Where: Mojave National Preserve, CA
Who: Matthew Hengst, Jack Kieffer, Adrienne Benedict, Anne Kircher, Mark Peterson, James Barlow, Laurent Hoffman, Ann Shields, Virgil Shields, Keith Christenson, Angelo Lopez, Bob Meyers, Mark Butski, Becky Cummings, Lisa Miyake
Pictures:
GPS Track:
This trip came about because Adrienne Benedict and I wanted
to lead something together after the depressingly uncomplicated Hengst &
White Chief trip this summer. As Jack
was free also this particular weekend we happily roped him in to the trip and
then went about finding some peaks.
The time of year meant we were looking out to the desert so
I offered a few different pairs that had reasonably mild stats.
I mentioned Manly and Needle only to have Adrienne ask if
there was anything interesting about them.
Not knowing a damn thing about the peaks I went for the obvious, we’d
throw a theme trip!
November 5th - 6th,
Saturday – Sunday, Desert Peaks Section I: Manly Peak (7,195), Needle Peak
(5,801’)
Join us for the most fun you can have with a fake mustache. Saturday
we'll climb Manly Peak (7 mi, 2900') to the west of Death Valley. Bring
your manliest accessories for the group picture up top then return to the cars
for a DPS potluck complete with mustache wearing cupcakes. Sunday we'll
strut up nearby Needle Peak (6 mi, 2800') before returning home. 4WD
required. Leader: Mighty Matthew Hengst Co-Leaders: Adrienne
“Don’t Call Her a Man or She’ll Kick Your Butt” Benedict & Macho Jack
Kieffer
A week later we had 18 people signed up.
Friday: And We’re Off
The trip was off to an interesting start when I got a call
from the first vehicle out that the western approach to Manly was impassable
even by jeep. Apparently they’d hit a
foot and a half high granite step that resisted every effort to build a ramp
and brute force over.
So time for Plan B. I
quickly called the three other vehicles and told them to reroute to the eastern
approach through Shoshone. Longer drive,
longer dirt road approach, but we could hopefully make our trailhead this way.
We made good time to Shoshone and turned off the pavement
onto a series of dirt roads. Along the
way I noticed a sign marking the road as a jeep road. This was going to be fun…
The next two plus hours and 20 some miles were a long
sequence of easing around and over nasty looking rocks with the occasional
scrape along the bottom of my Rav4.
At long last sometime after 3 am we saw lights ahead.
We pulled up to find Jack’s truck and Bob’s jeep off to the
side of the road. This was great because
now we just had two more vehicles to account for and I was hoping we could use
the jeep for a car shuttle if necessary.
Well, turns out the jeep had two blown tires and was dead in
the water. As we were talking over our
options Laurent showed up in his Element and pulled in next to us. He said the last vehicle had pulled over near
the start of the bad section so they could get a few hours of sleep.
The two blown tires were a problem as we’d have to get
replacements before that vehicle could go anywhere. Jack was nice enough to volunteer to run out
to Parump with Bob while Adrienne and I took the rest of the group to climb Needle. The hope was that by swapping the order of
the peaks everyone could participate with the theme peak the following day.
We went to sleep sometime after 4 am and slept for a few
short hours before the sun came up at 7.
Saturday: Well, let’s make the best of things…
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| Camp Middle of F'ing Nowhere |
We woke up as the sun was starting to make its appearance
letting us see our surroundings for the first time. Bob had mentioned they changed one of the
tires in the middle of some snow flurries the night before and sure enough there
was a dusting of snow on the hills around us and it was quite cold. Everyone started moving with some reluctance.
Some with a bit more reluctance than others…
Once the sun hit full force it warmed up significantly and
we got moving in earnest. Due to the
fact we had a vehicle down and two people headed out to get new tires we
decided to hike Needle from where we were and hopefully move camp to the nearby
Geologists Cabin that night.
So slightly reduced we set off across the desert.
We saw several groups of wild donkeys around us. They watched us warily and took off if we
wandered too close.
We meandered east then swung south, crossed Anvil Spring
Canyon, and eventually climbed a ridge directly across from Needle itself.
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| Needle Peak from North |
I’d had thoughts of climbing to the north eastern ridge and
making a loop across the top of Needle.
While there did appear to be a break in the cliff bands that would have
worked it was readily apparent we weren't moving fast enough for this to be
feasible.
So instead we swung around to the south and hooked up with
the standard DPS route. Here Adrienne,
Ann, and Becky decided it was turning in to a bit of a long day and headed for
the vehicles while the rest of us double-timed it up the ridge.
(A note for future climbers:
we had two people sign out so they could run ahead. They climbed the ridge starting at point
1353’ and arguably had an easier time than we did on the DPS route.)
The route did get a little loose and nasty here and there
with one particular band of white volcanic rock that crumbled the moment you
set foot on it.
