Mt. Charleston - Bristlecone Loop

Last Tuesday we knocked yet another hike off the list as Danielle and I completed the Bristlecone Loop hike at Mt. Charleston. This loop is actually made up of two trails, the upper bristlecone trail and the lower bristlecone trail. We parked at the lower trailhead but walked the mile or so along the paved road to the upper trailhead so that we'd finish up the hike at our car instead of having to do that connecting walk at the end. In total (including the connecting walk) it's about a 6 mile hike and we did it in 3 hours and 50 minutes (including two main rest stops for snacks and rest). The upper trail was two miles long and the lower trail was three. However, the lower trail is basically an old gravel road, so we like the upper part way better! After the Bristlecone hike, we kept our streak intact of doing more than one hike in each trip and drove to the Sawmill Loop to knock that one down again. The Sawmill is an extremely easy 1.3 mile hike that we did in 34 minutes this time. If we didn't come across another hiker with an EXTREMELY aggressive dog, we might have hit it in the half-hour range! We refer to the Sawmill as our "dessert hike". Yes, 'dessert', not desert!!

About half-way through the Bristlecone hike (where the upper and lower trails meet) an intersection is found with the end of the Bonanza Trail, which is a very long 13 mile trail that goes all the way to a neighboring little town called Cold Creek. Only die-hards attempt to make the entire Bonanza/Bristlecone hike.

We've basically exhausted all of the normal/shorter hikes in the Mount Charleston area. At this point, if we were to start a trail that we haven't done before and finish it, we'd have to do the Bonanza, North Loop, South Loop trails in their entirety, which involves extremely hard hikes with the South and North leading all the way up to Mount Charleston peak. None of those will be attempted anytime soon.

However, we can make shorter day-hikes by combining some of the trails together. For example, this Tuesday we're planning on going back up to the Upper Bristlecone trailhead, walking its two miles and then detouring onto the Bonanza trail for about two hours or so. Then we'll simply retrace our steps the whole way back, thus creating a new hike for ourselves using two different trails.

Here are some pics of the Bristlecone hike.

This is "kind of" our starting point at the upper trailhead. It wasn't really because we parked at the lower trailhead and walked to the upper, but this is where we officially started the trail itself.

Random scenery on the upper trail. I'm pretty sure this was taken at a rocky ridge overlook not long before the high point of the trail.

Here's looking back at the intersection with the end of the Bonanza trail. That's where we'll be turning on Tuesday to explore the first part of that trail (which has some switchbacks, so it might kick our butts a little).

The front sign tells hikers how long they've already gone. For us, we had three miles left, but they were really easy miles with a gradual descent on an old gravel road.

This is looking off in the distance at the Mt. Charleston ski slopes. Believe it or not, we can still see the very final signs of snow up there in the higher elevations.

Random scenery including a very creepy looking dead tree!

Here's a good picture of the trail/road that we walked along the final three miles.

Here we are back at the car on the lower trailhead parking lot.

Hopefully you can click to enlarge this map. The solid red line is the entire Bristlecone trail. The squiggly red line on the left is the Bonanza trail.