This was a warm-up for the bigger adventure the next day, a chance to stretch our legs and enjoy some summits in my favorite Joshua Tree range, the Coxcomb Mtns. Afterwards we had a few extra hours so we paid a visit to the Granite Mtns near the SR177/SR62 junction outside the park.
Coxcomb Mtns
I was interested in a foursome of peaks in the middle of the range that Gordon MacLeod had visited back in the 1980s. They were located on a pair of joined ridgelines with an unnamed wash between them. We approached from the south off the aqueduct road, then using a little-used sandy road to get closer to the mouth of the wash that spills into Chuckwalla Valley. This would leave us with a 6.5mi hike with about 3,000ft of gain, an effort that would keep us busy for almost six and half hours.
We 
went north across Chuckwalla Valley starting around 7:50a, aiming for
the wash between our four summits. Much of this was fairly smooth until we
dropped into the main drainage where it begins to narrow. Rather than
jump on the left ridgeline immediately, we continued up the wash for about 1/3mi
to avoid some tediousness along the ridge south of Cox BM. We then
climbed out of the wash, some 1,200ft to 
gain the ridge, finding
the crumbling granite decent but not particularly enjoyable. Once
on the ridge, we had about 1/3mi north to Cox BM and began to enjoy the
route a good deal more - we had fine views overlooking the western side of
Joshua Tree NP and the traversing along the ridge was easier than the straight
ascent we'd just done. It took us almost two hours to reach
the first summit,
covering a little more than two miles. Our pace would be about the same for
the rest of the outing as we found the traverses between summits fairly slow.
Cox BM had the busiest register of the day, with four parties visiting before
Gordon's party 
in 1983. Smatko's party had arrived 
in 1979
(leaving a separate register), but there were earlier entries dating
to 1971. From the red nested can and sticker-laden jar, we guessed
correctly that Richard Carey had been the last visitor (
in 2013).
We spent an hour along 
the ridge, covering about 3/4mi to the second
summit, 
Peak 3,092ft. This was the highest of the day's peaks and the
most prominent. The register here was left by Smatko and party 
in 1979,
with entries by Gordon's party, 
John Vitz and an unusual party of
Alaskans. From Peak 3,092ft we turned southeast and south to make our way along
the connecting ridge to summit #3, 
Peak 2,635ft in a bit over
an hour. There was no Smatko register here, but Gordon had returned
in 1985 with Barbara in tow to leave one of
theirs. The Alaska party was the only one to sign it until our arrival. The
traverse to the last summit, Peak 2,500ft was the easiest, taking about 45min
with a bit faster travel than we'd had earlier. This summit presented us with
a small mystery. We knew that Gordon and party had been here in 1983 (the
day after they did the first two summits), but we could not find any register.
Looking south we spotted a slightly lower summit about 1/4mi further and
guessed maybe they had gone there? Sure enough, after reaching
Pt. 2,479ft we 
found the 
expected register. Ours was
only the second entry in the small register - nice!
We considered continuing south along the ridge though there were no more
summits, but decided it would be faster to 
drop southwest into the wash
and exit the way we started. This proved a very nice route with fairly good
granite rock in the center of 
the gully we descended, the best rock all
day. We agreed it would make a good ascent route if doing the loop in the
opposite direction. Back in 
Chuckwalla Valley, we paused to admire some
small 
yellow poppies and some 
leafy ocotillo. We were
back to the jeep by 2:10p with another two and a
half hours of daylight remaining.
Granite Shaft BM
We drove back out to SR177 where we picked up Scott's car before driving north to SR62. We continued east on SR62 for a few miles until we were almost due north of Granite Shaft BM, a minor summit at the north end of the Granite Mtns that we knew Barbara and Gordon had visited in 1983. Starting from near the highway, the 2mi one-way distance was more than I was hoping for, but the elevation gain was modest, less than 800ft. Most of the hike was fairly flat
across the desert floor, the main climbing coming with less than half
a mile to go to the summit. We went 
up one gully and
down an adjacent one, finding neither particularly exciting, but no
real difficulties. We found the expected 
benchmark but no sign of a
register. We 
left one of our own while taking in the colorful
late-afternoon lighting, the finest of the day. The
sun had set shortly before we 
got back to the jeep around
5:20p, time to call it a day.
Continued...