Story

Continued...

It was the last day of a week-long desert roadtrip. A road closure south of Interstate 10 had caused us to alter plans earlier in trip and we had arrived at day 8 without a prepaid plan. I had to work one out the night before while we were ensconced at the Yucca Valley Starbucks, based on some lingering memories from other planning sessions. We hit upon Camp Rock Rd, a generally good dirt road that stretches from Interstate 40 south to SR247 at Lucerne Valley. The road passes through four desert ranges - the Newberry, Ord, Rodman and Fry Mountains. There are a number of easily accessible range highpoints, wilderness highpoints and other bonus summits that can be reached from this road, none of them more than about a mile from the car. The simple plan was to hit them one after another until we got tired and then drive home. We had spent the night camped in Lucerne Valley at the start of the dirt portion of the road and were up early to drive some 20mi northeast into the Rodman Mountains. When we started out shortly before 7a the sun had just risen and it was bitterly cold out, as cold as it had been all week and we were suitably bundled up. A cold front had come through the day before bring rain and some snow at the higher elevations. Luckily we managed to miss the rain, but the cold and wind were unavoidable.

Rodman Mtns Wilderness PP

The Rodman Mtns Wilderness doesn't encompass the range highpoint which rises to over 6,000ft and has more than 2,000ft of prominence. Instead, it takes in the northern part of the range which doesn't exceed more than 4,900ft. The most prominent point within this Wilderness has but 480ft of prominence. An active quarry at the base of nearby Peak 4,906ft (also outside the Wilderness boundary) means the road getting here off Camp Rock Rd is in excellent condition. Just before reaching the quarry gate, a road in poorer condition heads east. We drove this for almost two miles until we were only half a mile from the summit. 20min saw us up the class 2 slopes from the south (everything today was class 2). Nothing of note was found at the summit. Wilderness Prominence Peaks haven't quite become the rage just yet among peakbaggers.

Rodman Mtns Wilderness HP

In contrast, Wilderness HighPoints are very much in vogue. I don't think anyone's yet done all the 100+ HPs in CA, but it seems quite a few are working towards it. The Rodman Mtns Wilderness HP is located just off the quarry road. There are no parking areas nearby but the road is wide enough to allow even quarry trucks to pass if you park close to the edge of the road. We watched a bit nervously as one drove by shortly after we'd started hiking up, but it passed easily without even bothering to slow down. The hike was even shorter than the first, taking less than 15min to reach the highpoint and that was after a short detour to a false summit we mistook for the actual highpoint. Sue & Vic Henney had left a register in 2011 and almost all of the dozen folks who'd signed in since then were from the usual suspects. The quarry site can be seen prominently to the north at the base of the dark volcanic summit while to the west can be seen the Ord Mtns to good effect. 10min was all it took to return to the car.

Rodman Mtns HP

A service road leads to some communication installations just below the highpoint of the Rodman Mountains. I had driven this once before with Matthew, but since Karl had never been it seemed only fair to give him a chance to conquer this behemoth while we were in the area. The hike to the summit is barely five minutes. Nicely, the highpoint is unudulterated with electronics though it does sport a survey tower. And a register, of course - one of the easier P2Ks in the state. It had so many entries that I didn't bother photographing any of them.

Peak 4,626ft - Fry Mtns HP

This one proved problematic only for the driving portion. Off the good quarry road, the spur roads heading south are not in great condition for your standard vehicle, at least the one we pursued. The sandy road we traveled had large whoop-de-does made by motorcycles and OHVs that ply this section of road as part of a desert race series. We'd hoped to drive even further south to reach Red Hill, but never managed that. We made a loop of our hike to the Fry Mtns HP, taking in bonus Peak 4,626ft on the way there. Just over 20min were spent to reach the bonus summit, and then about 30min to hike to the Fry Mtn HP via a low saddle between the two. The HP actually has two summits of equal contours on the topo map, and it was difficult to tell which was higher from a simple visual assessment. The SE one we visited (the HP according to LoJ) had a register left by Smatko back in 1968, which seemed good enough for us. All of the names since then were well-known - Carey/Adrian/Hanna in 1996, Vitz/Donna O in 1999, and Barbara/Gordon in 2000. The most recent entry was in 2010 by Evan Rasmussen. We dropped to the saddle between the two summits (declining to climb the NW summit), then started down the drainage heading NE. Karl preferred to take this all the way down while I wanted to explore a motorcycle track contouring around the mountain so we ended of parting ways for the last 15min back to the Element. We arrived close to the same time, neither route being obviously better or shorter.

Peak 4,638ft

Another easy climb immediately west of the sandy OHV route. To our surprise, it had another Smatko register, this one from 1973. Gordon & Barbara had visited this one too, leaving a better register in 2011 (both over 80yrs old at this time). The last person to sign in was a gentleman from Haines, AK in 2012. Karl and I both found this amusing - who comes from Alaska to climb an obscure peak in the Mojave Desert?

Camp BM

This last summit was the longest of the day, but still only 40min to reach the summit. We managed to drive the Element on a rougher road heading north from Camp Rock Rd to the base of the mountain. Better vehicles could continue even further up and over a pass and get closer to the summit if they cared. This summit features a 1955 CAMP benchmark and a Gordon/Barbara register from 2008. It also has a good view of Ord Mtn to the west, which still held some snows from a recent storm. On our way off the summit I tried to talk Karl into one more bonus summit another 8/10mi further west, but he'd had enough by this time. It was just after 1:30p when we returned to the start, but that was only half our day done. It would be nearly 9p by the time we had driven to our respective homes in San Jose and Santa Cruz that evening. I'd been away long enough - time to get some neglected yard work done around the house...

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