There are 13 mountains that have been de-listed from the San Diego 100 list. I thought it would be interesting to add these to my ascent list.
Dorie and I headed out to East County to Buckman’s Benchmark. A short 4WD to the gated Bear Valley Rd was our starting point and the first mile was on the popular ATV Long Valley Rd. However, the way up to Buckman was fairly steep, no trail and started to get very bush-wacky quickly. Dorie decided not to do it, so I gave her the keys and went on. It’s a good thing she didn’t go. There was the leg-shredding dead undergrowth on a long section of the hike. I summited but found no register then headed back down. On the way I discovered an old mine shaft and somewhat of a trail to a second mine shaft. I don’t know what type mines they were. On the way back to the truck, I snagged the little Fuss BM. Upon returning to the truck, I did not find Dorie. I know she couldn’t get lost because she would have stayed on the roads and the truck was visible from far away. I asked several ATV bikers if they had seen her. None had. Then I began to worry that some bandito might have gotten her, so I retraced the road to where we started, and met her coming back up the road. Instead of returning to the truck, she decided to wait on a rock near where we started up the mountain. It was a beautiful day and she was enjoying it and the ATV activity. I did not return the same ridge because I thought she’d returned to the truck plus on the way down I had discovered the miner’s trails, taking me out of all the vegetation. All was safe in the end and I did not have to fight any banditos.
Later in the week, I went back out to the area to hike Long Valley Peak. This is that very annoying, pointed peak seen from Long Valley Exit off Rt 8. The peak just sits there mocking you to climb it. It looks more intimidating than it is, but the summit does require some reasonable scrambling. The ATV bikes have widened all the hiking trails to the base of the mountain, even though there are plenty of signs telling them to stay off. There was a peculiar flock of 7-8 buzzards circling the mountain top, but they got no meal on me. Now only 10 more of the SD Additional to go. (click on any picture to view slides)
