{"id":6467,"date":"2023-04-16T17:32:10","date_gmt":"2023-04-16T17:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/?p=6467"},"modified":"2023-04-16T17:32:10","modified_gmt":"2023-04-16T17:32:10","slug":"humbug-and-eagle-mountains-joshua-tree-national-park-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/2023\/04\/16\/humbug-and-eagle-mountains-joshua-tree-national-park-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Humbug and Eagle Mountains Joshua Tree National Park 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Time for a solo adventure to bag Humbug and Eagle Mountains in Joshua Tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Humbug was first and a very easy mountain. The adventure\/challenge was to get out to it via old BLM roads. I tried approaching from the north to get to the west trailhead of the climb, but roads on my map no longer existed or roads I tried were not on my map. Finally, the third attempt brought me to the trailhead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Halfway up the Mountain is the Imperial Mine, and signs said it was still active. No one was around so I went about 300 feet into the lower shaft. A second adit was higher and connected to the lower shaft by a rickety old ladder. I didn\u2019t try it. A chute was made to transfer ore down to the shaft and equipment was there suggesting fairly recent activity. Making the summit, I put on my Humbug face and snapped a selfie. (1.6 miles 470 feet gain)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I spent the night at the Cottonwood Campground. It was full but very quiet for a commercial campsite. I was treated to a specular sunset. (Click on any images to view slides)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Early the next morning I headed across the desert to Eagle Mountain. A ranger told me that he hadn\u2019t hiked it, but expect a full, hard day. The first 3 miles across the desert were uneventful, but entering the ravine up the first ridge I met the only hiker I was to see in two days. He had spent the night on the mountain. The ravine was very steep and its ~1-mile straight-up climb seemed endless. There was one 20 foot dry fall I had to negotiate. As I got to the saddle on the ridge, my GPS unit went blank. My other phone apps worked but I lost the tracks I was to follow as well as the recording of my current track. Important to find my way back out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, with no navigational aid (forgot a hard copy map), I was so close I had to keep going.  The mountain peak was about a mile out and I had to find my way across\/through a large maze of red rock boulders. Making the summit and having lunch, I started looking around for a route back down. The compass on my phone worked and I could see San Gorgonio and San Jacinto in the distance. As long as I could see them, I could eventually find my way to a road bisecting Joshua Tree. The toughest navigational part was crossing back through the red rock maze. Once through it, going downhill, trails and tracks are easier to follow so I didn\u2019t have much trouble finding the mouth of the ravine. However, going down the ravine was very sketchy. Every rock required 2 steps, the first to test if it was steady and the second to see if it actually held my weight. Sometimes it didn\u2019t.  A fall down the ravine not only was perilous, but on the way down you would be skewered by agave and yucca and shredded by Cat\u2019s Claw Bush. I went very slowly. It took me over 1 \u00bd hours to negotiate the descent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going across the final 3 miles of desert was relatively easy using only the compass. There were some intereesting rock formations along the way, inclding an ape eating a dog. I got to my car and had a beer. (11.5 miles 2,600 gain) [Postscript. Cal Topo said I had a bug in my map programs and are addressing it.] (click on any image to view slides)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Time for a solo adventure to bag Humbug and Eagle Mountains in Joshua Tree.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hiking","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/06-Sunset-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1646&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9x9nh-1Gj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6467"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6515,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6467\/revisions\/6515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whitethaiger.net\/hikers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}