Heald Peak 6901′ and Nicolls Peak 6070′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 6:40
Distance: 7.7 miles
Elevation Gain: 4650′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Last Chance Trail, 4WD, no services
I’ve been fascinated by Heald and Nicolls Peaks in the Southern Sierra since the first time I drove through after a winter storm, the jagged summits rising through the low hanging clouds of the clearing storm.
With temperatures cooling, I felt that it was time to start re-exploring the Southern Sierra, and the two summits seemed like a good place to start. To do both in a day was quite reasonable, only about 10 miles but with plenty of gain, and I left home well before sunrise. Driving south through the Central Valley, I turned off towards Lake Isabella, the sun just starting to rise as I drove up the windy highway towards the lake. I was surprised at just how little snow the Southern Sierra seemed to have gotten after a few rounds of storms, and almost pivoted to a climb of Spanish Needle instead. But it seemed unwise without a headlamp and some backup traction, the class 3 route up the north ridge known to be icy in the winter. So I turned off as planned in the town of Weldon, following a series of dirt roads that led me closer and closer to the two summits. The basin north of Heald and Nicolls is a collection of braided OHV roads with dozens of unmarked junctions. I had enough service to pull up a satellite image of what actually connected, and eventually made my way up canyon on the deteriorating road to its’ terminus.
I was packed and ready to go, shouldering my backpack and starting up the only trail at the end of the lot which I presumed to be the correct one. I was aiming for the low saddle between Heald and Nicolls to the southeast but the trail I was on was moving in a more southwesterly direction. When it became obvious the trail was not going to bring me to the saddle, I set off cross country through easy Mojave scrub. While I had initially planned to climb the more interesting looking Nicolls first, my cross country trajectory angling southwest meant it made more sense to climb Heald first, and I worked steeply upslope to gain the main ridgeline a few false summits above the low saddle. It was for the best, as Heald is known to be a bit brushy, so I’d rather get the unpleasant portion of the day over with.
On the ridgeline proper, it was initially easy cross country through low grasses and minimal brush. As I went up and over several false summits I entered a fairly fresh burn area from a fire I hadn’t read about, looking fairly recent. As I worked over a rocky outcrop, I smelled them before I saw them- the unmistakable scent of Poodle Dog Bush. Many hikers experienced in Southern California peakbagging know about Poodle Dog Bush, a tall and pungent purple-flowered plant that is poisonous to the touch, much like poison oak or poison ivy. It tends to grow only after a major burn, and I had first experienced them hiking in the San Gabriels after the Station Fire (at the time, the 10th largest fire in the state’s history, although it has dropped all the way to the 20th largest since). You can find a pretty great (IMO) little review article on the plant here.
I dropped down the southern slopes to avoid the patch of plants as I climbed up towards a series of cliff bands which block access to the summit. The HPS guide recommends closely following the ducked route to navigate the cliff bands, and I followed them carefully windy up ledges and scrambling through small breaks.
As I climbed, I began to find more cairns leading to different use trails that would then converge, and I quickly realized there were many ways to get through this section. With that in mind, I scrambled up slope more directly, trying to find the cleanest rock possible to spit me out on the summit ridgeline. I checked my GPS and found the true summit was still about a half mile away, meaning the nearby summit was a false one. I dropped to the notch and before me saw a sea of poodle dog bush.
As much as I tried to utilize thin game trails, there was really no way around it. The majority of it was dead, and I hoped that there needed to be green leaves to be poisonous (although I knew that wasn’t true for poison oak). It initially was only knee high as I went up and over the last false summit, nothing contacting bare skin. But the plants on the last push to the towered over my head, too close to bail on the last 100 yards but setting me up for a world of hurt in the coming days. I wandered to the far end of the summit and found the summit register, sitting down to eat lunch but too annoyed by the plants to really enjoy the views.
I drank some water and tried to rinse what exposed parts of my body that I could before starting back, trying to find a more open route that avoided the poodle dog without luck. It wasn’t until I reached the scrambling descent that I began to enjoy myself again, and pushed through the small patch of poodle dog near the base, seeming almost quaint compared to the forest of it above. The ascent of Heald had taken me a bit longer than expected so I moved quickly down the ridgeline, not wanting to be benighted without a headlamp.
The cross country dropping to the low saddle was fairly straightforward, and I picked up a well defined use trail heading up the summit of Nicolls, skirting some boulders and small cliff bands to the south. Even without the use trail, the route up was fairly obvious, traversing into a central gully in the center of the west face.
Similar to Heald and many HPS peaks, there was a plethora of cairns, and I mostly followed the path of least resistance through increasingly complex rock formations and boulders. There are two summits competing for the high point, one to the north and another to the south. Both have a register, with the Sierra Club recognizing the southern summit as the highpoint, and the Benchmark being located on the northern one. They were only about 5 minutes apart, so I headed up the northern point first, finding easy scrambling up the final 15′ to the high point. Although short, I felt like the scrambling on Nicolls was redeeming after the poisonous plant fest on Heald, and took a short break to enjoy the views across Lake Isabella to the north, and the Owens Peak area to the northeast, including Mount Jenkins which I had climbed that spring.
I signed into the register and started towards the south summit, findings the scrambling similarly short but the summit being clearly higher IMO. There was a second register, this one with far more signatures although I couldn’t get a single pen to work of the many inside.
Satisfied that I had signed into at least one register, I dropped off the summit, following the use trail down the gully and south of the boulders back to the saddle. There were quite a few trails switching off the saddle back into the basin to the north, and with the loose terrain I generally choose the steepest, boot skiing most of the way back to the lower basin and descending about 1,000′ in under 20 minutes.
The sun was setting as I crossed the basin, following the wash most of the way back to the car, cutting out through the desert scrub when I was nearly back to the dirt lot. I stripped off my jacket and hat, rinsed off what I could and hopped in the car for the long drive home.
Two days later the rashes started. Remarkably, it wasn’t the typical linear rashes that you get from a contact dermatitis when a leaf brushes up against you, but rather diffusely, covering my hands, arms, ankles, face and gap between my shirt and pants. It seems that as I pushed through the dead plants, the leaves were pulverized into a fine dust, coating every part of me and working up into the gaps in my clothes. As I write this two weeks later, the blisters are finally starting to stop itching. Lessons learned…