Tom drove in from Palos Verde to join us in the morning on the 3rd day of my
birthday desert roadtrip. He's usually incredibly prompt, like to the minute,
and so I chided him some when he drove up two minutes past 7a. He sort of
slumped his shoulders with a, "Yeah..." but it was all in good fun. It was the
beginning of what looked to be a fine day, with some blue skies and scattered
clouds, visibility better than we'd had the day before. Even better, today was
my actual birthday. We had camped just
outside the south entrance to Joshua Tree NP,
in one of several large dirt clearings
west of the pavement where one can legally camp for free on BLM land. Since we
were planning to camp again here a second night, the three of us piled into
Tom's Element for the drive north into the park. Our destination was another
P1K in the Eagle Mountains, this one inside the park boundary. The summit can
be reached from a number of directions, including from the east starting near
the end of Eagle Mtn Rd outside the park. The shortest route is from the north
starting from near the end of the 
Black Eagle Mine Rd,
a 4WD route found inside
the park. There was some concern that a portion of this going through a wash
might require more clearance than we possessed, but with a modest amount of
undercarraige noise that seemed to cause no significant damage, we managed to
drive 10mi along this road which took us back 
outside the park and
on BLM land a short distance.
Starting out at 8a, we followed the deteriorating road east a
little ways further.
An abandoned plastic 
shower bag hung from a bullet-ridden sign, no
longer readable. We couldn't tell how long the bag of water had been hanging
there, but it didn't seem all that long. Who might have left it out here?
Forgotten or intentional? The questions would remain unanswered as we left the
bag just as we found it for the next visitors to puzzle over (or not). Chances
are it will get a few bullet holes at some time, just like the sign. We left the
road, turning SSE to follow a 
broad wash
towards our summit for almost three
miles. The sandy wash made for easy hiking and apparently not bad for tortoise
burrows, too. A number of large holes we passed by appeared to be partially
filled in, perhaps abandoned. We debated whether the tortoises had back-filled
the holes after entering and paused to let Karl examine one of them. A
damning photo of him potentially harassing an endangered species is
all we got from the exam. There was no definitive answer to this question
either, but my bet was on abandoned burrows. The wash 
narrowed as we
got closer to our peak, providing a little 
easy scrambling but no
significant obstacles. About a mile northwest of our summit we
climbed out of the 
wash/canyon matrix to climb a little over
1,000ft up rocky slopes to the top. 
The views opened up considerably
as we gained altitude
and though we had better visibility than the day prior, there was still much
haze to limit the distance one could see across the desert. We came up over one
false summit before seeing the highpoint 
not far beyond.
We first made our way to the lower 
SW summit before finding we'd
bypassed 
the highpoint to NE. In all we spent about two hours covering
the four mile distance to the summit.
A Richard Carey party had left 
a register
in 2012, ours making only the second
entry. Not quite as old as 1980s MacLeod register, but it would have to do for
the moment. As the three of us piddled about the summit, I was eyeing another
P1K with interest, just under 5mi 
to the SW. Now, five air miles is a
long ways, and even I was a little discouraged by this. This other
unnamed summit, Peak 3,994ft, had actually been our original target today, but
since we were able to drive as far as we did I chose the more remote summit.
But I hadn't given up on the idea of tagging both in a long loop. Roughly
calculated, it would be 4mi (that we already did) + 6mi (to the other summit)
+ 7mi (for the return). Not an unreasonable amount of desert miles, but would
certainly make for a long day. It would also likely negate our side visit to
Mastodon Peak that I had already promised to Tom. The other two were keenly
aware of what I was studying, doing nothing to discourage me. They figured that
since it was my birthday they would go along with whatever fool plan I cooked
up, difficult as it might be. Karl later admitted to having already started to
ration his remaining water expecting that we'd be heading off that way. And
while I really did want to tackle that other peak, my thinking took me
in another direction. Yes, it was my birthday, but there was no reason we
shouldn't all be able to have a fun day. Besides, as I've come to rationalize
more and more these days, it gives me another reason to come back for
another visit. I've pretty much given up the idea that I'll ever "clear out a
location and never come back" as my lowering standards simply provide ever more
opportunities all over the state. In its stead, I hit upon another plan to keep
us busy for a few extra hours. Only a mile and half to the west was an
intermediate summit that looked to have sufficient prominence (300ft) to count
as a bonus and I suggested we hike the ridgeline between the two and then
follow another ridge heading north back towards the desert floor and our car.
