Wed, Dec 10, 2008
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Etymology Bare Mountain Pacifico Mountain Mt. Hillyer Mt. Mooney Vetter Mountain Mt. Gleason Cole Point Mt. Emma Old Mt. Emma |
Story | Photos / Slideshow | Maps: 1 2 3 4 | Profiles: 1 2 3 4 5 6 |
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Peak 5,420ft later climbed Wed, Apr 4, 2018 |
By the third day of my romp around the Angeles Crest I was down to less
than a dozen HPS peaks remaining in the area. Most of them were short,
easy excursion, but a few entailed a good deal of hiking. The road to
Pacifico from the west was closed for the season, but in looking over
things the night before I had 'found' an eastern approach to Pacifico that
could also be used to reach Bare Mtn, the most remote of the remaining
peaks. Unfortunately the paved road along the Santa Clara Divide to reach
the trailhead was closed about a mile from SR2. This would add a few hours
hiking that I wouldn't have to do if the road was open, but it seemed a
small price to pay. I spent the night parked at the
locked gate just
outside Camp Christian, one of several private camps along the road. I was
up at 4a for an early start, and after dressing and breakfasting I was on
my way at 4:30a. Another cold day was on tap with a reading of 38F as I
left the van in the dark.
It took just about an hour to hike down the road by headlamp, reaching
the junction
with the PCT shortly before the end of the road. I headed
west on the PCT per the HPS directions, but had some trouble locating
the use trail purported to be an eighth of a mile along the PCT. In fact I
continued for perhaps a half mile along the PCT until I was sure I had
missed the shallow saddle indicated in the guide, then backtracked,
eventually finding a
helpful duck
some 40-50 feet off the trail. This led
across a shallow gully before climbing the slope of the opposite hillside,
all along guided by some key ducks, some of the more helpful ones I found
all week.
It was still before sunrise when I crested the ridge, marked by a pole
with a triangular metal marker.
It rapidly grew lighter out and I was able
to forgo the headlamp, following my way along an old firebreak that runs
north to the summit of Bare Mtn. Sunlight touched the tip of
the summit
when I was less than ten minutes away, my hope of reaching the top before
daybreak not quite met. There was the familiar red can
register
at the
summit though it was not particularly old, going back only a few years. It
was still quite cold, probably below 40F, and I did not stay long enough
at the top to cool down. I took pictures of nearby
Pacifico and
Hillyer, then made my way back down.
I descended via the HPS route #1 which is said to go through a closed area
for the endangered yellow-legged frog. I saw no frogs, nor water, nor even
damp earth that might be friendly to frogs, but I did find a huge area in
Pinyon Flats at the base of the mountain that had been used for some time
in the past for shooting practice.
More of a dump than prime habitat, from
the looks of things. Back on the pavement I stopped to take a picture of
the sign
for Sulphur Springs. It was reported in the HPS guide that this
had been mispelled "Sulpher Springs" by the Forest Service, but it has
since been corrected.
Rather than return to Alder Spring and take the road up to Pacifico from
there, I found my way back to the PCT and decided to use that route to get
me up half the mountain. The PCT is hardly a direct route, winding in and
out of several side canyons as it makes its way up towards Pacifico, but
the grade was pleasant enough. I followed the PCT to an elevation of
nearly 6,000ft where it joins a saddle
on Pacifico's SE Ridge. I left the
PCT here, finding and following a ducked use trail that climbs steeply up
the SE Ridge along what used to be an old firebreak or Jeep trail (as
shown on the 7.5' topo).
It took 45min from the saddle to reach the summit of Pacifico. The
Upper Pacifico CG crowns the summit,
offering an amazing view in almost all
directions. The campground was closed for the season and I was the only
one to enjoy the fine views this morning. The highest point is among some
summit rocks found on the
south side
of the campground. The highest rock
is class 3, most easily surmounted on the NE side (that's a bit of an
understatement since the other sides look darn near impossible). A hole
had been drilled in
the top
and a steel pipe cemented into it, to what
purpose was not clear. A second, identical pole was affixed to another
lower rock nearby. Normally adverse to litter, I was humored by the
Pacifico bottlecap
I found near the base of the summit. I placed this atop
the summit rock, leaving it for the amusement of future visitors. Look
around as I might, I was unable to located any semblence of a register,
not that it would stand much chance of survival with the adjacent
camground. Forest
cover at the summit
blocks views
from that location, but after descending
the top I walked around the campground to take pictures off to the
west and
north.
