• Nevada County HP:  #3
• Difficulty: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
• Summit Elevation:  9,732 feet
• Mountain Range:  Santa Rosa Mountains
• Ancestral Lands:  Cayuse, Umatilla and Walla Walla; Nüümü (Northern Paiute)

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PLANNING DETAILS

Location: Granite Peak is located in the Santa Rosa-Paradise Peak Wilderness, approximately 60 miles north of Winnemucca, NV. The closest town with amenities is Paradise Valley, NV.

When to Visit: May to October. Access to this CoHP requires 14 miles of driving on dirt roads, which may require 4WD when muddy.

Fees/Permits Required:  No.

Getting There: Visitors generally begin this trek from the Hinkey Summit Cabin

Directions from Winnemucca: Follow US-95 north for 22 miles to the junction with NV-290 (co-located with the Sinclair Gas Station). Turn right on NV-290 toward Paradise Valley, NV. Once in Paradise Valley, turn right on Bridge St. and drive east one block. Turn left on Hinkey Summit Road and drive north for 14.3 miles to the Hinkey Summit Cabin (Note: Hinkey Summit Road transitions from pavement to a dirt road after 3 miles, and then automatically becomes NF-84 at the boundary with the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest near mile 7.5)

Parking: There is no official trailhead for this hike. However, there is room for 6-8 vehicles to park near the Hinkey Summit Cabin (near the junction of NF-84 and NF-536). Visitors with 4WD may also be able to drive 1.2 miles up NF-536 and park near the cattle guard / barbed-wire fence where the cross-country route begins. There are no amenities (water, toilets, or trash) along this route.

Difficulty Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (Challenging) — This hike follows a dirt road and parallels a barbed wire fence line for the first 2 miles, but then requires cross-country navigation on steep, uneven terrain followed by a class 2 & 3 rock scramble along the ridgeline leading to the summit. Visitors should use extreme caution when Granite Peak’s rocky ridge is wet or covered with snow or ice. Non-acclimated hikers may also experience minor AMS as this hike begins at 7,800′ and ends at 9,731′ elevation.

Pets Allowed:  Yes. 

Kid-friendly: This high point is best suited for ages 14 or older due to the need for cross-country navigation skills and class 3 rock scrambling to reach the summit.

The Summit: There is an antenna tower near the summit, along with a metal summit register box welded to a post.

TRIP SUMMARY

Date Visited:  June 27, 2026

Route Used: Cross-county route from Hinkey Summit Cabin – 5.6 miles round trip

This was the first summit of a multi-county Nevada highpointing spree that I’d planned for late June. I wanted to start with the closest (and possibly easiest) peak on the list. But things went sideways with an unexpected summer snowstorm that turned this short climb into a memorable journey.

I began my trip yesterday with a 460-mile drive from Eugene to northern Nevada. The familiar route through southern Oregon was long and uneventful, at least until I reached the Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in northern Nevada. From that point onward, I was dodging heavy rainstorms and watching lightning strikes across the desert landscape.

With multiple bands of rain in the forecast overnight, I bailed on my original plan to camp at Lye Creek Campground (about 3 miles from the start of this hike) and pivoted to a last-minute hotel stay down in Winnemucca instead. There was no sense in starting this trip with all my gear soaking wet.

As I emerged from the hotel this morning, the weather was now cool and humid. It had clearly rained a ton overnight, and there were puddles everywhere. Nonetheless, I was back on the road just after 7 am, heading north toward Paradise Valley, and hoping be done with this CoHP by lunchtime.

Little would go according to plan, though. While driving northbound on US-95, I encountered a rainstorm so heavy that my SUV’s windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the water hitting it. The rainfall was serious enough that I didn’t even feel safe driving, and I pulled into the Sinclair Gas station at the junction of US-95 and NV-290 to wait out the storm.

Unfortunately, that meant sitting in a parking lot and reading a book while the rain furiously pelted my car until 8:45 am. At last, the heavy rain seemed to pass, and I checked the local weather forecast one last time. There was still a small chance of rain until 10 am. But after that, it should be completely dry.

I set off toward the tiny town of Paradise Valley before turning north into the Santa Rosa Mountains. Three miles outside of town, Hinkey Summit Road transitioned from pavement to dirt, and the impact of recent rain was evident. The road into the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest was slick with mud, and I was forced to keep my speed below 15 mph the entire drive.

