Cool December day with calm conditions allowed for a nice push. I had been looking at this area for awhile as an FKT project. The Summerlin Ridges provide quite the rugged mountain playground right on the NW edge of Vegas with easy access and solid vert. The SE Summerlin Ridge in particular is an area classic. As I was refining routes and figuring out what I thought made the most sense for the area, J. Ziesmer submitted this route. It tags 3 of the major peaks along the eastern terminus of the Keystone Thrust ridge line, which is also known as the East La Madre range. All rugged limestone with a few sustained knife edge ridges, but mostly chossy sharp talus and scree.
After looking at Ziesmer's route and exploring the area for a couple years. my experience begged me to try a long trail running approach for this one and making a loop out of it, instead of an out-n-back. The ridges are so rugged, the thought was eliminating the time spent up there would make the route faster. Indeed it was. We still encountered plenty of 3rd and a bit of 4th class, but mostly just rugged 1st and 2nd. Ray and I moved well, although he was waiting on me considerably on the climbs. I made up for it on the sketchy downhill terrain, that's my jam. I think the route could still be refined a bit, but honestly its hard to move quickly on any of that stuff.
We ran light with small running vests and minimal water. We stopped to take pics on the summits but thats about it. I dont know about Ray, but I didn't eat a thing during this effort. I did however film with the GoPro so there will be a video documenting this effort.