Papoose Lake

So I decided to climb Mt. Stirling, with the hopes of getting a real look at the Papoose dry lakebed. For the record, I’m not a big Lazar guy (as I make clear in my video) but I think it’s an important piece of the Area 51 lore and I like to climb mountains, so why not?

To see the lake you have to look through 46 miles of atmosphere. The first time I tried to climb this peak was a somewhat hazy day so I ended up bailing on it part way up. Just not worth it. Luckily this time I had better conditions which allowed me to get a decent panorama.

Papoose Lake as seen from 46 miles away. Note: I had to downsize slightly to keep the file size under 20mb.

The hike up Stirling is nice. It was 105 degrees in Las Vegas the day I did it so I was happy to get out of the heat. I had cell service once I got near the peak but was without it on most of the climb. It’s a VERY remote stretch of wilderness that is seldom hiked so you’re unlikely to encounter anyone else on the journey. Definitely the type of outing where I pack my Garmin Inreach just in case. If you spend some time combing the slopes, you’ll discover a number of well preserved petroglyph sites dotting the mountain. I didn’t originally set out looking for these, but after I stumbled on one set, I climbed around for a little while and was able to find at least 5 other sites. I’m told there are Native American artifacts up here as well but I didn’t find them on this trip. Maybe next time.