Mount Perry is a peak located 3.6 air miles north of Dante's View which has stunning views of Badwater Basin and the Panamint Mountains along the way and at the summit.  Difficulties encountered on the hike include minor route finding to stay on the ridge use trail and a few minorly challenging sections while climbing through the Hogback Section.  Topographical maps of the hiking route can be found by clicking on the buttons above.  The parking area for the hike to use the commonly used south ridge route is located at Dante's View.  GPS coordinates for the Mount Perry summit are 36.273666, -116.724434.

Outside of Dante's View and Dante BM (which are part of the hike), Mount Perry has perhaps the best view from any other place in the Black Mountains of the Badwater Basin area and the Panamint Mountains across the way.  Mount Perry was named for John W. S. Perry of the Harmony Borax Company.  John Perry was known for building large sturdy wagons which were used for hauling borax out of Death Valley from 1882 to 1889.  The February 5, 1961 issue of the San Bernadino County Sun newspaper stated: "When J. W. S. Perry started the first 20 mule teams from Harmony Borax Works in Death Valley for Mojave 165 miles distant he was subjecting the great freight carriers to about as severe punishment as could have been devised."  And that's why he put so much effort into building strong wagons.

Our group hiked to Mount Perry in mid-June of 2010 basically as a warm-up for something more challenging we had planned for the next day.  Mount Perry had long been near the top of my list of scheduled peak hikes in Death Valley, as I had heard a lot of positive things about the hike.  And everything I heard turned out to be true -- the views were great, the route was easy to follow, and the terrain was not very difficult to hike on.  The starting point for the hike is at the Dante's View parking lot, which is a great destination by itself.  From Dante's View (5,475 feet), the hike first climbs up to Dante BM (5,704 feet), then follows the ridge down, around, and eventually up to Mount Perry (5,739 feet).  As you probably noticed with those elevation figures, the ending point is not much higher than the starting point for the hike.  However, there are a lot of ups and downs along the 4.5 miles each way (or 9 miles RT), which accounts for a total cumulative elevation gain of about 3,100 feet.  One of the huge bonuses for this hike is that there is an use trail to follow for virtually the entire hike.  I also liked the fact that Mount Perry was nearly always visible, providing for a variety of nice views of our ending destination.  Joining me on this hike was my wife Daria and fellow hikers and Death Valley regulars Dan and Patrick.  We were hiking on an early summer day when it was around 102 degrees at Furnace Creek.  The elevation difference dropped it into the 80's where we were hiking, but we still needed a lot of water.  Personally, I brought 148 ounces of liquids for this hike and it barely lasted.  Along the way, we also caught sight of some chuckwallas who watched us closely as we took photographs of them.  Our hike took place on June 13, 2010.

Many more photographs taken during our visit are available for viewing for this destination.  To see all of them, choose one of the two options presented below.  The two options are Slideshow viewing and Trip Report viewing.  The Slideshow option allows for viewing larger images with an autoplay option and a full screen option (available on most browsers).  This option works very well for large computer screens and tablets.  The Trip Report option allows for viewing smaller pictures in a standard scroll-down format and enlarging of any panoramic photos taken during our visit.  Click on the option of your choice to view all of our photos from this destination.  The Slideshow format opens in a new browser window and the Trip Report format uses the same browser window for viewing.