I descended Pacifico via the same route along the old Jeep trail. Once back
at the saddle I found my way down the south side almost 200ft to the
Pacifico Mtn Road. Though well-graded, there was plenty of rock and other
debris that had fallen upon the road since it was last cleared. It was
hardly surprising that the road is closed for the season. I followed the
road down to Alder Saddle
where it met up with the paved road I had
descended in the early morning. I hiked back up the road for fifteen
minutes or so where I came upon Rosenita Saddle (the spelling on
this sign could use some correction),
the trailhead for
Mt. Hillyer.
Hillyer looks to make a nice mountain bike ride, evidenced by the numerous
tracks leading up to its summit, but as a summit it is one of the weakest,
even for the HPS list. It takes less than twenty minutes to reach the
top, then another twenty minutes looking around for the highpoint. There
are half a dozen candidates, none of
them
quite satisfactory as the
highpoint, none of them offering much in the way of
views
through the
forest cover. I did not manage to find the summit register as indicated in
the HPS guide, but by then I was not really caring if I did or not.
Sometimes they are more trouble than they are worth to maintain on busy,
easy-to-reach summits.
It was 11:45a when I returned to the van at Camp Christian. Now it was time
for the bevy of easy peaks.
First up was Mt. Mooney, another peak that could be excised from the list
without significant loss. It took fifteen minutes to reach
the summit and
nine minutes to return. The rounded summit was covered in trees with no
views to be had save to
the west, a so-so view to Vetter Mtn.
Second on
the list was Vetter Mtn only a hundred yards south on SR2 from the Mt.
Mooney TH. The road into Vetter Mtn was
closed for the season, so it was
necessary to hike several miles along the paved road. No big deal since
the whole outing still took only an hour.
The lookout atop Vetter was in
excellent condition though of course it was also closed up for the season.
The deck around the outside offered fine views, from Pacifico in
the north to Mt. Baldy to
the east, Santiago far to
the south, and into Ventura County to
the west.
After retracing my route, the easiest peak of the week
was next on tap, Mt. Sally. While I appreciate the
good views to be had,
the popularity of the peak seems to have spoiled it. I found discarded
McDonald's trays near the ample
parking area,
used for sledding devices the previous
winter. Lots of toilet paper and beer cans could be found alongside the
use trail leading to the summit, and the crowning
piece d' art was the
disposable diaper lovingly tossed into a yucca plant. Car to car was only
15 minutes for the peak. This one should be struck from the list as well.
The last of the four easy ones to be climbed in the area was Barely Flat, but as for the others I found the gate locked at the highway. I decided not to hike the 2.5mi up the road for another ho-hum summit and left it for another day.
Driving north on the Angeles Forest Hwy, I headed for Mill Creek Summit
and the remaining three peaks in the Pacifico area. To my surprise I found
the road to Mt. Gleason open, and I quickly debated the merits of doing
this drive-up with the remaining daylight I had. It was almost 2p and
would certainly burn up at least half of the remaining day. I decided
to do it while I could, even at the expense of covering the last peaks in
the dark. The 9mi drive along the winding road took more than half an
hour, with another half hour used in hiking the short distance to the
summit from the parking spot. The views out to the west were truly
sublime and well worth the drive. The shining waters of the Pacific Ocean
were spread out for almost 100 degrees in that direction, with at least
four islands off the coast visible as well. A array of
seismic sensors crowned the summit, a
nice placard
explaining their purpose and hopefully
discouraging vandalism. The oddest thing I noted near the summit was a
bright copper
cowbell
affixed to a post alongside the road. I rang it a
few times for grins, but could assign no purpose to its existence
there.
