Pilot Knob P500
Pasadena Mountain P750
Ogilby Hills P300
Fri, Dec 16, 2022
| With: | Eric Smith |
Fri, Dec 16, 2022
|
||||||||
| With: | Eric Smith |
Our last day together found us in the far SE corner of California and Imperial County, west of Yuma, AZ. We had come far south looking for warmer temps and found better conditions, but still unseasonably chilly. Overcast skies and a stiff wind would change to bluer skies and less wind in the afternoon. We'd spent the night camped east of Yuma, on some sandy state trust lands south of town that we thought would give us some peace and quiet. We were visited by the Border Patrol around midnight, having been reported by "spotters," which we took to mean well-meaning citizens trying to keep their country safe. The net result was that after a short, pleasant exchange, they let us be for the rest of the night. We were up before dawn to grab Starbucks on our way out of town and west into California. Our efforts today were pretty chill, a collection of three relatively easy summits.
the north side of the peak. We got off at the Sidewinder Exit where
the BLM Pilot Knob Long Term Visitor Area is located. We left Eric's car near
the highway and drove the Jeep south on Sidewinder Rd to where it makes a sharp
turn to the west. We parked here and 
NW Ridge, a
fun bit of scrambling that had Eric nervous because the acid we had taken
earlier was starting to kick in. Did I mention that already? We'd taken it with
our Starbucks before heading to California, timing it about right. I was more
comfortable on 
the class 2-3 terrain, so wasn't having any issues. We
took about 50min to reach 
the summit, the last part on some use trails
that appear to be part of the quarry.
The summit had a collection of poorly constructed 
flagpoles with solar
lighting, none of which worked any more, and no flags on the poles. There were
other 
small structures, no longer in use, including an array of short
antennae. The summit overlooks 
the NE corner of MX that abuts that
section of AZ acquired through the Gadsen Purchase. Large sections of the US/MX
wall can be seen as it makes a sharp turn around the mexican town of Los
Algondones. Included in this wall is a colorful section of illegally stacked
shipping containers on federal lands that AZ would shortly be forced to
dismantle. After Eric described his discomfort with the ascent, I assured him we
could get down an easier way, all trail and road through the quarry. This
worked very nicely, and would undoubtedly make for the
easiest ascent route as well.
After returning to the Jeep, we drove south, hoping to get a close-up look at
the border fence. Unfortunately, the 
All-American Canal runs along the
border on the US side of 
the fence, and we could find no access across
the canal. We might have been able to swim across, but that might have not ended
well via a variety of possible scenarios gone bad.
suggests the land has a
mystical quality. Further north along the road we found scatterings of long-term
visitors, probably long-term residents too. This area was once part of Camp
Pilot Knob, a US Army training ground connected with Patton's WWII training
site at Desert Center off Interstate 10. Though the camp only existed for about
a year, starting in 1943, the satellite view shows rows of streets and clearings
where hundreds of wooden structures once stood. We followed Bob G's GPX track
off Sidewinder Rd that took us to the base of the range and 
the start
of 
the trail. 
The site was very clean and neat, with a
firering and 
rocks neatly lined along the perimeter of the camp area.
Someone had spent hundreds of hours collecting, carrying and placing rocks, for
reasons that are not imprinted on their work. We decided this would be a fine
place to spend the night.
The trail we followed to the summit had also been
lovingly constructed, obviously not an old mining trail, but one built
for no other reason than to go up a mountain. The upper portion had been more
sparsely laid out, and it seems that the trail builder ran out of time
or ability to finish it to the same standards the lower half had been. It took
us about an hour and twenty minutes to make our way 
to the top where we
found 
an ammo box holding a busy register/geocache. On the
way back down, I thought it might have been fun to
descend the gully south of the summit. It looked like it could be a nice
scramble all the way back to the bottom (or maybe just a fun Wilderness-y
adventure while tripping), but I didn't suggest it because I knew Eric
would prefer the trail and didn't want to be alone for the hike down. When we
got back to the cars, Eric decided to take it easy the rest of the
afternoon while I wanted to go off and tag the last summit we had planned for
the day. Even acid can't keep me from doggedly pursuing a peakbagging agenda.
between the two ranges.
I eventually found my way to
the east side of the summit, going up 
one gully and back down
another, taking about 30min. 
The summit had a Richard Carey
register 
from 2001, with about half a dozen entries. The most recent
was from MacLeod/Lilley 
in 2005 - then a 17yr gap. I was
back to the Jeep by 2:45p, then made my way back to camp
where I found Eric reading his book. We had a very fine campfire that evening
with tons of dead wood we found in the small wash adjaccent to us. Quite a fine
day, this one...
Continued...
This page last updated: Fri Jan 13 17:28:46 2023
For corrections or comments, please send feedback to: snwbord@hotmail.com