Pilot Knob

El Centro BLM

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Today I aim to add another Pilot Knob to my list. It just feels right to do. This one isn't very big, so shouldn't take very long, at least if I do it directly without any extras. It has a benchmark, but off on another peak to the west. There seems to be a bit of that going around. And then I may as well grab the geocaches. They look to be generally on a path going up to West Pilot (the benchmark), then Pilot Knob, then down again. I drive in directly and grab a bit of "parking" in a convenient spot between the road and a sign forbidding vehicles behind it. That leaves some flat desert with minor washes to cross between me and the peak. I gather the usual way to go would be to jog over to the east where there is a quarry and park there, but this looks at least as good to me and doesn't involve being in a quarry.

Pilot Knob and West Pilot. West Pilot (on the right) seems pretty big too.

I spot numerous trails up as I walk along. The other side of the road from where I am parked is a long term camping area where, for a fee of just $180, you can stay for up to 7 months. There's probably a few of them that walk the knob frequently and start walking it in different ways. I'm thinking it'll be too hot around here come spring and feel I've been here a while already. Today is sort of a cleanup of things I wanted to get to before taking off. Anyway, I pick a wash to go up and I have a couple trails, one on each side, to choose from too. I pick west. West is the best? It looks a little on the scrambly side of steep on the east.

The trail may be faint, but it is easy to follow all the way up to the saddle.

Looking down on Felicity (pop 2, according to the sign) and the long term visitor camping. Behind them, left to right, Ogilby Hills, Pasadena Mountain, the high point of Cargo Muchacho, Pasadena Peak, and Stud Mountain. Just to the right is the center of the world (again, according to signs).

Up at the saddle, there is a view to Mexico. The fat iron fence does a good job of demarcating the border here.

Once the trail hits the saddle at the ridge, it turns and follows the ridge. More trail goes to the small peak west of me. I ignore that bit, the east route is enough. In face, I seem to have chosen poorly and could have come up the next wash to the east for less walking up and down along the ridge. There seems to be a bit of trail to go around the extra instead of up it, but I miss it, too.

After a lot of little ups and downs and rocky annoyances, there's the actual peak I mean to be climbing. West Pilot.

I keep making the wrong choices on my way up, keeping to the ridge when eventually it is obvious a lower trail would have been better, then going for a lower trail that doesn't get me up to the top except by a scramble. So by a scramble I do it and there I am at the top. Time for some benchmark searching.

Cairn marking the top of West Pilot.

I find the references on lower rocks but no station. I glare a bit at the huge cairn sitting about where a station should be. Right there. It should be right there. Before I angrily tear the thing apart, I take a moment to triangulate off the two reference marks. They point near it, but not at it. There is a nail and some epoxy where they do point. Someone has walked off with the station mark.

Just got to scramble down to the references and see where the arrows point to know for sure, assuming this wasn't the same crew as did Planet Peak or the Lopez benchmark.

One more to find. The azimuth is supposed to be on the highest peak which just happens to be my next destination. For some reason, later explanations of the benchmarks use some other mark as azimuth which is down somewhere out there and a benchmark in its own right. And from 1910. Still, not something I'm looking for. Onward and upward! I am determined to make better choices as I go on to the higher peak and do, in fact, manage it.

It helps that there's not so many bad choices for getting up to the high point from here.

The dunes where I was earlier are also just this side of that thick iron fence.

There are lots more paths up from both sides as I go along. I expect I'll go down a wash aimed roughly toward the car that has a rather defined trail along it.

Also routes down to the road above the quarry. That would be the easy way.

A few spots might be "the" high point, but the accepted one has collected a few things.

Arriving at the peak, it has an old foundation on it. This could be the reason the azimuth changed. I certainly can find no sign of it near the foundation or on the nearby peaks that might be just as high. The foundation has gathered a few things latched to each of the surviving corner posts. One looks like it was a plastic register, but now is a broken bin for well washed papers. I overshoot it for one last rather high peak, but there is still no azimuth.

Plenty more trails coming up the east side, too. Most of the distance this direction is Arizona.

Many many layers of mountains off into the distance. (The grand panorama is here.

Some really good trails in the wash on down toward Mexico.

I have lots of time to go searching for a couple more geocaches, so may as well. Unfortunately, they aren't quite as much on my way as the first two, which were near each peak. The first is on the chunk of rock in the middle of the turn around at the end of the quarry road halfway up the mountain. It is a little thing among a myriad of hiding spots, but I do find it although the last searchers didn't. The next one is way down the ridge line rather than down the wash. I can see a trail going up it from the road, but that seems like far too easy a way to go. I don't really want to hike the road. So I go back up the trail until it hits the ridge and go down that way. It does have its extraordinarily difficult moments. Making wrong decisions again, but this time on purpose!

Missing out on some nice trail going down the wash.

The end of the quarry road halfway up the peak and trail continuing up to the top. The rock in the middle of the road is a climb, but isn't so hard to climb from some spots.

The ridge line I am going down instead. There is trail at first, but it tends to vanish before I get all the way.

Getting a good look at the quarry.

Once to the cache, I abandon the ridge line. It isn't so hard to do back to the trail I was meaning to take, but the trail has mostly vanished into the flats where I meet it. There are two very faint lines of common walking. Of course, it isn't really needed, so I break for the car eventually. Still, even a faint trail makes easier walking than no trail.

There is life in the desert, like this lily.

©2019 Valerie Norton
Written 5 March 2019