About 7.5 miles north of Paradise Valley, the dirt road began to climb and switchback, while the unexpectedly green landscape closed in on me. This looked nothing like the Nevada I was used to visiting. The near-vertical granite rock walls above me and the steep green slopes made it feel like a moody movie set in New Zealand or Scotland.

As I slowly continued driving up the dirt road, the dark clouds parted, and I began to get glimpses of blue sky above. The weather seemed to be finally turning around, and perhaps the summer sun would dry the road out before my return trip.

This winding stretch of the road was also when I encountered some local road congestion that didn’t seem to want to yield the right of way to uphill traffic. A dozen cows were blocking the road, and they didn’t seem to care at all about my desire to reach the trailhead. In the end, I had to honk at them repeatedly because they would have stood there forever if I hadn’t gotten a bit insistent about getting them off the road.

One long hour after driving through Paradise Valley, I finally made it up to the top of the climb and crested the cattle guard near Hinkey Summit. This road junction was my unofficial trailhead, with a brown metal USFS cabin nearby. A dirt jeep road led east toward Hinkey Summit, and another one (NF-536) headed west toward Granite Peak. This was as far as I was going in my RAV4, and the rest of the journey would need to be on foot.

I’d barely parked my SUV when more dark clouds quickly moved in. I didn’t even have time to put on my trail shoes for my hike before the car was being pelted by freezing rain, hail, and then snow. Why was it snowing in Nevada in late June??

And so, I spent another 45 minutes sitting in my SUV to wait out the most recent storm. It was nearly 11 am now (long after the forecast said these summer storms would be over for the day), and I still hadn’t hiked a single mile!

When the sleet and snow finally ended, glimpses of blue returned to the skies overhead. I quickly grabbed my rain gear to get started. I was well behind schedule now, but I assumed I would make quick work of this short (<6-mile) uphill hike. Easy peasy.

The initial 1.2-mile hike up NF-536 was slick with mud, so it was slower than expected in my trail shoes. But eventually, I made it to the cattle guard, where I was supposed to leave the road and follow the north side of the barbed-wire fence as it led uphill.

Despite the teasingly blue patches in the sky, the low gray clouds soon returned, bringing more snow. It was now super windy too, and the snow seemed to be blowing sideways across my face. What the heck was going on out here, I wondered. It was as if Mother Nature did not want me to climb this mountain today.

I wasn’t taking the hint, though. I just tucked my head down and followed the barbed-wire fence uphill. After half a mile, the fence crossed a dirt road, where I knew I’d need to cross to the opposite side. But that meant hoisting the tight barbed-wire gate open and closing it again. Despite wearing two pairs of gloves, my hands were cold enough that this was a true challenge.

With every 100 feet of elevation gain, the fresh snow seemed to get deeper. At first, it was just a dusting that I could avoid. Then it seemed to cover most of the vegetation. And eventually it was several inches deep.

I’d only brought trail runners for this highpointing adventure, not boots. It was late June! Who would have thought I’d be hiking through fresh ankle-deep snow in Nevada on the 27th of June? Not me!

Eventually, I ran out of barbed-wire fence to follow. For the remainder of this cross-country adventure, I was supposed to head uphill following several landmarks: two rock outcroppings, a saddle, and the rocky ridgeline. There was only one problem. I couldn’t see any of those landmarks for more than a few moments at a time because low clouds kept rolling in, obscuring my visibility. This was not how this simple CoHP was supposed to go.

I overcame these minor navigational challenges only because I’d dropped a few pins on my GPS map before I left home. That goodness, I’d done this map reconnaissance and preparation, because that is the only reason I was able to keep going in the abysmal conditions.

Even with this help, my progress was ridiculously slow. I could no longer tell what surface I might be stepping on as I made my way uphill. All the sagebrush on the slope was poking up through the snow, but everything else was covered with a thick layer of white. With each tentative step, I had no way to tell whether I would make contact with solid ground or an angled, slick rock that might send me sliding backward.

As I slowly continued my progress up the steep slope, I knew I was supposed to climb between two rock outcroppings and stay north of Point 9400, but I just couldn’t tell what was what. I ended up drifting further left than I should have, and eventually spotted the saddle I was supposed to cross below me. And so, I wasted even more time backtracking 150 yards down to the saddle.

