On our last full day in the Mojave we visited the Cow Cove petroglyphs in the northern end of the park. This is an amazing collection of petroglyphs and this…
Kessler Peak 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…
Early Thanksgiving morning, David and I left the Vegas strip for the Mojave desert. We met up with Sooz, Robin, and Gordon at 9 am to hike Table Top mountain, a striking mesa-like peak in the heart of Mojave National Preserve. Like the majority of desert peaks there is no established trail to the top and hikers are on their own to find a good cross-country route.
In fact, I read somewhere that Mojave National Preserve, in its 1.5 million acres of desert, only has two maintained trails. This isn’t uncommon in the desert parks though – the wide open terrain is more forgiving and conducive to cross-country travel than say, Yosemite Valley. So, we found a nice pullout to leave our cars and set out on foot towards Table Top. We walked along the base of the ridge and once passing the jumbles of boulders started up the side of the mountain. This area burned a few years ago and it is very bleak and barren. I imagine that will change during wildflower season!
Table Top is ringed with a volcanic ridge that from a distance looks like it would require some technical skills to pass. However, as you get closer to the peak a steep but passable chute becomes obvious and we headed straight up. The last few hundred feet required some hoisting and balancing with the hands, but overall it was pretty easy. Upon topping out, it doesn’t look like a typical summit at all. It is incredibly flat and the actual high point is difficult to determine. Luckily, the high point was very near where we topped out and we found the log book and had a nice break. You can definitely cram a lot of people on this mountain top.
The trip down was fast and uneventful and we found ourselves back at the trucks around noon. After lunch, we agreed that we had enough daylight left to try for Pinto Peak, only a few miles to the north and close to our campsite. It only took a few minutes to drive to the next trail head and soon we found ourselves on the way to Pinto Peak. From where we dropped the cars the peak was not visible, blocked by an impressive and colorful volcanic ridge.
Many times we have driven south out of Death Valley and passed the signs for China Ranch Date Farm, but it took us until 2009 to stop. We had spent…
Later on Sunday morning, after our Minietta Mine exploration, we headed out of Panamint Valley and into Death Valley. Our goal was to visit some of the lesser known canyons…
After Saturday's visit to Fossil Falls, Cerro Gordo, and the U2 tree we didn't have a lot of light to find our campsite outside of Death Valley. We like to…
I've been meaning to visit Cerro Gordo for a long time and it was with great excitement that we turned up the dreaded road on Saturday afternoon. I have heard…
Every year we take off the week of Thanksgiving to explore the deserts of Southern California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. This year, our trip took us through Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, and Mojave National Preserve. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting trip reports on specific parts of this trip since many of the things we did deserve their own entries.
The trip started relatively low-key, with an uneventful evening drive from the SF Bay Area to Fossil Falls, just north of Inyokern, CA and off of 395. Arriving a little before 10 pm, we were slightly concerned about finding an available campsite at the 11 site BLM campground, but our worries were unfounded – we were the only campers in the park. I am not as familiar with this southern end of 395 and wasn’t comfortable trying to find a campsite in the dark, so I was glad it all worked out.
We spent the first couple days of our trip exploring the southernmost side of Anza Borrego (along S2), basecamped at Agua Caliente Hot Spring. It was nice to camp there…