Overview

This tough hike is one of those quintessential Las Vegas routes. A playground for the rich and famous, Las Vegas attracts many celebrities; some never make it home. In 1942, a plane carrying Carole Lombard (famous movie star and wife of Clark Gable) crashed high on the east face of Mt. Potosi. The site is now a footnote in history, occasionally visited by plane crash buffs and Carole Lombard fans.

The road to the top of Mt. Potosi is now closed to the public, so the route starts low in Cottonwood Valley on the east side of Mt. Potosi. The Cottonwood Valley Road, graded in the old days, now requires a high-clearance vehicle. A 3.6-mile access road, which requires a 4-wheel drive (4-WD) vehicle or a good set of walking shoes, leads out of Cottonwood Valley and up a canyon to the base of the steep east face of Mt. Potosi. There are two reasonable trailheads. From either trailhead, the routes converge and run up steep hillsides and scramble among limestone cliffs to the crash site. The easiest (2nd class) route is described here. The crash site has been picked over for decades, but much material remains. Please respect the site and the memory of those who died there. The area burned in 2005, so much of the vegetation is gone.

Link to map, aerial photo, or elevation profile.

Watch Out

Other than the standard warnings about hiking in the desert, ...this is a tough hike on a steep, rocky mountain, but other than falls and loose rocks, there are no unusual hazards. Mt. Potosi is a mining district, and there are several mines along the access road, but remember: mines are never safe to enter. Some metal chards at the crash site have sharp, rusty edges.

While hiking, please respect the land and the other people out there, and try to Leave No Trace of your passage. This is a tough hike, so be sure to bring the 10 Essentials. Make sure this route of the appropriate difficulty for your skills.

Trail Guide

Getting to the Trailhead

This hike is located on the east side of Mt. Potosi, about 2 hours southwest of Las Vegas.

From Las Vegas, drive west on Highway 160 (Pahrump Highway) to Blue Diamond Road (Table 1, Site 848). Continue west on Highway 160 for another 5.9 miles to Cottonwood Valley Road (Site 849), an unmarked dirt road that runs south (left) along the base of Mt. Potosi to the town of Goodsprings.

The intersection is unmarked, but there is a paved pullout on the north (right) side of the highway opposite the turnoff. Also, from the highway you can see a large dirt parking area and an outhouse about two hundred yards down Cottonwood Valley Road.

Turn right onto Cottonwood Valley Road and drive south for 3 miles to Cottonwood Pass (Site 850); the last bit of road up the pass is quite rough. This is a popular road for mountain bikers, so watch for bicycles careening down the road. Continue south on Cottonwood Valley Road for another 1.6 miles to Ninety-nine Mine Road (Site 488). Without a 4-WD vehicle, park here and start hiking; this road leads to the trailhead.

At the intersection, reset your odometer and lock in the hubs for a short bit of steep, rocky road. Turn right onto Ninety-nine Mine Road and drive west up the hillside. Drive up the steep, rocky section, then continue northwest on an easier road. Stay to the right at intersections about 1.3 and 1.5 miles from Cottonwood Valley Road. The first side road (Site XX1) runs back into Cottonwood Valley, but I think it is supposed to be closed. The second side road runs west to the Dawn Mine, which can be seen in the distance. The Dawn Mine is dangerous, and is supposed to still hold the body of an unlucky hiker. At the third intersection (Site XX2), 2.2 miles out, stay to the left (straight). This side road is a short cut to Cottonwood Pass, but it is a rough road better suited for off-road enthusiasts than people trying to get to a trailhead. A bit of washout is passed on the north side of the wash just before the Ninety-nine Mine.

At 2.7 miles from Cottonwood Valley Road (Site 869), the road bends sharply to the north (right), and a side road cuts sharply to the southwest (left).

Two trailheads are possible, one up each road. To reach the lower trailhead, continue on the main road (bending north, right) and drive up the wash until progress is blocked by a short dry fall (Site 856). Park there; this is the lower trailhead.

