On my previous visit to the Mono Peaks area a few weeks earlier I had neglected
a trio of minor summits from Wheelock's original
Desert Peaks Guide that
were subsequently omitted from Zdon's updated and expanded
Desert Summits. The first two were rather minor but the third had more
than 800ft of prominence and is considered the highpoint of the Benton Range. I
did far more driving than hiking on this one but had a fun day exploring. At
the end of the day I drove out to the Nevada border near SR168 to get an actual
hike in to Chocolate Mtn, probably the most interesting part of the day.
Lookout Mountain
This summit is located just east of US395 about halfway between June Lake and
Mammoth Lakes. A decent that any car can drive goes to
. are marginal thanks to at the
perimeter, but there
are of the available for little
effort. Nothing remains of a fire lookout
if one ever existed here. It's easy to see why Zdon dropped this one.
Round Mountain
Located about 4.5mi east of Lake Crowley and just south of Benton Crossing Rd,
it's hard to see how this qualifies as summit. It has barely an prominence and
doesn't look mountain-like from pretty much any direction. It doesn't even look
like a hill. On the plus side, it's easy to get to thanks to a bunch of USFS
roads that crisscross the area. I found my way to within half a mile of the
summit on the Casa Diablo Mine Cuttoff Rd which passes the summit to the
northeast. The only trouble was finding a turnaround point in the road once I
had gone past its closest approach. I got sand and gravel in
and
tailpipe for the effort, but managed a near-perfect 13-point U-turn. The hike
went over open, easy rolling terrain, including an no
longer driven on. The biggest (and only) surprise was finding a large granite
- class 3. Views mostly stretch over miles of desert
scrub, but Casa Diablo can be seen to and portions of
the Sierra Crest to the and west. Glass Mtn is seen in the
distance to . Another summit wisely culled by Zdon.
Banner Ridge
About 7mi NE of Round Mtn and just over half a mile east of Benton Crossing Rd
is , the highpoint of the Benton Range. The hike is a very
short distance from the pavement off which , but steep, rising
almost 1,000ft in that distance. The low angle desert scrub at the start quickly
gives rise to steep, pinyon and juniper . The footing is decent
though much of
the slopes is covered in disintegrating granite. I took about half an hour to
find my way to the top quite directly. Afternoon thunderstorms were beginning to
threaten, covering much of the sky in all directions. The rocky summit is open
to views to the White Mtns, to Glass Mtn and
to the Sierra. comprising some 31 pages
dated back almost 50yrs , one of
the oldest I've seen on the desert summits. After photographing the pages for
posterity, it took but 15min to descend back to the car thanks to deep-plunging
steps in the soft, gravelly soil. Though a short outing, a worthy summit.
Chocolate Mountain
I was to meet Tom Becht sometime in the evening in the White Mtns so I drove
south through Bishop (requisite stop at Starbucks for the $5 caffeine/sugar
combo) to Big Pine, then east on SR168, crossing over Westgard Pass, through
Deep Springs Valley and then to Gilbert Pass. I had never been east of Westgard
Pass on SR168 and had no idea that this huge valley existed, more than 15mi in
length and no outlet. As I was driving across it I kept trying to figure out
which way the valley drained and through which canyon, but in vain. Turns out
that Deep Springs Lake at the west end (which I only discovered later) is the
resting place for all water flowing into the valley. In geologic times past
there was a lake 500ft deep that flowed out through Soldier Pass into
Eureka Valley (part of Death Valley NP). Now there is little more than a
puddle at one end as the climate eventually grew dry. Chocolate Mountain rises
above the NE end of Deep Springs Valley, a P1K and in both Wheelock's and Zdon's
guidebooks. It is the most prominent summit in the Piper Mtn Wilderness, but
not the highest. A high clearance vehicle can get you within almost a mile of
the summit but I was unable to drive the half mile on the somewhat brushy
(easy for high clearance) and parked just off the pavement.
Using Zdon's route description, I followed the road south to for
the Piper Mtn Wilderness, then west and south following a series of old
that reach to the north side of the mountain. These roads are also depicted on
the 7.5' topo. While the road doesn't actually reach to the top, at least two
foot trails do, and I took from the track to
. With a total distance of little over three miles, the hiking
is easy with very on this dry, desert mountain. Along
with that reads "PIPER"
(seems it was once called Piper Mountain, or perhaps still is, according to the
BLM), is a register dating to the 1990s. The are hard to
read, but
they appear to show a flurry of visits in the late 1990s and then slowly fading
into
relative obscurity with few entries in the last decade. It was getting close to
7p when I was at the summit and the shadows of the late afternoon were cast
over a pleasant landscape. Fish Lake Valley in Nevada can be seen to
with its green crop circles, dry Eureka Valley to
and Deep Springs Valley to
(though the sun washed out much of this latter view).
I decided on a much more direct that cut my mileage in
half. Though it was mostly , I thought it the better of
the two routes
and would recommend it for the ascent as well over the circuitous Jeep route.
It's steeper, or course, but the footing is good. I showered at
where before heading back to
Westgard Pass and then up White Mtn
Rd to meet Tom. He was already at the Grandview Campground when I arrived
sometime after 8p. A large stargazing party had occupied most of the campground
so we decided to drive back down the road a few miles to find a quieter place
off the road. It was not hard to find...
Continued...