Continued...
My second day in the Bristol Mtns was a bit easier than the first, and
more enjoyable. I was really just playing around, tagging a handful of
unnamed summits. I've visited most of the P1Ks, P900s, range highpoints
and DPS summits in the California desert, so now I'm just looking for
anything with more than 300ft of prominence. The Bristol Mtns are quite
large and have dozens of such summits, so it wasn't hard to find a
collection. The main outing took most of the day, covering 4 summits in
the northeast part of the range. With a few hours of daylight remaininng
afterwards, I climbed another one further south in the range.
Peak 2,562ft/Peak 3,067ft/Peak 2,979ft/Peak 3,067ft
I started from the north end of dry Broadwell Lake, at the old
Broadwell townsite where I had spent the night. Once again I slept in
longer than planned, this time because it was 34F out and I didn't feel
like starting off at 6a. Instead, I got up at 6:30a and headed out half
an hour later. The tour of four peaks to the east of Broadwell would
cover 4 summits over almost nine miles, taking a bit under 6.5hrs. Unlike
the previous day which was a long hike up miles of wash, this one had far
more ups and downs with only short distances along the washes. The rock
was varnished volcanic, generally of decent quality, nothing harder than
class 3 and even that could be reduced to class 2 with more careful
route-finding. I enjoyed the rambling nature of the outing, taking 1-2hrs
between summits, nothing the fine weather and views. I found no registers
at any of the summits even though Gordon & Barbara had climbed both
Peak 3,061ft and Peak 3,067ft.
I left registers at the last three summits (the first one was lowest and
seemed a bit too easy). Peak 2,979ft was not found at the expected location
shown on LoJ (listed as Peak 2,972ft), but a short distance to the west
which I determined was 7ft higher. In a similar vein, the highpoint of
Peak 3,061ft was found southeast of the spot elevation shown on the map
and LoJ. In this case, however, it was evident that surveyors had measured
the highpoint, as there were the remains of a wooden tower with wires. I
think when the 7.5' map was created, they simply transposed the spot
elevation to the wrong point, about 400ft to the northwest. The outing had
some 3,600ft of elevation gain and I enjoyed almost every one of them.
Coronado BM
After returning to the jeep, I drove about 10mi south across Broadwell
Lake to a junction with a powerline road. I then drove another 8mi east
along this good road (sometimes sandy - 4WD recommended) to get me within
1.5mi of Coronado BM. I picked this one based on the knowledge that
Barbara & Gordon had climbed it - and who doesn't like finding one of their
registers? The hike was easier than I had anticipated, taking only about
an hour and a half,roundtrip.
Half of it was up a narrow, sandy wash, the other
half up volcanic slopes with settled rock and decent scrambling. The summit
has more than 600ft of prominence, found in the middle of the range where
the peaks are modest. I finished up well before 4p, giving me plenty of
time to shower before sunset and find a flat place to camp for the night.
Overall, a most enjoyable day...
Continued...