May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.
Directions: (basically taken from Bob Michael's
description of the trip he took in associated with the Sierra
Club, Desert Peaks Section: [http://www.angeleschapter.org/dps/default.htm
] web page at: http://angeles.sierraclub.org/peaks/dps/archives/dps00610.htm)
The unsigned dirt road to Logan Pass takes off from Nevada
Highway 318 on the west shore of a reservoir about a mile north of
the Hiko post office. It's very easy to miss, especially because
there's a closed (unlocked) fence gate where the road takes off.
This fairly good 2WD road (marginal high clearance) passes some
bouldery rhyolite outcrops about 6 mi W of the highway. As we
approached them, I thought, "What a great place for petroglyphs! "
...and as we passed the rocks, there was a bighorn sheep in the
desert varnish about 30 yards S of the road. Closer inspection
revealed quite a nice tableau. There is more rock art a bit further
W, on the N side of the road; a BLM sign proclaims the "Mount Irish
Petroglyph Site". 2 mi W of the glyphs, the better road goes left
to the abandoned townsite of Logan; the Logan Pass road veers
right, steepens,and deteriorates. A 4WD could have made it to the
pass, but we left my 2WD truck at about 6500' when the rear wheels
began to spin out. Our chosen route began at the pass, heading N up
a ridge. Beginning at about 7850', the tough quartzite formation
caps this ridge, and going was slow and tedious up and down blocks
and mini-crags. (We found a better descent route to the E that
avoids this tiresome stretch.) The quartzite forms a fairly
continuous cliff band, and we were glad to find a cl 2 passage
through it at the spot shown. Above this point the route flattens
out to the summit plateau; a few scattered Ponderosas and white fir
appear. When you cross a ridge into a broad central valley, you
suddenly enter a Ponderosa fir forest (with even a few
bristlecones). For how many eons has this forest been isolated?
We're hardly botanists, but it looked to us like inbreeding has
occurred among the white firs, producing a variant. They show a
marked tendency towards multi-trunked forms instead of the typical
"Christmas tree" shape.
As the summit is on the far (N) side of this
plateau; going up the south side, one reenters the
pinyon/mountainmahogany zone. Regretfully, the top is defaced
with a robot electronic site; at least, it's accessed by
helicopter, so there is no road.
The cache is located in a metal ammo box under a pile of
rocks.