From the saddle, the rocky spine of Granite Peak rose to my west. The guidance from other highpointers said I needed to remain on the left (aka south) side of the mountain’s rocky spine. This was supposed to be the safest route for the final 300 vertical feet to the summit. Yet, I didn’t even have clear visibility of the mountain’s spine.

My route from the saddle to the summit transitioned from snow-covered cross-country travel to Class 2 bouldering. And that eventually gave way to full-on Class 3 bouldering, with a healthy layer of snow on each rock. If I thought my progress toward Granite Peak was slow before this point, well, it only got slower.

There was zero chance I was going to miss a step and break an ankle navigating my way uphill on these boulders. On a dry day, I would have made quick work of this ascent. But not today. Every boulder felt like a potential pitfall or risk.

Right before the summit, I encountered an icy slab of rock and worried it would be impossible to get up it (and back down). But I pressed on. I could see the tower up above me, and I knew I didn’t have much higher to climb.

My persistence was rewarded with one of the uglier summits – a tower, some cell panels, and a weird metal box inexplicably welded to a post (and frozen shut during my visit). There were no panoramic views because I was completely socked in by gray clouds. This peak was testing my patience. But I’d made it to the top safely.

The wind steadily picked up as I stood atop the summit, so I decided not to tempt fate by staying any longer than necessary. I began my slow descent, retracing my steps down the rocky route I’d come up.

As I began downhill, the clouds parted just briefly enough to show me the ridge below. But this visibility was short-lived. More dark gray clouds and snowflakes soon returned, encouraging me to get down before the weather turned even uglier. The memories of yesterday’s lightning were still vivid in my mind, and I was a sitting duck up here.

I’m not sure that my descent was any faster than my ascent, even with the road map of my footprints in the snow to guide the way. I still needed to be careful wherever I stepped to avoid slick, uneven boulders or losing my footing. My gloves got soaked because I kept using my hands to guide my descent all the way down to the safety of the saddle. The only thing wetter were my trail shoes and socks. Everything would need at least a full day to dry out after this snowy adventure.

I continued following my footprints through the snow as I descended the hill and eventually reached the barbed-wire fence. And shortly after I crossed through the fence, I got a solid 10 minutes of sunshine. The clouds lifted, and I could finally see Granite Peak behind me. I have to admit, this CoHP was a pain in the behind to climb, but the snow certainly made it look stunning from below.

The sunshine coincided with my path across the slopes covered with wildflowers at their peak bloom. It really was June out here, not late spring. On any other June day, this would have been a pretty beautiful hike rather than a challenge-filled one.

Once I made it back down to my car near the Hinkey Cabin, I toyed with taking a side trip up Hinkey Summit. It looked super interesting with its steep triangular slopes. But it was already 3 pm now, and I was starving.

I was so far behind schedule today because of the weather delays. I still needed to drive back down to Winnemucca, and then another hour farther south to the campground I booked near my next CoHP. So I said goodbye to Hinkey Summit from the comfort of my driver’s seat and began the return drive down toward Paradise Valley.

BONUS MATERIAL

Public camping nearby:

• Lye Creek Campground is located in the Santa Rosa Mountains, 3.2 miles north of the Hinkey Summit Cabin. This small USFS campground is open seasonally (June-October) and offers 9 single campsites and 4 double campsites, picnic tables, vault toilets, and potable water (but there will be a water outage for the 2026 season). Campsites are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Cost: $8-10/night.
• Water Canyon Recreation Area is located just 4.5 miles southeast of Winnemucca. This BLM area has 11 dispersed camp spots available year-round along Water Canyon Road. Vault toilets and trash receptacles are spaced every 1/4 mile through the camping area. All sites are available on a first-come, first-served basis, with a max stay of 3 consecutive nights. Cost: Free

Resources:

• Overview of Granite Peak (Summit Post)
• Granite Peak Trail (All Trails)
• Current Wildfire Conditions (Nevada Fire Info)
• Humboldt County, NV (official site)

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A quick note on my difficulty ratings:

• ⭐️ = Easy hike (0-5 miles long, on trail, flat or limited vertical gain, good for all ages)
• ⭐️⭐️ = Moderate hike (<5 miles round-trip, on trail, more vertical gain)
• ⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Challenging (5-15 miles round-trip, possible off-trail navigation, steep climbs, or bouldering)
• ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Hard (10+ miles roundtrip, with off-trail navigation or very steep climbs)
• ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ = Very Hard (20+ miles round-trip, and/or technical skills or equipment required)