The others were happy to oblige and just after 10:30a we
headed off the west side of the summit.
It was a great plan, I think, and I suspect the others would agree. We had a
very delightful hike running 
the ridge
between 3,300ft and 3,900ft. The terrain
was easy enough and the ridge high enough to afford us what views were to be
had. It took just under an hour to reach the 
highest point
at 3,902ft which
turns out to have a benchmark labeled "SWEET" on the topo map (didn't know to
look for a benchmark at the time). Better, there was
a 1981 
MacLeod/Lilley register with only one other visitor dating
to 1996. We dropped 
north down the 
second ridgeline,
reaching another 
local highpoint labeled 3,812ft on the topo map. This,
too, had a 
MacLeod register dating to the same day as the previous one.
With less than 150ft of prominence it doesn't qualify as a separate peak by
today's general standards, but that never seemed to stop the dynamic duo. This
register also sported a 
second entry, but by
a different visitor this time, dated 2006. Continuing north, we descended to a
saddle and then up 
a third summit,
Pt. 3,638ft. This one had more prominence
than the previous but less elevation, still we half expected to find a third
register here. We did not - evidently MacLeod had not carried sufficient stores
of glass jars in his pack that day. Our 
descent continued
for another 1.5mi on a more gentle decline before reaching the
desert floor once again. From here we had little more than a mile
to return to the car and by 1:30p we had
concluded the day's longer excursion.
We drove back out to the main park road, then south to the
Cottonwood Springs TH.
It was still only 2:30p by this time, leaving us two hours of daylight -
plenty of time for the easy 2.5mi RT hike to Mastodon. Karl and I had both
visited this summit at different times in the past, this visit primarily to
satisfy Tom's quest of the LPC summits. There
is a fascinating little spring found just past the parking lot, with
tall palms and even taller 
cottonwood trees, whose leaves
were a golden fall color. We took about half an hour at a
leisurely pace to make the popular hike 
to Mastodon.
Several dozen folks were
out on the trail, one of the busiest in the park. Another party was relaxing
just off the summit when we 
arrived
for the easy class 3 scramble to the
highpoint. We stayed only a minute. The summit isn't very high and not much of
a peak at that, more like the highpoint of an unusually large
cluster of rocks
found in area around the spring. While the other two returned to the trail
via the route we'd ascended, I explored an alternate route directly down to
the 
Mastodon Mine
on the west side of the peak. The Park Service has done an
excellent job of sealing the mine entrance so that no one could possibly break
in without a blowtorch or some serious equipment to get through the heavy iron
bars that now close it off. The others were soon in 
joining me.
During the second half of the return loop, we left the trail to follow a
sandy wash into a very fun section of 
class 3 scrambling
that we more or less fell into without any prior info. It had some
interesting problems to overcome and a large
chockstone tunnel among its features. It led us to
the backside of Cottonwood Spring where we could just barely see a
small trickle of water emminating from the rocks. We could have scrambled down
further and returned to the trail through the palms, but that would have meant
traveling through the sensitive area marked off by cables along
the trail - bad karma, that. Instead
we sidehilled to the west a short ways and then down a use trail leading to the
parking lot where we'd started. Tom provided 
celebratory beers at the
conclusion.
All in all, a wonderful way to spend a birthday. I even got presents and birthday (cup)cake back at our camp outside the park. Nice!
Continued...