Bob and I were up well before sunrise in order to get an early start driving west from the CA/NV border on Interstate 15 to the Halloran Summit exit for the first stop of the day.
Club Peak
This minor summit appears in Andy Zdon's Desert Summit, a compilation of 334 desert summits that Bob and I have both been pursuing as a side project. The peak is one of several features in the Cinder Cone Lava Beds west of Cima Dome in the Mojave National Preserve. The drive is somewhat tedious, more than 11mi on fair roads that Bob's high-clearance Liberty had little trouble with. We started from a point about 2.5mi east of the peak as described by Zdon. Our route was a fairly direct line to the summit with the first two miles
mostly flat and then
directly up the 
east side that featured some
easy class 3 scrambling on volcanic rock. It took just over an hour to
reach 
the top. 
Mark Adrian had left 
a register
earlier in the year, the old one having disappeared. We found a
reference mark nearby but
no benchmark. Bob suggested a variation on the descent that proved a little
easier technically but no faster than the ascent route. We
were done by 9a,
a little over two hours after starting out. My suggestion that we tag Button
Mtn while we were in the area was met with some disdain and I was unable to
provide a convincing argument why we should care. Bob still maintains some
standards while recognizing that I have almost none.
Silver Lake BM
This is the highpoint of the Hollow Hills Wilderness area found just northeast of Baker along I-15. We followed driving directions out of Halloran Springs provided by Dan Baxter on Peakbagger.com, though we didn't bother with the hiking description which seemed overly complicated for my short attention span. With the summit less than two miles away, we headed southwest
downhill across a low-gradient wash before
climbing up one of 
the ridgelines heading to the summit, at
first climbing west but eventually curving around to approach the highpoint
from the north. It took just over an hour to reach
the highpoint at the south end of the summit plateau where we found a
1980 
MacLeod/Lilley register. There were only about ten
parties signing in over the past 35yrs - a fairly obscure summit. Most of the
names were familiar, including 
a 1996 visit by Andy Smakto & party
(who couldn't help mentioning he and Bill Schuler had climbed it before
MacLeod), the usual 
San Diego suspects, the ubiquitous
Sue & Vic and of course Dan Baxter. For the
descent I talked Bob into a looping route along another ridgeline to the south,
or thought I had, but somehow this devolved into dropping
into the drainage
between the two ridge routes, which also worked just fine. Part of this was
along a nice, 
sandy wash that took us out to the broader wash that we
followed uphill to where we'd 
left our vehicle. We were done
by 12:30p and back out to
Holloran Springs sometime after 1p. Bob decided to head home while I still had
a few more days, so we parted company while I looked for something to do with
the rest of the afternoon.
Pinto Mountain
Another Zdon summit, this one lies in the Mid Hills near the center of the Mojave NP, roughly between the Providence Mtns to the southwest and the New York Mtns to the northeast. The dirt Cedar Canyon Rd that accesses the area and passes to the south of Pinto Mtn is excellent, suitable for any vehicle at reasonable speeds (up to 40mph). While Zdon's hiking directions are adequate and will get one to the summit, it is not the shortest route. I started about 4/5mi east of Zdon's start, making for a 2.7mi effort to Zdon's 4.5 miles. A
cattle guard and 
fenceline are found where I parked. The
summit is not quite in view to the northeast, hidden behind a cliff band in the
foreground hills. The cliff band may have been why Zdon chose his route, but it
is easy class 3 to get through the lowest point of the band, the only difficulty
of any sort on the route. Once 
above the cliff band the route
becomes much more mundane, an 
easy slope up to a very flattish summit
that is so large that good 
views are hard to come by. A
wooden stake near 
the benchmark
helped in locating the register. A fire had swept through the area sometime
before 2008, burning the old register and pretty much everything growing in the
area. The trees have not recovered but desert scrub and other plants are
regenerating slowly. 
Shane Smith, Terry Flood and 
Dan Raether
were among the recognizable names found in the new register comprising eight
pages.
Bobcat Hills
After returning to the van I continued east on Cedar Canyon Rd to Ivanpah Rd heading south. I was on my way to Hackberry Mtn, a P1K, but was short on time when I got to the area after 4p. On a whim I decided to spend the last half hour of sunlight tackling the easy highpoint of the
Bobcat Hills found
just east of the road. Though I tried to reach the summit before
sunset, I missed by about 5min. The 
rocky summit held a
2006 register left by Richard Carey and Mark Adrian. Better, the only
other entry was 
in 2011, a solo effort by Barbara
Lilley (sans MacLeod) - it's a rare day when I get to sign into a register after
Barbara. I got back to the van before 5p without needing a headlamp and then
drove a few more miles on a spur road west of Lanfair Rd to an informal camp
site where I spent the night at the base of Hackberry Mtn. A full day to be
sure...
Continued...