Arizona

Baboquivari Sierra Club E Provisional #2

What: Baboquivari Peak (7,734')
When: November 30th, 2012
Where: Arizona
Who: Matthew Hengst, Neal Robbins, Mat Kelliher, Jack Kieffer, Jen Blackie, Mark Butski, Laurent Hoffman, Jeff Atijera
Pictures: Matt's Flickr  Neal's Pics
GPS Track: Matt's Track

This was to be my second time up Baboquivari after Jack Kieffer, Rudy Fleck, and myself ran down to Arizona last year and had braved 95 degree heat in order climb it along with Kino and Ajo.

This trip was also to be the second of my Sierra Club E Rock provisionals and had originally included a trip to Mexico for Cerro Pinacate followed by the always fun Little Picacho and the awesomely named Stud Mountain.

This ran afoul of Sierra Club policies and so instead we had a one day official trip followed by two unofficial days.  Fair enough.
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    • cabin

    Hayford Peak From Hidden Forest Trailhead

    What:  
      Hayford Peak (9,912')
    When:  November 26th, 2012
    Where:  Nevada slightly north of Vegas
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track

    Day 4 of the 2012 Thanksgiving Turktacular and we had one more peak in our sights before retreating back to life in Southern California.  This time it was Hayford Peak which had a bit of gain along the way.

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    • corral

    Virgin Peak DPS

    What:  
      Virgin Peak (8,071')
    When:  November 25th, 2012
    Where:  Nowhere in particular, NV
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track

    We'd left Valley of Fire State Park (and it's depressingly nice hot showers) behind us the night before and driven several hours further east to the access to Virgin Peak past Whitney Pockets.

    Virgin is a Desert Peak Section peak located near enough to Moapa Peak that it's usually logically grouped with that somewhat more interesting climb.  Of course Jack and I had paired Moapa with the also slightly more interesting 3rd class Muddy Peak when we led it back in December of 2011 so Anne and I were planning to grab it along with the peak usually paired with Muddy called Hayford Peak.  (Follow all of that?)

    Two days into the 4 day Thanksgiving weekend we'd done 3 peaks and had too more to do.  And we didn't smell half bad.  Not too shabby!

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    • Nevada

    Valley of Fire Peak In Nevada Valley of Fire State Park

    What: 
      Valley of Fire Peak (2,972')
    When:  November 24rd, 2012
    Where:  Valley of Fire, Nevada
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track


    Yesterday Anne and I had kicked off the long Thanksgiving weekend with a somewhat relaxed day and scrambled up the relatively short White Dome & Gibraltar.  After looking at what the park had to offer I figured we could easily amuse ourselves for another day and then we'd probably head on and grab the relatively nearby Desert Peak Section list peaks Virgin and Hayford.


    The remaining named bumps on the official park map (which wasn't the best, I'd strongly recommend bringing your own) weren't overly interesting looking so we decided to head for the high point we'd been able to see from White Dome the day before.  It had the advantage of being the most interesting looking thing around.
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    • Desert Peaks

    Valley of Fire White Dome & Gibraltar Rock

    What: 
      White Dome (2,234')
      Gibraltar Rock (2,172')
    When:  November 23rd, 2012
    Where:  Valley of Fire, Nevada
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track


    Along I15 north of Las Vegas there's a sign I'd passed numerous times for Valley of Fire.  Generally it was late at night coming or going from some climb or another so I'd never taken the time to explore it.

