Trip report
Apr 27, 2020 — A great dirt road led to about half mile of my starting point (trailhead coordinates attached), suitable for pretty much any vehicle. The preceeding half mile was a bit steeper and more rutted, but my Subaru made it fine. Google will navigate you to the end of the road just fine, but tries to take you up an absolutely awful canyon (37.23637, -115.20847), which you should avoid unless you have a very burly vehicle. I recommend navigating to this road (37.22753, -115.19818) and then continuing northwest, traveling to my attached trailhead coordinates and therefore bypassing the crap canyon road.
I was excited for Tikaboo Peak and Badger Mountain not only because they're two somewhat larger peaks right next to each other, but also for the rare occasion to follow a trail to the summit of Tikaboo Peak. I started up Tikaboo Peak, which required initially hiking along a poor dirt road to its end and then locating a fairly obvious trail that starts up Tikaboo's steep east ridge. This might as well not even be a trail, honestly. It's loose and steep and eroded considerably from human use. Once I ascended the first steep slope, the trail became more mellow. It followed just left of the ridge, avoiding some rock outcropppings, and dropped down a couple hundred feet to a saddle just east of the Tikaboo summit. Here the trail was hard to follow on the way up, but I was able to stick to it on my way down. It sort of just ascends diagonally, even though some cairns may seem to point you to head straight up. Either way, it's not a bad ascent, but the trail is pleasant if you manage to stick to it. There were some decent views on the summit of Tikaboo Peak, despite the presence of some sort of human contraption.
Back at the car, I reloaded water and headed north along the forest road to a saddle on my way up to Badger Mountain. From the saddle, there was no indication of where to start up, but the slope to ascend seemed clear enough. The slope was steep and a little loose, and required some minor tree-dodging, no serious deterrent. Once at the top of the slope, I could see Badger Mountain to the east. It would require a few hundred feet of descent to navigate an inconvenient drainage separating the ridge I was currently on from the summit ridge of Badger Mountain. I can't imagine any way to avoid this loss and regain of vertical. I noted a reasonable-looking gully that I headed down, which led me into the inconvenient drainage. I then had to decide on a slope/ridge to ascend up to Badger. I left both options I took on my attached map, but I think my descend option (blue line) worked better. My photos below reflect the orange line, my ascent route. There was a short section of ridge traverse with some nice views as I made my way up to Badger Mountain. The summit wasn't memorable, but did have decent desert views of the bigger peaks in the area. I didn't linger. I desperately wanted a shower.