Sheephole Mountains high point

Needles BLM

Click for map.

A week has already passed and there's a hike with some Hundred Peaks Section folks, but they're actually doing a couple things off the Desert Peaks Section list. The one on Saturday made me pause. I think I could do it on my own, but with a group I'd be slowing the rest down. The Sunday hike looks much easier, although the stats are a little worrisome. Only 4.5 miles and 2100 feet gain, but it'll take "5-7 hours, possibly longer." (I can find this out because the DPS peak guides are now available to all online, not just members. I don't even have enough DPS peaks to become a member yet.) Yikes! But it is nearly 1000 feet a mile with class 2 climbing and no trail. Well, there could be the tiniest bit of old prospector trail at the start, but then nothing. With a 7AM start, we have plenty of time to get up and back in the day. Unfortunately, after an in car navigational problem, we're actually starting at 8AM. Still more than enough hours in the day and the delay lets me go find the Pass benchmark before going down near the azimuth to park.

And so it begins. It's cold enough that it's nice to be starting in a little sun.

Getting in a little bouldering, that is class 2 climbing, nice and early. We meant to be in the ravine to the left.

It is nice and easy at first traveling along a wash bottom. Oh, yeah, with the occasional mild waterfall (dry) to navigate around. We're following a standard DPS route and I'm surprised by how well established it is. Not that it is anything like a trail yet, DPS routes don't get nearly as much foot traffic as HPS routes.

Easy hiking up the wash but out of the sun again.

Up above the pass. The Pass benchmark is south of the antennas.

Looking back over the wash.

We start to stay up on one wall as things get rougher. It seems nonsensical at first, but it is what the previous passers have marked with cairns. The path and the possible paths seem somewhat disjointed through one section. It's not something I've experienced before. Further up, we are climbing up through a chute that reminds me a lot of the Cargo Muchacho Mountains high point. The second time when I followed the surveyor reach to the benchmark and actually made it, not the maddening first time. Except this time I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to go down the chute again and when I get to the top, no one has left a mining claim marker. That I wouldn't want to go down is at first disconcerting, but I'm pretty sure there are other routes nearby.

Looking back. It got steeper.

And it requires more clambering.

Harder climbs are available.

We break out to a ridge line below a huge rock where we can suddenly see bits of the desert not covered with similar rocky mountains. In between, it is a long alluvial fan, or fans, as apparently flat desert land slopes easily toward the local (dry) lake.

The desert floor of broken up mountains. What was it like before that long process? How long does so much slow wasting take?

We drop a little into a long valley running with the mountain instead of down it. I point to some cairn marching around in another direction, but we don't want to go there. That's the way to the class 4 route. I fully support skipping that.

There's always more structure to these mountains than at first appears.

Snowy Mount San Gorgonio still watches over us way out here.

The southeast looks of more ragged dark ridges.

We make the final big climb to reach a ridge with even more encompassing view. It's just a quick stroll to the summit block. With our options narrowing, we actually get a tester for the route to the top. It is just a friction climb, so we all trot up it just fine. Then there we are, surrounded by everything with nothing hidden.

The north side is also a series of alluvial fans holding what seems to be far more broken up mountain than there remains as peaks.

To the top. Just a few more steps up a few more feet to the rock marked with old bits of metal.

That which was hidden before getting to the top.

Then I see the craziest optical illusion ever presented by a landscape. It is to the south and we could see it earlier, but somehow from here, it pops. And I do mean pops. All the peaks, big and small, that stick up from the flat level of debris seem to have an outline around their edges. That is except this one which is obviously the shadow of a small floating peak. There is no other correct interpretation for what my eyes are seeing. I know it is impossible, but there it is. Rocks. Floating.

Levitating peak. Obviously. So what if it is against physics. It is clearly happening.

So that crazy vision consumes me for the rest of the time before we decide to run for some place less windy for lunch. It's actually not quite noon yet anyway. We've gotten up faster than we expected, so I promise that I can make the down take longer than the up.

Even in context, it is clearly floating! What need does the desert have for physics anyway?

So we eat below the peak with quite a bit less view, but with spaces that have less wind too. It is cold still. And then down the edges, over the ridge, and down some more. It is mostly the same way as before, but it does miss the chute I didn't want to climb down. I was almost feeling like I might be able to after all. It probably got easier with memory.

Going down again. It's still floating. Hovering. Unaffected by the wind.

Over the ridge and into the gully we started near.

Still dark some places along the way.

On the way up, we did find a piece of prospector trail as we came down into the correct canyon. Now we get to see what else we missed. The trail itself doesn't really go anywhere anymore, so would have been no easier walking at first. There are, however, artifacts all over the place from mining. Holes, metal, wood, tailings all lie about the place. We are going a little quickly, but I can still catch a little of it.

An unnatural hole: a mine.

A car chassis bolted in place? That would be one way to get an engine for whatever was needed, like pumping water.

Speaking of water, a small dam was here to catch it although the section that would get the most water crashing into it has gone.

Even holding back a little to look at the mining history, I broke my promise. We are back to the cars faster than we went up. Our time is on the short end of what the peak guide expects for this excellent little desert peak. Now I have enough DPS peaks that I might join! That gives the others plenty of time to drive home and me time to poke over and find the azimuth (it's there) and then get water from the visitor center (it wasn't in a place to get locked in anyway although I was told it was).




©2019,2020 Valerie Norton
Written 19 Jan 2020