Bob Burd's Trip Reports

Peak 7,745ft P300 RS Peak 7,700ft RS Peak 9,070ft CS Timosea Peak ESS Aug 5, 2020		Etymology	Story	Photos / Slideshow	Maps: 1 2	GPXs: 1 2	Profile
Peak 7,745ft later climbed Oct 6, 2022

Peak 7,745ft - Peak 7,700ft

I was on my way back to California after a three week tour through five other western states. I had spent the night camped in the Hualapai Mtns southeast of Kingman, AZ. I had found a couple of minor peaks that appear in Purcell's Rambles and Scrambles that I could do in the morning before continuing my drive. I had been to the county park eleven years earlier to tag the highpoint, Hualapai Peak and a few other nearby summits. Today's unnamed summits were just outside the north end of the park on BLM lands. I had driven the jeep up the night before and camped on the dirt road that provides access to the telecom towers atop Peak 7,700ft. A

locked gate blocks the road about 2/3 of the way up. I parked below this at

a flat spot to spend the night, starting on foot from the same location in the morning before 6:30a. After a short but steep hike to the saddle south of Peak 7,700ft, I turned right to tackle the higher summit first. The spur road accesses another telecom installation at an intermediate bump between the two summits, before abruptly ending. Somewhat brushy cross-country travel leads down to a saddle and then up to

the higher summit. Class 3 rocks form the highpoint, with a non-trivial bit of work to get atop the highest block. I spent about 40min to reach this first summit. The more interesting peak in the immediate area is Dean Peak, about a mile to

the northeast, featuring almost 1,500ft of prominence. The ridgeline between them looked rough but doable, but I expected it would take an hour in each direction. I was most interested in reaching Timosea Peak in the Sierra later today, which ultimately led me to skipping Dean Peak today. I

returned back to the dirt road and paid a visit to the northern of the two summits, Peak 7,700ft.

Its highpoint is just north of the small

telecom installation at the summit and has

a nice view overlooking Kingman. I

returned to the jeep by 7:45a and was soon on my way once again.

Peak 9,070ft - Timosea Peak

It would take almost 7hrs of driving to get to the starting point for Timosea off the Horseshoe Meadow Rd above Lone Pine, CA. Temperatures were scorching for almost the entire drive, but settled down to the mid 70s when I reached the starting elevation of 9,100ft at Walt's Point. Timosea Peak lies at the end of a 2mi ridgeline separating Slide Canyon to the northeast from Cottonwood Canyon to the southwest. I had made an attempt on the peak a few years earlier with my brother, but we never got started on the hike when my van's radiator failed as soon as we had parked. The rest of that day was spent getting AAA to come out tow it back to a repair station. I had no such issue this time, and by 2:30p I was

on my way.

Almost immediately I realized this was a much bigger outing than it had looked on paper. There is an unnamed summit, Peak 9,070ft about halfway along the ridgeline. The going all the way to Peak 9,070ft is very rough with lots of route-finding challenges and much class 3 scrambling. I'm almost certain my brother would have turned around long before reaching this point. Thinking I had plenty of time when I started out, I was now wondering if I'd need the headlamp before this was done. It would take me an hour to make it to the halfway point atop Peak 9,070ft. The north side looks class 5 but I was able to find a class 3-4 route from the notch on its south side, no easy scramble. I found a register left in 2013 with a few entries since then. An Andrew Joyce had made two visits before I arrived. The distance to Timosea was longer still, and I was worried I'd run into more of the same. The difficulties continued for a portion of it, but the going becomes easier as one makes their way down to the saddle with Timosea and soon becomes class 2 for the remainder of the traverse. Still, it would take over an hour between Peak 9,070ft and Timosea Peak. The highpoint is found among some trees and brush, but an ammo box register is found a short distance to the west where the ridge drops off and views in that direction are quite nice. There are two books here, the newer one placed Greg Vernon in 2009 along with the ammo box. It had only five pages of entries that included a number of familiar names. The most recent entry was dated 2017. The real find was the first register, an original left by Paul Estes and Chester Versteeg in 1940. Carl Heller, Frank Sanborn, Barbara Lilley, Gordon MacLeod, Andy Smatko, and Bob Rockwell were among the many familiar names. It would take me another two hours to make my way back to Walt's Point where I started, leaving me a comfortable margin before sunset. I took a shower before heading down to Lone Pine where I grabbed dinner and a few supplies. I then drove north to Bishop and into the Sierra on the rough 4WD Coyote Flat Rd where temperatures were comfortably cool at 8,800ft. I slept peacefully just off the road with plans to to some hiking further up the road the next morning...