Sat, Dec 12, 2015
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With: | Karl Fieberling |
Tom Becht | |
Patrick O'Neill | |
Laura Molnar |
The easternmost point of California is found at Parker Dam on the Colorado River. The dam hold back the waters of the 30mi-long Lake Havasu, whose shores are home to thousands of retirees, snowbirds, native americans and desert folk of a hundred flavors. Most of the larger developments are on the Arizona side, but one finds RV parks, campgrounds, small towns and other developed sites on both sides. The Colorado River Aqueduct has its inlet at Lake Havasu where the waters are pumped almost 600ft up into the Whipple Mountains to a pair of reservoirs before starting their long journey westward to the Los Angeles Basin. The Whipple Mountains rise to over 4,000ft, their highpoint a P2K and DPS summit. Though considered part of the same range, the eastern part is geologically a very different animal, a tightly packed volcanic region that has half a dozen summits with more than 900ft of prominence - the densest concentration of such summits anywhere in the state. There is almost no mention of anything in this area in the online archives. Our plan was to climb all of these in two days, a feat that proved too aggressive by the end of the weekend, but it was a great success nonetheless. The scrambling proved to be superb with tricky route-finding on most of the peaks we attempted. Having missed out on a few of them only provides a good reason to return again in the future.
Five of us drove in two vehicles up Bowman Wash for 7.5mi until we were a mile
WNW of our summit at the site of the old Bowmans Dam.
Any high clearance vehicle
should be able to make the drive up Bowman Wash into Copper Basin (we had Tom's
Jeep and Karl's Element). There is sand, but not too deep.
The drive is interesting and one can't help but
notice all the castellated summits on either side of the wash. We were struck
by all the scrambling possibilities this area affords even before we had gotten
out of
our vehicles. Noting the cliffs ringing the upper half of our
summit, we struck off
to the southeast with the intent to climb it
from the southwest side where we could only hope to find breaks in the cliffs.
My companions were
less optimistic than myself but happily tagged along on what might be termed
an "exploratory mission" or "fool's errand", depending on your perspective.
Upon rounding
the western edge of the peak we traversed into a basin
on the
southwest side where the cliffs opened to possibilities, but
not entirely good
ones. An hour after starting out we encountered what we guessed would be the
first of several difficulties. While waiting for the last two of our party to
join us at the base of the cliff band, I went up to see if the route would work.
It did, but with a
30' section of class 3-4 that I knew some of the
others wouldn't appreciate. The rock was solid enough but the problem was the
exposure
for a short stretch where falling would not end well. I traversed a bit further
along the route but could not ascertain an end to difficulties nor find an
impasse that would require a retreat. I went back to report my findings without
reversing the class 3-4 section.
While waiting thusly, I heard Laura scream just out of sight in the vicinity
of where Tom, Patrick and Karl were waiting. Seems she slipped on the steep,
loose embankment leading to where the others were waiting. She didn't fall far,
but hit the ground rather hard, causing a good deal of bruising with the
expected scrapes and cuts such mishaps tend to accrue. Laughs mixed with the
shouting that ensued, leading me to understand it wasn't all that serious (her
Facebook photos days later of her bruises would garner far more sympathy than
we were willing to provide at the time). After this bit of excitement settled,
the other four showed little appetite for following me. I knew Tom was certainly
capable of following and probably would have were we alone, but instead he and
Patrick went off to explore another possible route
to the west up a steep ramp.
Recognizing that no one was going to follow anytime soon, I simply continued
up. To some surprise, I found that the remaining route to the top was no more
than class 3. Some meandering was required to keep it to this, but the
route-finding was not overly difficult. The biggest obstacle was the abundance
of cholla that permeates the
upper slopes and
summit plateau. With none of the
stuff found lower about the desert floor, it was a surprise to see it grow so
abundantly here.
I reached the summit by 9:20a, finding a pair of old registers dating back
to 1973. The seven pages of the first register told of a flurry of
activity between 1971-75 by various DPS parties. The DPS archives have several
short TRs from this time period, including
a 1971 report by
Andy Smatko and
a 1973 one by
Bill Banks. Barbara Lilley and Bill Sanders left a second register
in 1977 with
only a handful of ascents recorded since then, the peak having quickly lost its
short-lived popularity. Only four parties had visited since 1977 with the last
entry
in 2007. The view from the top was nice, particularly
looking east over the blue waters of Copper Basin Reservoir
contrasting sharply with the dark brown tones of the surrounding desert.
