Hike East Bitter Ridge Loop Lake Mead National Recreation Area, NV

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East Bitter Ridge Loop GPX Track

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A couple of years ago I hiked to the Bitter Ridge High Point, a long cliff face deep in Lake Mead's Northshore area. The loop we did today is the eastern portion of the lengthy Bitter Ridge formation. While not a particularly crazy interesting hike, it was a nice exploratory outing with some great views above the sheer cliff faces. Reaching our starting point requires decent tires, but the road is overall in surprisingly good shape. From Northshore Road, we headed north here (36.24347, -114.53603) onto Bittersprings Road, then turned left here (36.28256, -114.51794) to reach where we parked.

I should note that the attached map may look a little wonky. The topo is a bit incorrectly drawn, resulting in our track looking like we were hovering over the cliff. There weren't any major surprises along the way. Austin wanted to run through the wash on the way back, so we configured the route to make our first objective Bitter Ridge East Peak, meaning doing the loop clockwise. The ridgeline from our parking spot went at low Class 2, most of the hike being on pleasant terrain with a consistently reasonable slope grade. The summit had a bunch of massive cairns, and the views toward the Fire Range allowed for outlining the many peaks in that group.

We continued west along the ridgeline and were stopped by a pretty sketchy-looking cliff. It's likely you could puzzle out a Class 3/4 route down directly along the ridgeline, but we were interested in a more pleasant hiking day, and ultimately successfully kept our whole route Class 2. Unfortunately, this meant dropping north along the top of the rim until we could locate a nice descent option to escape the cliffs. Now significantly lower than the main Bitter Ridge ridgeline, we decided rather than re-ascending we'd just get to our next peak (Peak 3035) via its northern ridge. Its east face looked a little spooky from afar anyway, and we didn't want to risk getting into dubious terrain.

We asended Peak 3035's north face with some short sections of nice Class 2 scrambling. East Bitter Peak was the next peak to the west, which would require us to drop basically all the way down to the desert floor in order to ascend. Easy slope walking brought us to a wash separating Peak 3035 from East Bitter Peak, where we located a break in the small carved cliff on the west side of the wash. From here it was easy desert walking up to a Class 2 weakness in the south side of the cliff band. The ridgeline leading to East Bitter Peak had some really nice scenic portions overlooking the severe drop on the south face, and there was even a slight view of Lake Mead from its summit.

The most straightforward route down was the northern-trending ridgeline into the desert below. A bunch of jogging through the desert through washes and on old dirt roads brought us to the base of Peak 2753. This minor summit was the final peak of the day, a Class 2 jaunt up its west slope, followed by an almost-runnable southeastern ridgeline descent. The views of Bitter Ridge from this peak were nice in the sunset. We got off Peak 2753 and used a series of washes and roads to get back to the car.

PEAKS ON HIKE
Elevation (ft) / Prominence (ft)

Peaks on hike

Elevation

Prominence

Bitter Ridge East Peak

3005 ft

561 rise

Peak 3035

3035 ft

706 rise

East Bitter Peak

3320 ft

318 rise

Peak 2753

2753 ft

407 rise

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View back down the northern ridge of Bitter Ridge Peak East. You can see my car down there.

Ascending to Bitter Ridge Peak East, pretty chill terrain.

View back just below the summit. The wash we started in is visible in the center. The Fire Range is seen top center.

Summit view with big cairns, looking east.

Summit view, looking west. Our route ahead. Muddy Mountains visible in the distance.

Heading west.

Stopped by a cliff. Peak 3035 seen center, but we'd have to descend to the north (right in this photo) first in order to get over to it. We weren't in the mood to puzzle out a potentially sketchy descent.

A Class 2 descent option, finally. Peak 3035 seen top right. We would head over to the gully seen top right in this photo.

Approaching the Class 2 gully.

View back as we ascend to Peak 3035. You can see the cliffy nonsense we avoided top center by descending from top right to left along the rim.

Class 2 up Peak 3035.

Peak 3035 ahead.

Peak 3035 summit, view back along the cliffline.

Peak 3035 summit, view toward East Bitter Ridge. We descended into the wash below, then ascended a weakness in the cliff band just right of center.

View back up at Peak 3035.

Descending from Peak 3035.

Passing over the wash separating Peak 3035 from East Bitter Ridge. We used the broken ramp seen center to get over the small cliff on the west side of the wash. East Bitter Ridge ahead has a pretty impressive southern face.

Approaching our Class 2 weakness option (far right) to gain the ridge.

Class 2 weakness.

Along the ridge.

Class 2 up East Bitter Ridge.

Progress along the ridgeline.

View back, Peak 3035 seen top right.

East Bitter Ridge summit ahead.

Approaching the summit (true summit is actually the next hump past the one seen ahead, a short jaunt away).

East Bitter Ridge summit, view toward Peak 3035 (right).

Straightforward descent from East Bitter Ridge along a northern trending ridgeline. Peak 2753 is out of frame on the far right.

Heading through the desert via washes and roads on the way to Peak 2753. East Bitter Ridge is visible top center.

A random road on the way to Peak 2753.

At the base of Peak 2753. If you don't care to do this peak you could just descend the wash here.

View back down as we ascend Peak 2753.

Close-up at the Class 2 ascent.

Peak 2753 summit, view southeast. Bitter Ridge Peak East (our first peak) visible left of center, Peak 3035 on the right. The car is somewhere on the far left.

View back up as we descend from Peak 2753 on pleasant terrain.

Down from Peak 2753 into the wash seen center. Bitter Ridge Peak East seen top right.

Close-up into the combination of washes and roads we'd follow back to our car.

Hire me or show me some love!

Hire/refer me as a web developer or send me a few bucks if you find my site useful. I’m not sponsored, so all fees are out-of-pocket and my time preparing trip reports is unpaid. I really appreciate it!