On the descent, I plunged down a scree bowl on the east face, funneling into a long gully. Once back in the open desert, I followed a direct line back toward the campground, concluding my rather spontaneous midweek trip to the eastern edge of Death Valley.
