The day after Thanksgiving we needed a good hike to help burn off some off that delicious dinner. Sure, we’d bagged two peaks on Thanksgiving Day, but I’m pretty sure they only covered the turkey and mashers. I still had stuffing and pie to burn off. So after our morning coffee we decided to head north to Kessler and Teutonia Peaks.
Teutonia Peak is one of the very few trailheads with a maintained trail in the park. It’s also the trailhead for Kessler, though the approach to Kessler is cross-country in the other direction. We headed to Kessler first and started off across the Mojave dodging pokey bushes and cholla cactus along the way. There is no such thing as a straight line in this desert.
As we got closer to Kessler we were able to identify a nice ramp heading up the peak. It was steep but quite doable and we all headed straight up. It’s pretty much a straight line east to the peak. The weather was about as perfect as it gets for the desert – cool enough for a nice hike but warm and still so we were able to sit on the summit for a while and enjoy ourselves. The view towards the previous day’s destinations – Table Top and Pinto – was beautiful, and we were able to see south all the way to the Kelso Dunes and other ranges of the park.
Kessler was a short hike, about 3 miles round trip, so back at the cars we had lunch then headed out towards Teutonia. Following a maintained trail, we expected it to be a really quick and easy hike, but we hadn’t done our homework. It turns out that the trail leads to the Teutonia ridge but doesn’t go all the way to the summit. In fact, it can’t – the summit is quite a scramble (3rd class with one sketchy hop across a chasm) and the summit log had very few entries.
We headed back to the cars via a cross-country route and got a chance to wander the remains of an old mine site. Having spent a lot more time scrambling around Teutonia than expected, we didn’t have enough daylight left to visit anywhere else and we headed back to camp for dinner and warming campfire. The desert definitely gets cold at night in the winter!
If You Go
Kessler Peak
Follow the route recommended in Zdon’s Desert Summits book. Park at the Tuetonia Peak trailhead and head straight east towards the peak. From afar, the chutes running up the peak look tempting, but as you get closer a ridge/ramp becomes the obvious access.
Teutonia
The approach is simple on maintained trail. However, once you reach the top of the ridge the trail disappears and you’re on your own to get over to the peak. The peak is still to South and requires a cross-country and rock scramble approach. It is difficult to discern the high point while on the ridge – study the route ahead of time if you want to head to the right spot. The proper summit requires a class 3 scramble as well as an uncomfortable hop across a gap in the rock.
