I'd finally gotten the Jeep put back together, replacing the main battery,
three wheel lugs, and getting the swaybar bushing bracket re-welded. It
was time to give it a road test, so I headed to Death Valley for a long
weekend, meeting up with Matthew who'd driven out the day before. Getting
up at 6a, I was in Ridgecrest by 12:30p and at the Homewood Canyon turnoff
north of Trona an hour later. Matthew had spent the morning doing about
8mi and four summits in the Slate Range, and was waiting about half an
hour before I arrived. The bigger day would be Saturday when we planned
to drive up Goler Wash, but today was just picking up some scraps in the
area that I'd neglected on previous visits.
I very much enjoyed the drive out from San Jose, with the hills and
mountains a vivid green from the record rains the state has received.
The San Luis Reservoir off SR152 was as full as I've ever seen it -
just 4-5ft below it's maximum capacity. I drove SR178 through Lake
Isabella instead of SR58 through Tehachapi so I could marvel at the
sights - steep, grass-covered canyon walls, flowers just starting to
make an appearance, the Kern River rushing with brown, churning waters,
the lake at capacity for the first time in years. Snow clung to the
mountains above the 6,000-foot level, and above about 8,000ft all was
white. Simply gorgeous.
Great Falls Basin Wilderness HP
This was one of the newer Wildernesses in California, found on the east
side of the Argus Range, and on the smallish side, as Wildernesses go.
Still, the area is a complex arrangement of granite rocks and gullies,
much like the Alabama Hills. If it was closer to civilization, it probably
would have developed climbing and bouldering routes. lies
at the north end of the Wilderness, easily accessed from paved Homewood
Canyon Rd and some BLM dirt roads. We were able to drive the Jeep to
within half a mile of the summit on it's . The
steep slope we ascended has been traveled by burros extensively, so no
need for any bushwhacking, just follow any of the footprints up the
slope. It took us less than 20min to reach . Craig Barlow
and Chris Kerth had both beaten us to this one, but we found no register
that we thought they might have left. We visited the slightly lower
(GPS showed it 6-7ft lower) because it looked pretty close. No
register there, either, so we went back to the highpoint and on
the highest rock for future visitors. Snow-dusted towers
above the highpoint a few miles off to the southwest.
Peak 3,523ft
We drove about halfway back down Homewood Canyon and turned off on a side road
that would get us close to this peak. where the pavement ends
declares the continuing road to be a Private Road - No Trespassing. I didn't
believe this and drove on it anyway. It goes by two of the homesteaders in the
canyon and continues to defunct Mohawk Mine shown on the topo map. There's even
just past the last homestead. A few bushes had been
uprooted and placed across the road to discourage use, but we moved these aside
and drove on. We parked off the road only a quarter mile from the summit on its
. An easy hike up the got us to
in ten minutes. Nice views of Searles Valley to
, Homewood Canyon to , and Telescope Peak
in the Panamints to . Found no register, left none.
Quarry BM - Peak 3,780ft
These two are found at the north end of the Slate Range on the east side of the
highway. A (in fact, very recently graded) leads to
the summit of Quarry BM in about 5mi. I had been to the summit once before, but
since Matthew had not, we paid it a visit. About a 30yd walk from where
to the highpoint and the . Spectacular
views of to the east and north, as well as
Searles Valley to and the Argus Range to the west. A few
are nearby, and the reason for the good road. We
then drove to the
at the south end of Quarry BM for the 3/4mi
hike to , a minor summit to the south with a high saddle
between them. The is fairly tame, but as we came
to find out, there's that goes for several miles along the
crest of the range heading south. We discovered this as we were making our way
along the rocky ridgeline - we would use on the way back. At
, the trail veers south while our route goes about a quarter
mile upslope to of Peak 3,780ft on the west side of the
crest. Another neat little summit, but views not as far-reaching as on
. We back at the Jeep just after 5pm and
decided to call it a
day. We opened some cold beers and drove back down to Matthew's car at
the highway. We'd spend the next hour driving down to Panamint Valley,
Ballarat, and south towards Goler Wash to set up camp before it got
dark. More fun tomorrow...
Continued...