Gold Hill
On our second day in southern Death Valley NP we once again headed up Warm Springs Rd. We were heading into the
Panamint Range
to climb a P1K and a P900,
or at least most of us. Tom and Karl were more interested in climbing the DPS
summit of Needle Peak, but I had convinced them a stop at Gold Hill would be
only
a short "20min" detour. It was hardly that thanks to the tough road conditions
we found. As shown on the NPS map, we expected the road to be decent all the way
to Butte Valley but this was decidedly not the case. The road deteriorates
past Warm Springs Camp, located not far from the site of the abandoned Warm
Spring Mine, maybe halfway up Warm Spring Canyon.
Eight of us were carpooling in two vehicles, Tom's Jeep and
Matt's Forester. Both cars managed the road well enough, but the going was
slower in the Forester with several inches less clearance than the Jeep.
It would take almost two hours of driving to reach our starting point about
half a mile from Gold Hill's summit. Tom was able to drive the Jeep to the
very end of the road but we stopped the Forester about a quarter mile down
the road when things got a bit too rough.
It was cold and chilly when we 
started out, our party appropriately
bundled up. It would warm soon enough as the hiking goes 
uphill
from the start, climbing almost 900ft in the process. The hike is class 2 from
any direction, the rock somewhat loose but not dangerously so. Seven of us
reached the summit in 20min, Laura having decided to have a more pleasant hike
going down the road, to be picked up later on our way back. In addition
to the 
1949 benchmark, there was a small 
matchbook register
from 1970 and a more standard one left by the Gossett brothers of Ridgecrest
in 1995. Gordon and Barbara had visited 
in 2008 with more
desert rats filling nine pages of entries. 
The views are open in
most directions (the main crest of the Panamints rises much higher to
the west) as one would expect from a P1K. We sat about
the summit for another 20min before 
heading back down via a
variant route, no better or worse than the ascent route.
Between Peak
Nga decided to join Laura, Tom and Karl for a drive south into Butte Valley while the rest of us headed off in Matt's Forester partway back down the road through Warm Spring Canyon to tackle the P900. We parked at
a turnout
in the narrow road about a mile due north of the summit, starting off around
11:20a. We followed the weakly defined 
North Ridge on the way up and
took a gully route to the east on the way down. Matthew 
led the charge
going uphill, at least as far as the surprise 
boulder field we ran into
at the 2/3 point. The large granite boulders seemed to start and end somewhat
abruptly, offering 5-10min of fun scrambling to get through. I lost Matthew
somewhere in this boulder maze where he got held up when we struck off in
different directions. Upon reaching the summit ridge ahead of the others, I went
off in seach of the benchmark I knew to be at a point not at the
highpoint. I thought it was to the east of the top but after searching in that
direction for a few minutes I went back and 
found it a few hundred
yards to the west. Matthew was already at 
the highpoint when I returned
to it a second time after visiting the benchmark. Iris and Matt
showed up a few minutes later, the climb having taken a little over an
hour. Finding no register, we left 
a new one before proceeding down via
the gully route with some bits of 
fun scrambling of its own.
Cinder Hill
On our way back down Warm Spring Canyon, a trio of
burros were spotted
that had Iris giddy with excitement. They were the first wild burros she'd seen
and she could hardly contain herself. The trio quickly became a half dozen as
more were spotted, so we stopped to give her 
the opportunity to
photograph them. They didn't seem to be as
spooked by Iris standing there as they had by the car driving by, and several
turned and started to slowly walk towards her. More excitement on Iris's part,
but now in constrained, hushed tones. The burros were further spooked when Matt
backed the car up for a better view, and they gave up trying to see if Iris had
something (perhaps in the way of tasty food?) to offer. We saw a dozen more
about the rolling hills below the mouth of the canyon, probably drawn by the
available water of the Amargosa River and the modest grazing opportunities
nearby. We paused along West Side Rd to make an ascent of Cinder Hill, another
opportunity for Iris to get excited, this time for a reason even I could
appreciate. The summit of this small formation is 75ft below sea level,
the first time any of us had climbed such a "peak". There are five such named
points in CA, none of them with much prominence. Two are in Death Valley, the
others around the Salton Sea. It took but seven minutes to hike the short
distance to the top 
from the road, though not without its difficulties.
Small, loose cinder pebbles lie atop the harder undersurface, making it a
slippery affair. I commented to Matthew on the way up that this was probably the
most dangerous conditions of the day, only to find myself taking a hard tumble
on the descent. It would have been a good idea to wear gloves. We left
a register atop the 
broad summit in a small cairn Iris
constructed to hold it. I don't
expect it will last very long given the easy accessibility of the hill.
Virgin Spring Peak
With some daylight still remaining when we returned to our campsite along Badwater Rd, we headed south about five miles to tag another easy summit that appears in Purcell's Rambles & Scrambles, just off the road near the junction with SR178 (Jubilee Pass Rd).
This one was a bit harder, but
still only took 12min to reach 
the summit. The rock was primarily
limestone, making for a better scramble than the other peaks on the day, but
really too short to give it
a recommendation - mostly just some additional stat padding.
We returned to our campsite where we were treated to
a fine sunset on
the Black Mountains
to the east. We showered and prepared for dinner, waiting for the
others to return from Needle Peak. There were a few other vehicles on the lonely
West Side Rd that we mistook for them before they eventually turned up around
6p. They had easily finished up their hike in the daylight, but the long, long
drive out of Butte Valley meant it would be quite dark before they joined us.
We feasted on another excellent BBQ prepared by Matt with assistance from Nga,
who had brought all manner of vegetables for grilling. Afterwards, Laura had to
drive home to Bishop so we bade her goodbye, the rest of us taking up the hard
job of keeping the festivities going well into the evening...
Matt's Video
Continued...