With my wife out of town, there seemed little reason to hang around home for
the weekend. I didn't really come up with a plan until Friday night, so I got
up at 2:30a to make the long drive north to Mendocino County for a
CC-listed
summit. This allowed me to drive through San Francisco with the absolute
minimal traffic, which was nice compensation for the loss of sleep.
Impassable Rocks
This summit is located on private property in the Coast Ranges west of US101,
between Ukiah and Willits. The best way to reach this and nearby Williams
Peak is to book one of the cabins at Leonard Lake Preserve. This allows one
access to the route first used by Sean Casserly and Daryn Dodge back in
December of last year. There is a locked some miles down the
access road (Reeves Rd) that makes it impractical otherwise. I had joined Sean
and Daryn for the climb of Williams Peak earlier in the month, so I was back on
my own for Impassable Rocks. I used their GPX track for the most part, the first
half of the route matching the route we used to Williams Peak. The route starts
down an old that has been partially cleared for foot
traffic. It descends the drainage down to
at its junction with Big Creek. Here the route
turns north as it slowly makes its way up the Big Creek drainage, following
other old logging roads in various stages of being or
abandoned altogether. The route then turns northeast at a creek junction,
leaving the better roads for worse ones, hard to follow and eventually
.
Though quite a steep ascent, the forest understory is fairly
clear to allow decent cross-country travel. There is some poison oak found at
various places but mostly easy to avoid. There were no leaves on the branches
at this time of year, making it a little tricky to figure out what was poison
oak (I simply avoid any live, light-brown branches and vines found) Most of the
forest in the lower reaches is composed of ,
turning to oaks and in the warmer and drier upper elevations.
One doesn't actually get to until within a few minutes
of it, thanks to heavy forest cover. It took me about 3.5hrs to reach
, open to fine views in . Williams
Peak stands out conspicuously to , and the slightly higher
Irene Peaks to . The latter has more than 900ft
of prominence and high on my interest list, but the 1.7mi distance (as the crow
flies) dissuaded me from trying it with Impassable Rocks. Daryn had left
at the summit and it was no surprise that mine was only the second
entry - not an easy peak to get to, and the list of peakbaggers interested in
going through the trouble to get here is short. My return proved no faster,
taking about the same time - guess I was a bit tired on that last climb back
up the Rice Creek drainage. Still, not so tired that I was ready to call it a
day.
Chamberlain Ridge
Mendocino Redwood Company (MRC) is the logging concern that owns a portion
of Three Chop Rd that I used to access the summit. Their asset manager, Jerry
Kuhry, contacted me in Sept 2020 and asked that I make this addendum. They are
more than happy to have people responsibly access their property, but would
like folks to ask permission so they can coordinate with logging operations
that might create hazards. MRC can be reached at 707-463-5110
I had another three hours or so of daylight, so I headed to Jackson State
Forest off SR20 west of Willits. I intended to climb the forest highpoint but
failed to identify the correct point. Chamberlain Ridge is the second
highest summit, and to add a little insult, it's also the second most
prominent - so I got neither the highpoint nor the prominence point. Oh well.
There is a decent dirt road that can be accessed off the north side of SR20
about 9mi west of Willits. The road drops to James Creek before starting a
slow climb to Three Chop Ridge. I tried various forks to access Chamberlain
Ridge more directly, but the roads were either too overgrown or gated, or
both. The road I followed ended abruptly just before the ridge at
. At this point I was about 1.5mi from the summit, so I
just hoofed it on foot. There is a very along Three
Chop Ridge, but I don't know if it can be accessed by the public in vehicles.
I walked to the the junction of Three Chop and Chamberlain
Ridges, then followed a back inside the state forest
to a point just a few hundred feet below the summit. Easy
leads to the with no
views. Can't say there's much to recommend this one other than 500ft+ of
prominence, if that matters to you.