To reach the upper trailhead, turn left onto the side road and drive up across the hillside. Not visible from below, an old A-frame cabin sits just around the corner. Stay in the wash as you pass the cabin; the road to the left is a driveway.

Beyond the cabin, the road gets narrow and steep as it winds among bushes and rocks, but it is suitable for a narrow 4-WD vehicle. Stay to the south (left) on the hillside at an intersection where the fork to the right drops steeply into a wash. About 3.6 miles out (0.8 miles beyond the cabin), the road ends just inside the edge of a stand of pinyon pine (Site 640). The turn around is a bit tight. Park here; this is the upper trailhead.

The Hike

From either trailhead, you can look above the limestone cliffs (southwest) and see the gully that holds the wreckage. To get there, you need to hike up the canyon to the north (right) of the crash site, cross south over the ridge, and then hike up to the next gully to the crash site. It is only 1.1 miles from the upper trailhead to the crash site, but it is a tough 1.1 miles -- don't let the distance fool you into thinking it is a "short" hike.

The routes starting at the upper and lower trailheads converge. The choice of trailheads is: start at a lower elevation and hike up a wash versus start at a higher elevation and hike across brushy side slopes to the wash. The lower trailhead is easier but longer.

From the upper trailhead (Table 2, Waypoint 1), hike northwest across brushy side slopes into the next canyon (Wpt. 13). It is better to stay low all the way into the next canyon, although the natural tendency would be to cross the ridge just below the lowest cliffs. Staying low in the old burn area will avoid steeper side slopes and taller, denser brush. Cross the side slopes staying more-or-less on the contour (Wpt. 15), then continue across the slopes to the wash in the next canyon (Wpt. 13).

From the lower trailhead (Wpt. 20), hike northwest up the main wash, and then turn out of the main wash and hike southwest up the brushy side-wash. The goal is to get into the canyon that comes down to the left (east) of a clump of communications towers on the ridgeline. The turn into the main canyon a few hundred yards out (Wpt. 21). The two routes converge near the first large limestone outcrop on the west side of the wash (near Wpt. 13).

In the wash, the route runs up the canyon to near the limestone cliffs that cap the canyon (Wpt. 5). From the top of the canyon, the route runs up and left (southeast) on steep scree slopes through a gap in the limestone cliffs (Wpt. 6). It probably is better to hike up the canyon nearly as far as possible before cutting left. If you cut up too early, you will be blocked by a series of short cliffs. Staying high, there is a 2nd-class route from the wash all the way to the ridgeline. The route was easy to follow on the way down, but it was harder to see the faint use-trail on the way up.

The route crests out on the ridge at a low saddle behind a knob on the end of the ridge (Wpt. 11). There are nice views of the valley and the crash site from out on the knob.

From the low saddle, cross onto the south side of the ridge and continue upward, staying near the crest of the ridge (but avoiding the little crags) until you get close to the gully and can easily cross the side slope into the gully (Wpt. 9). At this waypoint, you will start seeing wreckage in the gully.

Continue up the gully to the cliffs. Wreckage becomes denser as you approach the base of the cliffs, which is the impact site (Wpt. 10).

The largest pieces of wreckage include engine parts and landing gear, which mostly are in the gully below the impact site. People already recovered the large aluminum parts (body and wings), so those parts are gone. However, thousands of small pieces of aluminum, lots of cabling, lots of fuel or hydraulic lines, bits of glass, rubber hoses, and many other metallic parts litter the ground. People have been picking up the more interesting parts for decades, so what remains is too big to carry or not particularly interesting. There is a bronze plaque at the base of the cliffs at the south edge of debris field that memorializes the event. There are many interesting shell fossils in the rocks at the crash site too.

Return to the trailhead by following your route back down the mountain to your trailhead.

MT. POTOSI, NEVADA
IN MEMORY

of the 22 individuals who perished
on this mountain on January 16 1942,
in the crash of Transcontinental and
Western Airlines (TWA) flight 3, including
Carole Lombard, 15 Army Air Corp pilots,
a crew of 3, and three passengers.

Note: This plaque was place illegally and has since been torn down.