The start of the season's first desert road trip had me in the Marble Mountains. I had driven out the afternoon before, spending the night off Kelbaker Rd a few miles south of Interstate 40. In the morning I was up not-so-early (after sunrise) to drive some miles into the Marble Mtns. My goal was a handful of unnamed summits in the middle of the range, an 8mi, entirely class 2 effort that made for an enjoyable day. Finishing up with some daylight remaining, I drove west to the Bristol Mountains to climb a minor summit I had skipped on previous visits.

Marble Mountains

There isn't much to write that the GPX track won't give you. Though this part of the range looks like it could have some difficulties from afar, the entire route I followed was class 2 and fairly tame. While I enjoy a good class 3 scramble, I also appreciate easier days like this one. I found only one register on the day, atop Peak 3,251ft, the fourth summit I visited. It had the original small notepaper left by Smatko in 1977, along with a notepad left by MacLeod (no Lilley on this one) in 1982. No other entries. That was pretty cool. I left registers on Peak 3,343ft and Peak 3,356ft. There are some mine ruins around where I parked, including a cabin that I spied from afar but didn't visit. The road I drove in on was in decent shape. High-clearance recommended but 4WD probably not needed. I spent just over 7hrs on the outing.

Windy Point

This was a bonus peak at the end of the day. The summit had little prominence, mostly a point along a ridgeline dropping from higher summits to the west. It is located about 3/4mi from Kelbaker Rd. A spur road gets one a little closer on the southeast side. There is an old mine at the end of this spur on the side of the hill. I parked below the mine works and headed northwest across rocky wash material, then up steep, loose slopes to reach the summit in a little over half an hour. There is a point to the SE of the LoJ point that is higher and has more prominence which I at first thought was the summit. The LoJ point is even less interesting. The descent gully had some modestly fun scrambling in the upper 2/3, eventually getting me back to the Jeep before 4pm. That seemed like a good time to end the day. I took a shower before driving back to another part of the Marble Mtns where I planned to start my day the next morning...

Continued...

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