Continued...
My last day in Death Valley was abbreviated by the need to drive home, an 8hr
affair that would occupy most of the day. I had to pick my wife up at the
airport in San Jose, so I had a fairly rigid deadline to get home.
I was camped off Badwater Rd in the
southern end of Death Valley, next to Round Mtn, my first effort of the day.
Wanting to get in a 6mi hike in the Saddle Peak Hills afterwards, I figured
I needed to get up before sunrise and do most of the hike in the dark. So I was
up around 4:40a and out the door by 5a.
Round Mountain
The entire hike took place in the dark, and though I wore a headlamp, I didn't
need to use it save to peruse the register I found at the summit. The waning
moon had not yet reached the halfway point, which proved sufficient light to
see by for the hike. The previous day's wind had subsided, leaving calm air
and making for a very pleasant hike. Starting less than a mile from the summit,
the first 1/3 of the hike was across desert flats, then slowly gaining altitude
over the remaining 2/3. The summit has little prominence and is hardly more
than a bump rising from the desert. It was not hard to find the summit cairn by
moonlight, next to which is found. The USGS datasheet for
this has it stamped as "GOSA", but it looks like they stamped it "COSA" and
then did a little extra work to change the "C" to a "G". The
had been placed only a few weeks earlier, but is unlikely to collect many
entries since they failed to leave a pencil. It was still dark when I
to the Jeep though the eastern sky
was just beginning to grow light - it was still an hour until sunrise.
Saddle Peak Hills
I spent the next 30min driving to the southern tip of the Saddle Peak Hills
where I would start the 6mi hike to two unnamed summits, Peak 1,272ft and Peak
826ft. In a somewhat backwards methodology, this last one would allow me to
claim all the Death Valley summits under 1,000ft of elevation. It was nearly
6:30a when I started out, still another half hour until sunrise. The two peaks
were clearly visible to in the early light. The initial effort
would be an easy walk along the base of the range on its eastern side for a
little over 2mi. This was easy enough on compacted sand and included a crossing
of the where it flows above ground. I found a spot that
I could just jump across with the aid of my poles, though it would have been
only a minor inconvenience to take my boots and socks off if needed. The river
flows gently and not more than a few inches deep here. The
as I was making my way - I would leave the nearer peak
for the way back. I knew from my research that it would be easier to not start
up from the toe of , so I skirted that on
to find an ascent that would bypass a local highpoint
along the ridge. I probably could have skirted around the base of the peak even
further for an easier line, but I
worked well enough. It took me across the east shoulder of the intermediate
point, after which I made to the point's high
saddle with Peak 1,272ft. All of the scrambling turned out to be class 2, and
by 7:50a I had reached . There was ,
but no register that I could find. Andy Smatko had been to the summit in 1972
and may have left one, but it was far from obvious. I left
at the top of the cairn that should be easier to find.
After taking a few photos of , I for
the second summit. This time, I bypassed the intermediate point on the west
side, sidehilling my way to , then down to
again. There are some old mining roads encountered,
partially buried in the shifting sands, but easily identified by the road cuts
into the base of the hill. There were a few newer tracks, too, but as this is
now all Wilderness, they probably shouldn't be here. The mining roads lead to
various prospects and mineworks about the range, including one on
of Peak 1,272ft that I only discovered from the summit of
Peak 826ft. My route to the second summit was as straightforward as it was easy,
taking about 45min from the previous summit. I took a pretty direct route up
from the very low saddle , but any route
will do. There was a smaller cairn and a survey stake ,
again no register. Candace Skalet had been to this one two years earlier, I
found out only later.
I across the summit, then southeast down
to return easily to . It would
take another 30min for the remaining mile and a half to the Jeep.
It wasn't yet 9:30a by the time I'd returned and
I was an hour and a half ahead of my deadline, but without any short objectives
remaining the area, it was time to head home. It was a long way back to San
Jose, but I managed to get home not long after 5p. Another successful desert
trip in the bag...