Dome Mountain, Klinker Mountain, Steam Well Petroglyphs, and a Visit to the Owl in Red Mountain

This trip came about thanks to Ross Doering who has been eyeing Fremont Peak for a while now since it sticks out rather dramatically along the 395 south of Red Mountain.


He mentioned it while we were driving back from a Sierra trip this summer and I jumped at the chance to lead something new.  So a few months later here we were with Dome Mountain, Klinker Mountain, and Red Mountain thrown in to fill out the weekend.

Not long after we'd left the Orange County Park and Ride we realized we had an emergency with the potential to derail the entire trip...we'd forgotten the Sierra Club paperwork!  Panic!


Or just run to Kinkos.  Trip saved!

Dome and Klinker are accessed from a dirt road splitting off of Trona Road not far from the 395. We'd picked a flat spot reasonable close to the pavement and told everyone to meet there late Friday night.

We ended up with my Jeep Wrangler, Steve Eckert's Jeep Cherokee, and a rented Kia SUV to transport everyone to the trailhead and even the Kia was fine for everything we did this weekend.

Steve found us the next morning but the rest of us met at the bivy spot.  (I technically drove past the Trona Road turnoff and took a fast paced shortcut back to it across the Landing Strips just outside of Johannesburg but hey, same difference.)

No one seemed overly inclined to sleep (after all it wasn't even 11 pm!  We don't get to trailheads this early!) so we opened a few beers and even managed to coax a slightly cold Roxi out of bed.


We eventually turned in around 12:45 am which was a much more respectable time to try and sleep at a trailhead.

Unfortunately the 5 am pre dawn wakeup was also respectable.  And cold.


After a short drive down the road that could have been managed in a passenger car with a small amount of care we parked near a BLM register there to record visitors to the petroglyph site marked on the topo.  We planned to visit *after* we got our peaks.

There was a trail marked by lines of rocks on either side snaking off in the general direction of the steam well.  Despite the fact the desert floor was pretty much featureless whoever built the trail had gone the extra mile and decided to swing back and forth quite dramatically.


We started hiking at 7:10 am aiming for the steam well.  The old road was blocked off and explicitly marked as closed with red posts.


There was an old foundation at the well and what looked like the remains of a toilet among other things.  I tried the valve coming out of the cement and got some gurgling and sulphur fumes for my trouble.


From there we set off across the desert floor towards where we could see Dome Mountain.  Pretty much any route works but we took the ridge going up and to the left near the center of the picture.


We had some haze from the fires around LA maring our view but it was otherwise a pleasant day if a bit windy.


Once we reached 4,700' the terrain flattened out.


The peak was a small bump in the distance that didn't have much to distinguish it.


There were three registers with the oldest dating back to 1973.  Most people were also doing Klinker since it was about the only other interesting thing around here.


From Dome to Klinker was about 2.5 miles along easy if slightly boring terrain.


And there wasn't much to the summit of Klinker either.


The wind had picked up and we were all layering aggressively.



The register on Klinker only went back to 91 and had a lot of repeat ascents from locals.


We dropped down the southern side of Klinker and took a gully back to the old steam well road but stayed high to bring us to the petroglyph site.


There was a tailings pile visible from a distance which was promising.



At one end of the tailings pile there was a fenced off old shaft but it either hadn't gone down very far or had been filled in.


As far as the petroglyphs we found a number on either side of the well.  I have no idea which if any of them are authentic vs made by more recent visitors.




The two wells on the map were both dry and the only other feature other than the fence above was the remains of an old rock structure.

Even with our dalliance at the petroglyphs we were back at the cars at 2:45 pm.  Since we had some extra time (for once) and we were driving right by *and* we wanted more firewood we decided to stop in to the rather...loudly advertised general store -ish location at the city of Red Mountain.


I've driven through Red Mountain countless times and recently the general store had exploded with signs promising everything from prospecting equipments to spy gear to of all things free coffee.

Inside was interesting...



It's a combo musium, spy equipment store, thrift / junk shop, and probably a few other things.


As promised there was free coffee.  The owner took our orders and disappeared into the back returning 5 minutes later with steaming hot cups of surprisingly good coffee.

They did have firewood but said they'd just run out so we settled for a new nose guard for Ross's sunglasses and a small stuffed panda before heading off for Fremont.


We planned to camp at the Monarch Rand Mine site right below Fremont Peak but when we arrived it was a bit too exposed to wind.  We found another site a but lower and settled in for a fire and rather nice happy hour.  For more on the access road and camping accommodations see the write up for Fremont Peak.