I was camped on the dirt road at the very southern end of Death Valley
National Park. Matt had driven in from SoCal to join me for the weekend
(and a Friday), arriving around 1a. Our goal today was Quail BM, a P1K and
the highpoint of the Quail Mountains. The range lies just outside the
southern boundary of the park, straddling the Army's Ft. Irwin reservation
to the south and a strip of BLM land to the north. With a distance of
about 5mi to the summit from our starting point, it was not expected to be
a long day by itself. We would find other objectives to keep us busy with
the remaining daylight and then some. Overcast skies made for a colorful
sunrise but it was all gray, all day, after that.
We parked along the park road NNE of the summit, starting just before
6:30a. The hiking is pretty tame the entire way to the summit, in fact it
was pretty tame all day - there wasn't anything that could be considered
scrambling and none of the slopes were particularly steep, either. Our
five mile route to the summit traveled through 
minor washes,
along ridges,
several times dropping off one of these to cross a small drainage. As
much as possible, we made use of the many 
burro trails
that criss-cross
the range. There is little vegetation in the area, particularly along
the ridgelines, but there were occasional 
joshua trees
growing along our
route that added some color and cheer to the duller shades of rock that
litter the slopes. When we got higher on the mountain, we could see the
snowy crest of the Sierra as far north as
Mt. Langley which happened to be
bathed in some sunlight when we spotted it. At a fairly leisurely pace, we
spent about 2.5hrs to reach 
the rounded summit,
found just outside the
Ft. Irwin boundary. A party of San Diego Sierra Clubbers had left a
register here
in 1995. They had taken a much shorter route, utilizing a
jeep road into the range that is no longer open to traffic. There were
five other pages of entries, ours making the second visit for 2018 - a busy
year.
It was not long after 9a and it was obvious to the both of us that doing
just this summit wasn't going to cut it. "We have options!" I declared,
surprising Matt not in the least. After reviewing several of these, we
decided to go with the adventurous route ESE to Peak 4,780ft at the other
end of the range and a P900, about 5 air miles away.
It was located squarely within the military
base, but I didn't expect there to be any service roads to cross and
little chance that we'd see anyone. Our route started off heading east
across the top of the range, dipping into and out of some shallow
drainages with dry lakes (more like dry ponds). After a mile or so, we
began descending 
one wash
heading east, then a second heading southeast
towards our peak. A little surprisingly, we found no fences and no signs
announcing our intrusion to Ft. Irwin.
The saddle between the two summits drops nearly a thousand feet,
but all of the descent was pretty gentle. We came out to a
wide, shallow gap at this saddle.
The topo map shows a couple of jeep trails crossing this gap,
but we saw no sign of these in crossing. We then began the long,
slow climb
up to Peak 4,780ft, still another 1.5mi away. About halfway up we
got a view looking into the valley south of the peak where we spied a
small practice village with an exercise that looked to be in progress. We
could see tanks or trucks staged a few miles to the west and a few
vehicles moving around to the east. Though we were two miles away and
unlikely to be seen, we decided to stay low on the north side of the ridges
to keep out of view. This entailed some mildly unpleasant
sidehilling, but
it seemed better than being spotted by a sharp pair of binoculars from
our army friends below. It was about 11:45a when we reached the summit,
topped by a modestly-sized army 
avionics antenna.
The summit was large and
rounded and there was no way to see the exercise area to the south, so
they certainly couldn't see us. We found no register (no surprise), but
built a tiny cairn at what looked like the highpoint near the antenna.
Matt took some videos of the commanding 
views
which were really quite grand, it was just too bad the sky was so gray.
After our short visit, we descended 
the north side
of the peak down to the 
small valley
below, then soon crossed back out of the reservation as
we began a series of minor ups and downs and made our way back across
the range. Our route heading northwest was roughly the direct line to our
vehicles, about six and half mile total. Again, the burro trails were a
big help as we crossed in and out of 
one drainage
after another. It wasn't
quite 2:30p when we returned to the park road and 
our vehicles.
Even
before Matt had reached his, I commented, "You know, you still have time
for Owl BM," as I pointed off to the northwest. He didn't hesitate at all,
saying, "Ok, give me a few minutes to hydrate." He knew I had been to this
P1K previously and was surprised I might be interested. I wasn't really
interested, I explained, I just thought he might want to get it
while we were here. "What are you gonna do then?" he wondered, to which
I replied, "Take it easy!" Almost as soon as he had driven off I began to
feel a bit guilty for quitting before daylight had run out. I had quit
the day before at 1p and it was terribly hard for me to fill the remaining
hours of the day.
As I was moving my jeep a few miles east to where we were to meet more
friends the next day, I happened to check my GPSr and note an easy bonus
peak nearby. Oh good - at least I wouldn't have to feel too
guilty. Peak 3,074ft is less than a mile 
from the road and less than
400ft of gain. I spent all of 45min making my way up and down from the
summit at a pretty steady clip. The summit had a nice 
view north
to Owlhead BM, our goal for the next day. There are two summits vying for
the highpoint, the 
one to the west
a few feet higher than the eastern
point with the spot elevation on the topo map. After 
returning
to the jeep I
took a shower, then moved the jeep to where we'd meet Tom & Iris in the
morning. Hours would go by with darkness upon the land before Matt
returned from Owl BM. Seems it was a bit more involved than I had
remembered...
Matt's Video
Continued...