Hike Lost Cabin Peak (Peak 4110) Black Mountains BLM, AZ

The Black Mountains in western Arizona have been an exciting area for desert exploring, but this central section of the range is remote enough and just far enough away from home that it's been pushed to the backburner. After much deliberation and map-scouring, we formulated a route to visit some potential highlights in this specific aea. This turned out to be a lovely birthday hike, Matt and Petey my party guests who both drove up from Phoenix. Our route would visit a colorful-looking overlook, then head south along the eroded rim of the Black Mountains to an unnamed peak to the south, which we named after Lost Cabin Spring, the only named nearby landmark. Unsure how bad the roads would be Matt drove us in with his Jeep, but you can make it in any vehicle with some clearance. To reach the trailhead, take Cottonwood Road heading west here (35.49006, -114.32540) and turn south here (35.49095, -114.47391). We parked just south of Lost Cabin Spring, which was surrounded by an old fence, since we were unsure of the land ownership.

We set off to the west toward an overlook that seemed particularly colorful on a satellite map. After some lumpy walking through the hills, we ascended toward the rim and onto the ridgeline that would lead to the overlook, which I labeled Peak 4110. After enjoying the initial views toward Lake Mohave and the surrounding cliffs, we set out along the pleasant Class 2 ridgeline for about a quarter mile until the high point became clear. Although this little summit doesn't have the prominence to be considered a true peak, we were mostly looking forward to enjoying the views. The summit of this overlook was marked incorrectly on our topo map (as Peak 4108), the true high point located a little bit farther west and a few feet taller (I labeled it on my attached map as Peak 4110). It required a short Class 2/3 scramble to reach. This overlook is actually almost the same height as Lost Cabin Peak, maybe only a few feet off. To the north was Mount Perkins, Spirit Mountain and Laughlin to the south, and cool cliffy formations along the rim. We could also clearly see Lost Cabin Peak to the south, more significant a distance than we anticipated.

We backtracked along the ridgeline and started south. The rim had really nice views most of the time, some cool pinnacles and colorful formations keeping us interested as we followed the undulating route. At one point Matt geeked out about a transition from the typical darker rock of the northern Black Mountains into a layer of pink granite. It's nice to have someone into geology to point these things out. The rim dips down to the base of a large hump that we were able to avoid by following a burro trail. Descending still, we noted a very cool-looking pinnacle ahead atop another hump, but we bypassed it by side-hilling on Class 2 terrain and continued ascending to yet another minor bump called Peak 4020. From here we could see the potentially insurmountable summit block of Lost Cabin Peak, so we became pretty excited for a route-finding challenge and pressed on.

The terrain separating Peak 4020 from our summit looked more complex than the preceeding rim traverse had been so far. On the descent from Peak 4020 we were able to stick to the ridgeline for the most part (Class 2/2+), with one section where we needed to avoid some small cliffs. We kept too far to the left on the way in, resulting in some steep side-hilling, so I recommend keeping to the crest as much as possible. From the saddle to the north of Lost Cabin Peak, the fun route-finding began. It's the sort of stuff that we all crave about these little desert peaks. A Class 2/3 maze of little cliffs and outcroppings weaved us around on often solid rock up to a sheer cliff. We kept to the right around this cliff and wrapped around its base, where we located a Class 2 gully to reach the base of Lost Cabin Peak's significant summit block, a bright yellow monolith.

So far we were confident the north and west sides of the summit block wouldn't go, so we wrapped around to the peak's east face and saw a series of chutes that had potential. Matt, in typical Matt fashion, decided to scramble up the first potentially viable route we saw, a chute which actually led to the summit. He claimed it was Class 4 and a bit loose. Being a bit more conservative with my dangerous scrambles. We could see his head poking up above and he confirmed the upper portion looked fine if we could get there. This chute looked more tame, though it had lots of loose rock and a significant-looking catclaw. To reach this chute, we pulled a Class 3+ move up a crack. We followed the chute for about 30 feet to its head where the rock was more vertical and crumbly. Fortunately, just to the right was a Class 3+ set of moves that required passing under the catclaw. How inconvenient. If not for this unpleasant obstacle the route would have been quite nice. Class 2 past the catclaw got us to the summit, where the views were exceptional, especially as the winter sun reached a more photogenic spot in the sky.

We backtracked along the rim and, before ascending the final hill we were on earlier for our Peak 4110 lookout point, decided to follow a burro trail and a series of drainages to get back to the road, creating a small loop.