    After longer Thanksgiving trip plans fell through I ended up doing Thanksgiving dinner in town and then loaded into the car and headed for Vegas.  Not surprisingly traffic was fairly light.  One quick 11 pm stop at a Vegas Walmart for supplies and we were back on the road and pulled in to Valley of Fire sometime after midnight.
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    • Cathedral Peak

    Cathedral Peak In Meadow Valley Mountains

    What: 
      Cathedral Peak (5,775')
       J. J. Freakel Peak (5,681')
    When:  November 18th, 2012
    Where:  Nevada north of Las Vegas
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Rod Kieffer, Anne Kircher, Laurent Hoffman, Phil Bates
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track

    We spent the night west of Alamo at our trail head for East Pahranagat after the previous day stroll up two relatively minor range high points. Today it was time to head south and climb the peaks that had originally brought us out this way called Cathedral and a rather striking unnamed neighboring bump.
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    • East Pahranagat

    Hyko Benchmark / S Pahroc Highpoint & East Pahranagat Range High Point Near Alamo Nevada

    What: 
      South Pahroc HP / Hyko BM (7,950')
      East Pahranagat (~6,280')
    When:  November 17th, 2012
    Where:  Alamo, Nevada
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Rod Kieffer, Anne Kircher, Laurent Hoffman, Phil Bates, Ron Campbell
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  (Hyko)  (E Pahranagat)

    This particular trip came about when Rod Kieffer approached me to a Sierra Club M restricted trip during desert season.  At this point I've pretty much done all of the 3rd+ class peaks on the Desert Peak Section list so I went off looking for interesting options.

    And so was born the Hyko, East Pahranagat, Cathedral, and Unnamed Bump Trip or as Ron Campbell refered to it the Nevada Speed Bump Trip.

    Granted they were a bit beyond our usual stomping grounds with the Hyko trailhead being about 390 miles from Orange County.  Yet Rod and I found ourselves with a respectable 4 participants willing to make the long haul Friday night.

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    • Castle Peaks

    Castle Peaks in Mojave

    What:  Castle Peaks 
      South Dove (5,668')
      Dove Benchmark (5,830')
      North Castle Butte (5,896')  
    When:  November 3rd, 2012
    Where:  Mojave National Preserve, CA
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher, Jeff Atijera
    Pictures:  Matt's Flickr
    GPS Track:  Matt's Track

    Though the Sierra is still largely accessible I've been itching to get out to the desert for a while now and have been working on a number off list trip ideas.  

    Castle Peaks is an interesting set of bumps out in eastern Mojave that anyone climbing in the area has probably noticed from a distance more than once.  While looking for interesting non DPS-list peaks to do I came across an extremely extensive writeup done by cp0915 over on SummitPost http://www.summitpost.org/castle-peaks-mojave/487688

    3rd, 4th and 5th class bumps in the middle of nowhere best described as “impressive crud heap”?  Sold!

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    • Cima Dome

    Teutonia & Cima Dome in Mojave

    What:   Teutonia Peak (5,755'),
      Cima Dome (5,745' -ish?)
    When: November 4th, 2012
    Where: Mojave National Preserve, CA
    Who:  Matthew Hengst, Anne Kircher, Jeff Atijera
    Pictures:  Flickr
    GPS Track:  Track

    After spending all day Saturday exploring nearby Castle Peaks we needed something shorter for Sunday since we had to get Anne back to Orange County in time to catch a flight back to the Bay Area.  So I scaled back some larger ideas I had and went scrounging around for something suitably short, obscure, and at least somewhat interesting to round out the weekend.

     Teutonia pretty much defines obscure, has an interesting name, and supposedly had some fun 3rd+ class scrambling.  That'll work!
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    • Baker

    Sierra Eats: Los Dos Toritos in Baker, CA

    Name:  Los Dos Toritos
    Type:  Mexcan Food (Of Course!)
    Location:  Baker, CA
    Trailheads:
        Desert outings along I15 towards Vegas
        Visited after Castle Peaks Mojave and Manly & Needle Mustache Mosey
    TL;DR:  Not the best but better than Del Taco.  Barely.

    The outside is in slight disrepair
    Welcome to Sierra Eats!  The irregular feature where we review the various hole in the wall Mexican (and occasionally non-Mexican) establishments we've eaten at after whatever outdoor adventure we were up to that weekend.  We're usually tired, starving, and craving salt after days slogging through the wilds eating trail food.

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