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Area Description: The 33,518 acre Spirit Mountain Wilderness Area is located in the rugged Newberry Mountains, in the southern area of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area with a small spillover onto BLM land west of the National Park Service boundary. Partly bordered by Christmas Tree Pass road, it is wedged between the Bridge Canyon Wilderness Area to the southwest and the Nellis Wash Wilderness Area to the north. With an elevation of 5,639 feet, Spirit Mountain is considered the center of creation for all Yuman speakers, and is sacred to several Native American tribes of the region. Its highly religious heritage and cultural importance is so significant, that it was placed on the National Registry of Historic places. There are numerous archaeological resources in this wilderness area. Legends and artifacts say this area has been in use for centuries by members of the ancient Amacava (ancestors of the Mojave tribes), and more recently by the Southern Paiute and Yuman tribes.
Spirit Mountain Wilderness Area is characterized by steep canyons and rugged granite boulders. The vegetation is primarily blackbrush, creosote bush, yucca and desert willow. There is also some smoke tree here, at the far northern end of smoke tree habitat. In the higher elevations you might come across a few pinon pines and maybe some juniper. The area is also known for sightings of bobcat, bighorn sheep, coyote, Gila monster and several species of rattlesnake. There are several springs and seeps among all this rock that help to keep the area from being completely barren. |
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11/01/2012 Trip Notes: Again, we entered this area from Route 95 on the north side of the Newberry Mountains along Christmas Tree Pass road, which passes the southwest face of the Spirit Mountain range.Though today’s rock-hound trip from Henderson’s Heritage Park Senior Facility was titled “Grapevine Canyon”, some of us who had been to this area before, decided to spend the morning hiking in the Spirit Mountain Wilderness Area, just below Spirit Mountain. Though a hike to the summit would have required another couple of hours and considerable more effort, we enjoyed walking the desert area and washes that protruded from this sacred mountain top. The view in (Fig. 01) above was taken from Christmas Tree Pass Road as it passes the rugged southern ridges southwest of Spirit Mountain (bottom left area of (Fig. 02) above) The view in (Fig. 03) below was taken from the starting point of our hike, which followed a very old road that led west, northwest toward Spirit Mountain, the highest peak in the middle of the picture. Refer to our hiking route in (Fig. 02). As we hiked along this high desert area we came across numerous tarantulas (Fig. 04). Click here to learn more about this creature … Tarantula (aphonopelma). For a little color we did find some pretty purple plants (Fig. 05) growing in the wash areas as well as dozens of barrel cactus (Fig. 07) scattered along the hillsides. Many of the rocks were covered in colorful specimen’s of lichen (Fig. 06).
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| (Fig. 03) |
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| (Fig. 05) |
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| (Fig. 06) |
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| (Fig. 07) |
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| 02/09/2012 Trip Notes: Entering from Route 95 on the north side of the Newberry Mountains along Christmas Tree Pass road, we made several stops (Fig. 08) along the southwest face of the Spirit Mountain range. We even passed a juniper pine ((Fig. 09) that had a few Christmas ornaments hanging in it; a tradition that gave this road its name. Even though everyone was impressed with the beauty of the geology and unique rock formations found here (Fig. 10), we did not have the time to do any hiking in this area today. Hopefully, we can make hiking this mountain and wilderness area a complete daytrip sometime in the near future. |
