Nose Benchmark, Arizona, November 2022 – GlassMountains Trip Reports

On Saturday morning, November 19, I met Scott Peavy and we drove in to park below Nose Benchmark, a prominent peak in the Gila Bend Mountains north of Gila Bend, Arizona. Nose Benchmark has 1429 feet of topographic prominence, putting it down the list as the 174th most prominent peak in Arizona.

Nose Benchmark from the north. This profile resembles a face, with the summit forming the nose and the chin and throat to the left.

More significantly to me, Nose Benchmark is a notable peak I often see as I bypass Phoenix on AZ Highway 85 either with Linda on our migrations to Tucson or as I pass by exploring other mountains of Arizona. I was glad for the opportunity to share a climb of Nose Benchmark with Scott, who I have climbed with several times over the past several winter seasons in Arizona.

Nose Benchmark from near our parking spot. We climbed the steep gully forming the left eye socket.

From our parking spot we hiked across the desert, passed over or near an abandoned mica mine, and entered a prominent gully below the summit.

We generally climbed on the right side of the steep NE gully where the rock footing was stable.

We approach the top of our NE ascent gully. The rocks were generally stable and fun to climb across.

We picked a steep NE gully leading upwards and climbed it on firm footing to a saddle on a high ridge north of the summit. We generally climbed the gully on the right side where the rock footing was stable. There were occasional cholla cacti and palo verde to climb around, but the brush was not a significant hindrance to our progress.

From the top of the NE gully we climbed a short distance up the ridge line to get a better view of what was ahead of us.

The summit lies above on the left. We followed a sheep higher to a notch on the right.

From the top of the gully we climbed a short distance up the ridge line to get a better view of what was ahead of us. A large face blocked our route, but we noticed a bighorn sheep passing the face to the far right. We followed the sheep higher to a notch.

The summit lies above. We traversed to the right to reach it.

From the notch we could see the summit above us. We traversed below the ridge line on stable rocks to reach a subsidiary point below the summit. The brush was minimal and the scrambling we encountered was fun. From this point we traversed to the right to gain the summit.

Scott and I have shared several Arizona summits.

The view NE from the summit across the Maricopa Mountains. Margies Peak is on the left. The Sierra Estrella lie beyond.

On the summit we found the NOSE benchmark, enjoyed an early lunch, and signed into a climbing registrar. It was a hazy day but we were able to identify many peaks we have visited in the past.

We descended back to the NE gully. The gully lies below in this view.

We descended the same route back to and down the NE gully. The gully was steep but had good footing and we descended it without incident. We returned to our cars and parted company with plans to meet again soon for another climb together.

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