Continued...esesrt
The weather had changed overnight with a cold front coming through,
bringing heavy overcast and a small chance of showers or thunderstorms
during the day. Most of the day was windy and cold, keeping me dressed
in a fleece and sometimes my balaclava. It never did rain, which was
good, since I was driving about 20mi all on dirt roads - a sudden
thunderstorm could have made a mess of things. Today's peaks were all
around Fairview Valley, a large, sparsely populated desert valley
found northeast of Apple Valley in the Mojave. I had been to the area on
previous occasions, tackling the highest summits, those with more than
900ft of prominence. Today was a mopping up effort so to speak,
collecting the remaining summits. All of them are officially unnamed,
but three had Smatko registers from the 1970s, and the names
used here were taken from these registers.
Evand Mountain
This was the southernmost of the summits, overlooking both and
Valleys. I was able to drive on decent dirt roads to the very
southeast tip of Fairview Valley, about 2/3mi
. A steep initial climb was followed by an easier
gradient for most of the distance. The grass was tall and the slopes quite
green, with in on many of today's
peaks. Andy smatko and girlfried Evelyn had left a register here
, dubbing it "Evand Mtn", a combination of their first names.
Jeff Moffat had been the only other visitor to , 38yrs later.
Peak 4,813ft
Two miles to the north of Evand Mtn is the higher and more prominent Peak
4,813ft. I repositioned the jeep to the north with a bit of circuitous driving
to get me within a mile of the summit on . I drove
by some of
the scattered homesteads in the valley on my way. A few of them are kept in tidy
condition, but most were of the more that appears
commonly in desert communities. It took about 40min to make my way up
, this one not rolling off until nearly at the
summit. Good views overlooking Fairview Valley and a pretty nice one of snowy
Mt. Baldy to across the expanse of Apple Valley.
Peak 4,379ft/Doubknob Mountain
I next drove north through Fairview Valley, the last resident seen just before
reaching the dry lake. There was
of purple flowers covering most
of the lakebed as I drove through on the BLM road heading north. I connected up
with Johnson Road and took that several miles east up the narrowing valley
between these two summits. I tackled the easier Peak 4,379ft first, driving to
within a quarter mile on . It took all of 11min to reach
, even faster on the descent. The peak is composed of large
, not quite class 3. Back at I moved
it a short distance to of Doubknob Mtn, about a mile from the
summit. The hike up was longer than the previous
ones, the a jumble of granite boulders, with an easy class
3 offering several ways to climb it. Smatko's register
dated , a solo outing this time. The naming seems odd for
Smatko, a shortened version of "Double Knob" perhaps, but the summit has three
closely-spaced summit blocks, so who knows. The register was surprisingly
busy, some four pages of entries all told. Again, Jeff Moffat had been
to sign it, this time in 2018.
Peak 4,237ft/Westwinder Mtn/Peak 4,874ft
The last three summits, located to the northwest as subsidiary summits of
Sidewinder Mtn, were done in a single outing. Oddly, there is a very straight
road running north-south along the border between township sections 15 & 16 (see
the topo map if you care about such trivialities) that can be used to get
several hundred feet above the valley floor. The road is pretty rough and seems
to get little use. At the end of the road, one branch turns northeast to climb
a few hundred feet more to an old mine. Another fork branches hard left, again
following the section boundary as the road drops to a gully. I parked where
the original road forks and then started off on foot down the road
.
At the gully, I left the road to continue more directly up to Peak 4,237ft, my
first stop. This overlooks the massive cement plant that
has engulfed much of Black Mtn to . The noise coming from the
plant is significant, a mix of large trucks, trains and massive machinery, with
gray dust covering everything inside the quarry - a somewhat dystopian-looking
blight on the landscape. Peak 4,237ft sits at the southwest end of the ridge
forming Sidewinder Mtn and my next summit was another 900ft higher along the
ridge to . This was a pleasant hike with only one short
steep section, most of it . It was after 2p by the time I
reached the higher Peak 5,125ft. Smatko had left a register here
, dubbing it Westwinder Mtn (the name obviously derived from
the higher Sidewinder Mtn, which lies another 2mi to
along the same ridge. Interestingly, Andy paid the summit a visit on five
subsequent occasions, the last - seems this was one of his
favorites, as it's rare to see his name even a second time in a register. The
last summit, Peak 4,874ft, was another 3/4mi to ,
connected by a saddle dropping 600ft from Westwinder's summit. I made a
to save some extra distance in retracing my steps
west along the ridge, though I'm not sure I saved any time given the rough
nature of the terrain I crossed. An old road is encountered at the saddle, no
longer used - it appears to come up from the west and the cement plant property.
A short but steep climb leads up the South Ridge to the summit of Peak 4,874ft.
There is an old, still standing near the
summit. A bulldozer has recently (in the past few years, anyway) run
across the summit, though I couldn't figure to what purpose.
If there was ever a summit rock or register, they look have been plowed under
a layer of loose earth - oh well.
I had to return back over the west shoulder of Westwinder, then
through the old mine to return to the jeep.
to the mine has been dangerously collapsed and a small building downslope from
it to the ground as well - just a bunch of trash left
about, now. I a little after
3:30p with the weather threatening some. I decided to call it a day and give
myself the rest of the afternoon off. I considered driving back into Apple
Valley for
dinner, but in the end decided to simply stay out in the mountains. I drove
Johnson Rd most of the way west towards Interstate 15, then north across the
quarry road and up against the south side of Turtle Mtn where I planned to
start the next day. I got some light rain at times during the late afternoon
and evening, but nothing to write home about and nothing that would do more than
wet the ground briefly before drying. Dinner tonight would be soup and ramen...
Continued...