Jubilee Mountain, Death Valley National Park

Jubilee Mountain is an 2,545 foot peak towards the south end of the Black Mountains, the somber, dark-colored range that borders the east side of Death Valley for over 50 miles, all formed of a complex mix of metamorphic rocks including gneiss, mica, schist, quartzite and migmatite.

The peak sits just south of Jubilee Pass, 1,293 feet, the high point of the southern approach road to the valley, Hwy 178 from Shoshone; the summit therefore is 1,252 feet above the road, and 1.1 miles distant, and it may be reached by a relatively easy off-trail hike, steep in just a few places, the only potential difficulty being many loose stones on the slopes. The route is not marked, but obvious, all along a sloping ridgeline, over rocky, very lightly-vegetated terrain.

The summit of Jubilee Mountain is marked with a USGS plaque and is nearly flat for a few hundred feet, and since there are no higher peaks for some distance in all directions it gives fantastic views, of many other mountains to the east, and across Death Valley to the west, beyond which is a vast expanse of particularly remote, trailless land towards the south end of the park, centered on the Owlshead Mountains.

Jubilee Mountain is named after the pass, which was once known as Suicide Pass due to the death of a miner (Chester Pray) at this location in the early 1900s, whilst involved in the building of the road, though some think he was murdered. The name was changed to Jubilee, around 1913, simply to be less forbidding; the word seems to have no particular significance.