Nov 14, 2019
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| With: | Tom Grundy |
I was heading to Joshua Tree NP for Iris' birthday weekend, starting a few days early as I often do. Tom Grundy was coming down from Bishop a little early too, so we made plans to get together on Friday. It occurred to me that there was a climbing objective near Landers that I was interested in, so I sent a few links about Giant Rock to Tom and asked if maybe he'd like to do it on Thursday. He was sufficiently enticed and we made plans to convene at Giant Rock around noon. In the meantime, I found a handful of other summits between Apple Valley and Landers that would keep me busy for the morning.
Lucerne and 
Johnson Valleys, a miniature version of the Coxcomb
Mtns in Joshua Tree NP. As such, it makes for some 
fun scrambling
opportunities. I had spent the night camped at 
the base of the
formations. Though less than half a mile distance to the highpoint, it took me
half an hour to make my way to 
the top with plenty of class 3, albeit
fairly easy. Mark Adrian had left 
a register at the summit near
the benchmark back in March. I doubt it will last very long as
the place seems to be a party hangout for desert locals. On my way back,
I found 
a small cave with a firepit and three busted coolers outside,
graffiti elsewhere.
Old Woman BM is the highest of some low hills on the west side of
the road. I parked on Bessemer Mine Rd and scrambled up the east side. Not as
interesting as Cougar Buttes, the rock quality here is more mundane. It took
about 20min to climb the rock jumble to the top where I found
the benchmark and 
a register from 2012. It had no pencil and
I wasn't carrying my pack, so I had to put the register back without adding my
own entry.
rounded summit is aptly, though not imaginatively, named. It
has a good view to 
the south of the mine and the next two peaks, but
otherwise unexceptional.
a deep trench had been eroded by water. I hiked up
through the mine, first visiting the lower 
eastern summit.
The two summits were spared the harsher flaying inflicted by the bulldozers
lower down, but they had been visited by mining equipment with crude roads cut
to both summits. I used some of these roads to traverse to
the western summit before descending 
back down
through the mine on my way back. I took a small detour to check out some of
the old mine buildings I had missed on the way up. 
The buildings were
made of stone and concrete, 
only one still sporting a roof. I spent
about an hour and a half on this loop.
a short climb taking less than 10min. I drove a dirt road to
the southwest side
of the hill, passing by a few forlorn-looking homesteads, the last
appearing abandoned. The rock is more like Cougar Buttes, so it made for some
fun, easy scrambling.
the west side of 
the summit from where it can be climbed
in five minutes.
the Integratron. It is linked to Giant Rock through the eccentric
characters of Frank Critzer and George Van Tassel, who lived in the area and
brought some development for a period of over 20yrs into the 1950s. Much about
these things
can be found on the internet and makes for enjoyable reading. I had been to
Giant Rock on a previous trip in 2016, knowing nothing of the unusual history or
of Giant Rock. The feature is said to be the largest free-standing boulder in
the world at 110ft in height, but this is surely based on conjecture rather than
fact. In addition to once being Critzer's home (he dug out a 400sq-foot space
under the rock to live in, since filled in), Giant Rock has been a religious
site to the American natives for many generations and in more recent times to
a generation of young rock climbing and bouldering enthusiasts. With no easy
way up, there are many old bolts on various faces and installed climbing holds
on the overhung northwest side. Even with these, there are no free-climbing
routes on any side that would go at 5.9 or less. Drinking and partying seem to
have naturally integrated with the climbing, leaving much graffiti and broken
glass throughout the area. There have been various efforts to clean up both,
but it is far from a Wilderness climbing experience.
I met Tom at the base of 
the rock just before 1:30p. He had arrived
shortly before me and was out 
examining the various aspects of the
rock. After some discussion to which I quickly deferred to his more seasoned
judgement, we settled on a series of three old 
bolted chainlinks on the
vertical west side. In conjunction with some solid aid-climbing skills, Tom was
in possession of 
a clip stick that would allow us to climb the bolts
with no free climbing until we got to the third one where the angle rolls off to
something more manageable. It took about 15min for Tom to casually collect the
needed gear from 
the back of his truck and arrange it at
the base of the rock, then another 15min to 
aid his way up the
bolt ladder. The stick was used to put a carabiner through
the first chainlink, while 
aider steps and a rope were
attached to the carabiner. Once attached, we hung and bounced our combined
weights on the setup to ensure that the old bolt could at least be modestly
trusted. 
Tom climbed the aider steps while I belayed from below. I'm
pretty sure I would have taken about an hour to go up what Tom did so smoothly
in just a quarter of that time. Once at 
the last bolt, he gingerly
weighted onto the rock and climbed the class 3-4 slab to 
the top in a
few minutes' time. Tom then tied off the rope to a large steel spike embedded in
the summit to allow me to prussik up in turn. After snapping a few photos of Tom
from a distance, I stepped into my prussiks and started up. I cleaned
the gear Tom had left behind as I inched my way up, 
joining him at the
top in another ten minutes. We took a few summit shots with our phones before
rapping off the overhanging northwest side, about half of which was
a free rappel. We spent about two hours in total at Giant
Rock, during which time about 3-4 cars had come by, folks would get, pictures
taken, and then they would leave just as readily. It seems to get mention on
enough desert touring guides to provide a regular trickle of traffic throughout
the non-summer months.
The hike to 
the summit took less
than twenty minutes
with some scrambling and minor bushwhacking. There was an old survey pole, now
fallen, at the summit, but no register. On our way back we were treated to a
very 
fine sunset with thin clouds covering much of 
the sky
that lighted up in 
various shades of yellow, orange, pink and purple.
A very nice way to 
end the day.
By the time we got back to Tom's truck it was quite dark. We made plans to reconvene an hour or so later near Joshua Tree and I happily went off to take my shower in the same location while Tom started to drive off. I had all my clothes off and was ready to pour water over my head when Tom walked back and explained that he'd gotten a note on his car that we were on private property (though there were no signs to that effect). I kinda shrugged it off and figured I could just finish my shower before leaving, but Tom pointed out that there was a lady in a car next to his that had asked him to inform his friend. I would have to go somewhere else to get a peaceful shower. It was also my first time driving a car naked. Not altogether unpleasant, it was a rather "freeing" experience...
Continued...
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