It was 3:30p by the time I had descended the road to Mill Creek Summit
and driven a few more miles to the trailhead
for Cole Point. The TH was a
large clearing off the side of the highway, just past a shallow saddle
in the road. With less than an hour of sunlight remaining I needed to make
swift work of this peak to get back without headlamp. Though there is no
maintained trail to the summit, the use trail is quite good with the
exception of finding the start just off the highway. Once the initial
discovery was made, it was a straightforward
ridge climb
some 1,600ft to
the summit. I made good time, taking just fifty minutes to reach the top
by 4:20p. The sun was only minutes from
setting behind Mt. Gleason to the
west. I quickly signed into
the register, snapped a few
pictures, and returned back down the use trail.
It was 5p when I got back to the van,
having used up just about all the available
daylight. There were still two peaks to be covered, Emma and Old Emma, not
far from where I was. I managed to drive the three miles to the
next trailhead,
finding the use trail off the side of the road just before
things got too dark. These last two peaks were actually the most enjoyable
ones of the whole day. The waxing moon was already high in the eastern
sky and would provide ample light for the landscape. A fire had raged
across these hills some time in the recent past, burning the few trees that
grew here. While this might make for a stark landscape by day,
at night it
was a wide open view with the many lights of Lancaster and Palmdale easily
visible in the desert below to the north. The moon was more than ample
light to navigate by and I left my leadlamp off for the most part.
It took about half an hour to climb to Mt. Emma, the higher of the two
peaks. A register
was tucked in a small cairn at the flat summit. The next
segment was a long walk along the undulating ridgeline to Old Mt. Emma,
taking nearly an hour to complete. I was bundled up against the night chill
and the cold wind that blew in over the ridgeline. I stopped on the leeward
side of the ridge when I was halfway across to place a call to my wife at
home to check in and let her know I was OK. It was rather idyllic and I
could have sat and chatted for hours while I watched the twinkling lights
of the city below. Of course I probably would have cooled off considerably
and started shivering, but the call lasted only a few minutes and I
continued on. It was nearly 6:30p by the time I reached Old Emma. After
signing the summit register in the rather
large cairn
found there, I
followed a motorcycle track off the northeast and north sides of the
mountain back down to the road below. I still had another 40 minutes to
hike back up the highway to my van. I had planned to hitch a ride if
possible, but there were no cars heading my direction though plenty in the
opposite direction. Seems this quiet little road is an alternative
commuter route from the LA Basin to the Mojave area.
It was 7:15p by the time I got back to the car. I briefly considered driving back up to Angeles Crest to finish off Barley Flat, but low on gas and ambition I quickly dismissed it. Instead I made a sandwich from the cooler and drove north into Palmdale/Lancaster. I was headed for the Frazier Park area and figured the route from Lancaster to I-5 on SR138 would be the quickest. I came to find there is no gas open along SR138 between Lancaster and Gorman, and it was with a bit or worry that I was finally relieved to be able to refuel in Gorman. I discovered the Travel J truckers' stop at the Frazier Park exit where I got a shower for $8.50 (perhaps the most I've ever paid for one, but still worth it). I marveled at the other ammenities available there, including phone, internet, a laundromat, a lounge room with big screen TV, and a buffet. I felt rather out of place among the 250lb+ truckers that wandered among the halls and rooms of the place. Before I could be called out on my non-membership to that elite club I beat a retreat back to the van. I drove another 12mi or so to the Pine Mtn Club nestled between Mt. Pinos and the San Emigdio Mtns, directly on the San Andreas Fault. Earthquakes would not disturb my well-deserved slumber tonight...
Based on comments below, it is clear I climbed Peak 5,420ft instead and still need to climb Mt. Sally - rats!
Continued...
For more information see these SummitPost pages: Bare Mountain - Pacifico Mountain - Mt. Hillyer - Mt. Mooney - Vetter Mountain - Mt. Gleason - Cole Point - Mt. Emma - Old Mt. Emma
This page last updated: Wed Apr 11 09:50:37 2018
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