And once we were close to the top
we started hitting a small amount of snow.
We crested the false summit and had a short descent followed
by about 300 feet of gain on the far side to the actual summit. We were pushing our turnaround time and
everyone wanted to be back over the loose stuff before dark so those of us who
felt up to it made a mad dash over to the summit, signed in, and then quickly headed
down.
Now we just had a loose descent to get over with before it
got too dark.
As soon as we could we dropped off the ridge to the west and dropped in to a small wash with a bit of daylight to spare.
And soon it was dark.
Wohoo! We got to use
our headlamps! Matt is officially having
fun!
After several hours of walking out a series of washes followed
by a long tromp along the dirt road we arrived back at Camp Middle of Bleeping
Nowhere. Jack and Bob had returned after
a very long day procuring two replacement tires in Parump but after another 40
miles of dirt road driving Jack had suffered a tire blowout on the way back in
bringing our popped tire count to 3.
Oddly enough a wilderness ranger had dropped by while we
were out and left a note on our vehicles that campfires were verboten. I guess the pile of firewood gave us away…
Bob was set on leaving the following morning which meant
that unfortunately we were heading for Manly without Adrienne, Ann, Virgil, or
Bob.
Still, we made the best of things and broke out the Irish
Carbomb cupcakes for an extremely cold happy hour.
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| Irish Carbomb Cupcakes made by the lovely Miss Kircher |
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| Proper demonstration of the mustache topper |
We turned in relatively early mostly because everyone was
freezing and looking forward to getting in their warm sleeping bags. And there was the matter of having only a few
hours of sleep the night before. Some
people are just too attached to the concept of a full nights rest…
Sunday: Of Men and Mustaches
We awoke Sunday to another bitterly cold morning and went
about getting ready.
The weather was looking somewhat questionable and we could
see fresh snow hitting Manly.
With one of our co leaders and three of our participants set
to leave we decided to hold our mustache photo shoot at the cars.
 |
| Manly contemplation in front of Manly |
For those who conveniently “forgot” to bring a mustache we
had an assortment of extras along with our badge wielding Mustache Enforcement
Officer to move things along.
 |
| Manly mustache make out time |
Rather randomly as we were preparing to leave we had an
older gentleman drive up in his pickup asking if he could make it over the
pass. Fair enough. He was also wearing a bathrobe for unknown
reasons.
We said goodbye to Bob and company and piled into Laurent
and I’s vehicles for a short drive up the road.
We stopped short of Russell Camp as the road was starting to look
questionable again and we really didn't want to risk any more blown tires.
It was also rather cold and windy and with the clouds now
covering Manly I was cheerfully expecting frost covered mustache pictures on the
top.
We hiked by Russell Camp and found a large group of jeepers
decked out with all the comforts. They
gave us odd looks as we tromped on by and up the mountain behind them.
The climb was straightforward though the initial slopes were
mostly loose dirt.
We had about 3000 ft to climb and somewhere in the last
thousand we hit the snow. The wind
wasn’t as bad as I expected and the clouds had receded quite a bit as we
climbed.
We found the summit block and located the register. There was a short 3rd class ish
climb to get to the top of the block but we decided not to risk it due to our
wet boots and the ice on the rocks.
Instead we posed for a few short pictures. Manly leadership!
Awesome pirate panda gloves.
We didn’t spend long up there partially because it was cold
but mostly because we wanted to get off the bad dirt roads before dark. The weather did improve as we headed down and
we actually got a half decent view.
Instead of retracing our steps we swung around to the north
and descended a slope above Quail Spring.
The descent was glorious as we were able to plunge step our way down
most of the slope.
Some people really didn't want to give up their mustaches.
We cut across some obvious mining debris and headed for our
originally intended camp spot, the Geologist Cabin.
The cabin is open and available to whoever wants to stay
there. There are a few signs warning
about active mice and a plaque admonishing you to leave the property better
than you found it.
It was actually rather well stocked with recent magazines,
books, extra food and water, and more.
Sadly I think it was better stocked than my apartment most
weeks.
It even had a patio area complete with lawn chairs and a barbeque
pit.
It would have made for a nice camp spot if everything had
gone according to plan. Ah well, maybe
for the second pass through the DPS list.
We finished looking around and headed back for the
vehicles. It was mid afternoon by now so
we needed to get on down the road.
We pulled out on the pavement shortly after dark with all
three vehicles unscathed. As soon as I
was in cell range I contacted the other two vehicles that left early and found
they had made it out without incident as well though Bob had ended up with
another damaged sidewall on one of his rear tires bringing the total damaged
tire count to 3.5.
We ate in Baker at a somewhat questionable Mexican food
establishment across from the Mad Greek and booked it for home.
Not the smoothest trip but we managed.
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