A little break in the weather in the desert (temperatures < 90 F (32 C)) made another desert trip possible. We picked a couple of desert peaks with over 2000 ft of prominence.
Day 1:
John and I met up along the I-15 and decided to take the back route (Hwys 79, 371, 74) to I-10 to avoid the Riverside traffic. Well, it didn’t work. Just as we left Temecula we got stopped for about 45 min. A nasty head-on collision had happened minutes before. Ambulances, highway patrol, and fire department were just arriving and completely closing the road. Looking at the wrecked vehicles it’s amazing that everyone got out alive. After that it was smooth sailing to Blythe were we both had empty fuel tanks and so we decided to do a little detour to Arizona to save $1 per gallon on gas.
Fueled, we drove northwest from Blythe on Lovekin Blvd and Midland Road to Arlington Mine Road. From here it was dirt. The road is in excellent condition all the way to the Palen Pass Road. Here we soon encountered a longer, sandy section which turned into a good dirt road again. We reached the prospects/mine at the foot of Granite mountain just before sunset. The road taking off to the north into the mining area was quite eroded and became impassable within a quarter of a mile. We decided to just camp at Palen Pass Rd. With an early start planned and too much wind for a campfire we just had dinner and went to bed.
Day 2:
I had to get up around 4am. The moon had set and there was a good view of the milky way, so I spent some time taking photos. I also saw one nice meteorite. We got up around 5:30 and started hiking shortly after 6. Initially we followed the dirt road, but after about 2.5 miles we left the road heading for the mountain. We had to cross some deep washes before reaching the wash that would take us to the ridge we planned to follow to the peak. The ridge was steep and had some rock outcroppings we had to climb over or find a way around. The final section was easy walking.
After having lunch and taking pictures we started our way down. It was getting warm by now. On the way up we were lucky that some high altitude clouds kept the clouds at bay. We made it back to the trucks in good time, cleaned up a bit, and started our drive to the next starting point for tomorrow’s hike. For that, we followed Palen Pass Rd. back to Arlington Mine Rd. and turned right.
Hike: 12.5 miles, 3,300 ft elevation gain.
It did not take long for the road to deteriorate quite a bit. We found ourselves going barely going 5 mph in deep sand and on a rocky road with some mild washouts. It took over an hour to reach the camp site just 5 miles away. This was the first 4×4 test for John’s Tundra. Upon reaching camp we prepared dinner, exchanged messages with family and friends since somehow we had signal way out here. Bed time was early again. Campfire was not an option again due to wind.
Day 3:
I woke up in the very early morning hours again and spent some time outside trying to some action from the Lyrid meteor shower. It wasn’t a big show and I only saw 3 meteorites in 10 minutes. Around 6 am we headed up the wash. There were some interesting, little dry falls to climb. We had picked the Sierra Club Desert Peak Section route B since it was supposedly the one with the best footing and, more importantly, no cat claw (a nasty brush that tends to rip up clothes and skin). The wash got steeper and steeper. Eventually, we had to leave it and just climb straight up on some reasonably stable scree/talus. We got to a point we thought might be the peak, but it was not and we saw the peak a few hundred feet away. Those few hundred feet were very rocky with a bit of climbing and it took a while to make it to the peak.
After pictures and some food we climb back down. While climbing up the last obstacles before the peak we had spotted a way to bypass all this climbing and chose that route for the descent. Just before reaching the wash from the steep slope I stepped past a rock and heard a rattle. Just 3-4 feet in front of me was a big rattlesnake. It looked like it was working on a recent meal judging from the bulge in it’s body. I carefully stepped back and alerted John, before taking some pictures of it. The rest of the descent was uneventful.
Hike: 5.7 miles, 2,600 ft elevation gain.
After cleaning up and changing we started the slow drive back. It took about 1.5 h to the pavement. John continued home right away since he had a birthday dinner (his wife’s 🙂 to attend. I took it a bit slower, including a 15 minute nap along the way.
(click on any image to enlarge/start slide show)
