At the start of a week-long roadtrip, most of the day was spent
driving from San Jose to Joshua Tree. I stopped along the way
for some easy peakbagging, a small handful of summits in areas
I'd visited previously, but skipped for one reason or
another. For reasons I don't quite understand, I've managed to lose the GPX
track for this outing. Guess you'll have to figure out driving directions on
your own...
Peak 3,682ft
This standalone summit is found west of SR247, sandwiched
between Stoddard Valley and Stoddard Ridge. It is just
outside BLM lands that encompass a large OHV area around
Stoddard Valley. There are a few homesteads in the area and the
spur road I used off SR247 is signed for Private Property,
though it isn't clear that's really true. I parked off
the side
of the sandy road and headed southwest to the rounded, rather
unassuming summit about 1/2mi away, no fences or signs
interfering. The highpoint isn't obvious, but
it doesn't seem critical. There are views of Ord Mtn to the
east, Stoddard Ridge to the west and south,
Stoddard Valley to the north. The easiest summit of the
day.
Peak 4,595ft
This was the most interesting summit, found on the east side of
Sidewinder Mtn, overlooking Lucerne Valley.
I used Lucerne
Valley Cuttoff road (excellent dirt road) and a rougher spur
road to get within a mile on the northeast side. I
parked at the remains of what looks to be an
old cistern and
headed up a fun class 2-3 gully, climbing about 1,200ft
to the summit area.
There are two closed contours of equal height, the
highpoint found at the northern one. I spent about an hour and
a quarter on the roundtrip effort. St. Josheph's Monastery is
located about a mile to the southwest from where I'd parked,
so I paid it a quick visit to get some photos of the
main building and the large statue and
cross located on a nearby hill.
Peak 3,484ft
The last two summits are found on either side of Means Dry Lake
in Johnson Valley. The off-road King of the Hammers event is
held here each year in the beginning of February. Looks like I
missed it by a few days as most of the folks have gone home and
just the clean-up crews were still occupying
the area. There are
miles upon miles of sandy dirt roads throughout the area that
make for some fun off-road adventuring. I drove one such road up
to the south side of Peak 3,484ft and made a quick job
of climbing up and down the summit in just
over 30min. Sandy class 2, nothing hard about this one.
Peak 3,584ft
I next drove more than 4mi to the southeast, mostly on sandy
roads, compact enough that 2WD sufficed for most of it. I
parked at the start of a gully on the north
side of the summit,
a rough, bouldery scramble along a route used recently in the
off-road competition. That vehicles could get up this was
quite remarkable as some of the difficulties approach
class 3 scrambling.
There was quite a bit of dark liquid soaked into the
rocks, no doubt differential and transmission fluids from
damaged undercarriages. One of these days I'm going to have to
make a point to come out and see the competition in person. It
took about 20min to reach the summit where I found a
Mark Adrian register from a year earlier. I had some trouble getting the lid off the baby food jar,
but with some pounding against
a rock, I eventually managed it. I took a phone call from my
daughter while I was up there, seems she was sad and a bit
distressed about a rejection she got for an intern position
this summer. The sun set towards the end of the call and it
started to get cold surprisingly quickly. I beat a hasty
retreat back down the gully to finish up by 5:20p. Time for a
quick shower and then onwards to Joshua Tree...