Continued...
Bob and I were up well before sunrise in order to get an early start driving
west from the CA/NV border on Interstate 15 to the Halloran Summit exit for the
first stop of the day.
Club Peak
This minor summit appears in Andy Zdon's
Desert Summit, a compilation
of
334 desert summits that Bob and I have both
been pursuing as a side project. The peak is one of several features in the
Cinder Cone Lava Beds west of Cima Dome in the Mojave National Preserve. The
drive is somewhat tedious, more than 11mi on fair roads that Bob's
high-clearance Liberty had little trouble with. We started from a point about
2.5mi east of the peak as described by Zdon. Our route was a fairly direct
line to the summit with the first two miles and then
directly up the that featured some
on volcanic rock. It took just over an hour to
reach . had left
earlier in the year, the old one having disappeared. We found a
nearby but
no benchmark. Bob suggested a variation on the descent that proved a little
easier technically but no faster than the ascent route. We
by 9a,
a little over two hours after starting out. My suggestion that we tag Button
Mtn while we were in the area was met with some disdain and I was unable to
provide a convincing argument why we should care. Bob still maintains some
standards while recognizing that I have almost none.
Silver Lake BM
This is the highpoint of the Hollow Hills Wilderness area found just northeast
of Baker along I-15. We followed
driving
directions out of Halloran Springs provided by Dan Baxter on Peakbagger.com,
though we didn't bother with the hiking description which seemed overly
complicated for my short attention span. With the summit less than two miles
away, we headed southwest across a low-gradient wash before
one of heading to the summit, at
first climbing west but eventually curving around to approach the highpoint
. It took just over an hour to reach
at the south end of the summit plateau where we found a
1980 . There were only about ten
parties signing in over the past 35yrs - a fairly obscure summit. Most of the
names were familiar, including by Andy Smakto & party
(who couldn't help mentioning he and Bill Schuler had climbed it before
MacLeod), the usual , the ubiquitous
and of course Dan Baxter. For the
descent I talked Bob into a looping route along another ridgeline to the south,
or thought I had, but somehow this devolved into dropping
between the two ridge routes, which also worked just fine. Part of this was
along a nice, that took us out to the broader wash that we
to where we'd . We were done
by 12:30p and back out to
Holloran Springs sometime after 1p. Bob decided to head home while I still had
a few more days, so we parted company while I looked for something to do with
the rest of the afternoon.
Pinto Mountain
Another Zdon summit, this one lies in the Mid Hills near the center of the
Mojave NP, roughly between the Providence Mtns to the southwest and the New
York Mtns to the northeast. The dirt Cedar Canyon Rd that accesses the area and
passes to the south of Pinto Mtn is excellent, suitable for any vehicle at
reasonable speeds (up to 40mph). While Zdon's hiking directions are adequate
and will get one to the summit, it is not the shortest route. I started about
4/5mi east of Zdon's start, making for a 2.7mi effort to Zdon's 4.5 miles.
A and are found where I parked. The
summit is not quite in view to the northeast, hidden behind a cliff band in the
foreground hills. The cliff band may have been why Zdon chose his route, but it
is easy class 3 to get through the lowest point of the band, the only difficulty
of any sort on the route. Once band the route
becomes much more mundane, an up to a very flattish summit
that is so large that good are hard to come by. A
near
helped in locating the register. A fire had swept through the area sometime
before 2008, burning the old register and pretty much everything growing in the
area. The trees have not recovered but desert scrub and other plants are
regenerating slowly. and
were among the recognizable names found in the new register comprising eight
pages.
Bobcat Hills
After returning to the van I continued east on Cedar Canyon Rd to Ivanpah Rd
heading south. I was on my way to Hackberry Mtn, a P1K, but was short on time
when I got to the area after 4p. On a whim I decided to spend the last half
hour of sunlight tackling the easy highpoint of the found
just east of the road. Though I tried to reach the summit before
, I missed by about 5min. The held a
left by Richard Carey and Mark Adrian. Better, the only
other entry was , a solo effort by Barbara
Lilley (sans MacLeod) - it's a rare day when I get to sign into a register after
Barbara. I got back to the van before 5p without needing a headlamp and then
drove a few more miles on a spur road west of Lanfair Rd to an informal camp
site where I spent the night at the base of Hackberry Mtn. A full day to be
sure...
Continued...