I decided to drop west from the summit, exploring the possibility of
another route off the mountain. This took me down over
class 2 terrain
(and plenty of more cholla) to the top of the route Tom and Patrick had
explored. Unfortunately
the top 70-100ft were too vertical to make a go of it and I could neither climb
down that way nor had the others been able to find a way up. My backup plan took
me across on a descending traverse to the east to connect with my ascent route
just above the crux. I reversed those moves, dropping into the basin below,
before returning via the route we had taken in. The others were nowhere to be
seen, but I found them milling about the cars when I got back not long before
11a.
It turns out there's an easier way to reach the summit as described by Bill
Banks in his DPS TR.
The class 2 route can be seen in the center of this photo as a
diagonal ramp rising left to right up the northwest side to the angled summit
plateau. It's a much shorter route as well.
On our way around to the east side and the canyon, I spied an interesting ramp
that seemed to offer a way up through the cliffs on the southeast side. Tom
saw me looking up and easily guessed what had caught my attention. We
discussed it briefly before I decided to give it a go. It wasn't clear that the
bottom part was even accessible, but the Plan B wasn't bad - I'd simply have to
skirt the base of the cliffs counterclockwise around the peak until I got to
the canyon, maybe a 20min delay. It seemed worth a try to find a more
interesting route up. Tom seemed to agree and began following.
Meanwhile, Karl
and Patrick were 100yds ahead, just about to go over a low ridge out of view.
They noted Tom and I heading off in a different direction and soon figured out
the game. Karl wanted none of it and continued towards the canyon route, but
Patrick decided to come join us. We could see him start off at a jog, but he
had to give this up quickly as the slopes steepened. Leaving Patrick to play
catch-up, Tom and I continued up over steep class 2 terrain to the base of
the narrow ramp.
The bottom section was worse than it had appeared from below and
I initially lost much confidence. But standing at the base I noticed a small
pile of rocks that had been placed by a previous party to initiate
the crux move onto the ramp. I spotted Tom from below as he
went up without his pack, a short struggle before mantling his way onto the
start of the ramp. Tom went about 30ft
higher to ascertain
that bigger difficulties did not appear ahead. Patrick soon caught up with us
but was less than enthusiastic about joining us. I offered to spot him as well
before going last myself, but he declined. I then tossed the two packs up to
Tom and asked Patrick to spot me from below while I went up. A short rope would
have made this easy for Patrick to join us, but he
decided to return
via the Plan B around the base of the cliffs.
The ramp was an enjoyable class 3 scramble (after the class 4-5 start) on good
rock that ended all too quickly, eventually devolving into a standard desert
gully ascent up talus with mild brush. Less than 15min after leaving Patrick
we were atop the summit. The MacLeod register we found here dated
to 1988 with only a handful of parties since, including
Vitz and Bob Greer. Sitting on the leeward side of the summit out of
what had developed to be a cold, stiff breeze, we
took a short break to eat a snack, peruse the register and take in the views.
Tom was expressing regrets on missing the first summit when we noticed the
route on the northwest side of Copper Mtn. It wasn't clear that it would go,
but it seemed worth a try (and later I found it does indeed offer the quickest
way up as described by Bill Banks).
After our rest we headed northwest over easy terrain, aiming for the top of
the canyon acending from the east side. We met up with Karl a few
minutes below the summit and then with
Patrick just as we were
dropping down into the canyon. He advised that the traversing Plan B route was
a good one with use trails making things easier, and would save us some
elevation loss in dropping to the bottom of the canyon. This was good advice
and made the return shorter than it otherwise would have been. The base of the
cliff on the north side is
riddled with caves that the burros have
made good use of. On hot summer days the vertical cliffs provide ample shade,
probably one of the coolest places the burros and sheep can find. The
vegetation is greener here and the route an
interesting one.
Comparing notes later with Karl who went up the canyon bottom, this was the
better choice. We returned to
the SE side, crossing over our ascent
route before
heading south on a more direct return to the vehicles.
We reached the summit by 3:10p,
finding no register or other signs of visitors.
During the ascent we had noted old mining roads on the west side of the
mountains and decided to use these for any easier descent. This turned out to
be the easy way up the mountain, no more than
class 2, and
considerably easier with the help of the
old road and the
spur branches leading to various prospect
sites. Down lower on the south side of the peak we found the remains of a
homestead that once occupied a spot above the wash here, some junk and an
old icebox littering the surroundings. It was 4p before we
returned to the Jeep with little remaining daylight.
Tom and I met the others on the AZ side of Parker Dam where we ate an enjoyable meal at the Paradise Bar & Grill. Afterwards, we drove back to the CA side where we parked off Trails End Camp Rd to spend the night near a little-used DWP airport near the aqueduct. Our sleep would not go undisturbed tonight...
Continued...
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