A hot week in April

[MojaveGeek]

Having gotten vaxxed, and let it simmer for a couple of weeks, we were finally able to get out to the valley in early April.  It was sort of fitting that this was my first trip out of state (and in the air!) as we'd gotten kicked out of the park in March 2020 when Covid got bad (and struggled a bit to get a flight home to the east coast).  We had wanted to go in March, but I didn't get vaxxed early enough.  Well April is a bit less crowded but... it turned out to be a pretty hot week.  Friends saw 101 degrees on the Furnace thermometer and it was at least in the 90s every day.   So we went up.  Up to the pinyon / juniper forest, and places with shade. Ah, shade, when it's really hot, it hits the spot!  I had many good ideas (thanks, Kauri!) for walks nearer SPW, where we stayed, but one day down there was all it took to flush those ideas.

Day 1, Bald Peak.   Started at the Argenta Mine in Wood Canyon.  Started it the right way with a "horned toad".




We walked the old road to the crest at the end of the valley - there are awesome views at the end, and a number of roads / trails.  We turned south and followed a human trail (there's a switchback at one point) along the ridge.  I thought I'd spied hints of trail to the peak but at the obvious saddle we found hints of old two track, a number of cairns, but nothing that lead up.  So we had to follow the gradient on sometimes loose talus, not the most pleasant in the world, but got into good views along the way.



And views of an interesting side of Wildrose.   The ridge on the horizon forms the south end of Trail Canyon's south fork, and we worked our way part ways out it later in the week.



We crossed the peak and headed down the ridge which goes west, eventually picking one of the ridges to get back into Wood Canyon.  Last half hour was by headlamp - which is unusual for us.

Next day, the idea was to take the Wildrose trail to the crest, but then turn south and head to Mahogany Flat, tagging Colville Ridge along the way, and down the road back to the car at the Kilns.  Well it all worked except no way was there time to head out to Colville, or even explore the route.



Good views though.  Next one is looking south.



The next day was supposed to be the coolest all week, so we did a bit of exploring just inside the "gates" of Cottonwood Canyon.  Lots of rocks in various washes.   One was a rather interesting large fossil, of some colony of something.  That is close to 2 feet across.



The "gates" of Cottonwood in late day light.



OK, that was fine but too damned hot.  We'd seek little bits of shade in the sides of washes to cool for a few minutes, and drank a lot.   Back up to the pinyon / juniper!   So next day we went up Wildrose.  Been up a number of times but it's always nice and sometimes good on the legs to walk on a trail.





Time for something other than the forest though.  We gambled on Titanothere Peak.   The peak can be reached pretty easily from the Titus Canyon road, though then you have to drive the whole rest of the road, behind people leaning out of their vehicles with selfie sticks to document it on whatever social media is hot this month.  Or you can walk from Daylight Pass via Willow Spring.   We chose the road, because we thought it might be hot.  The approach is straghtforward, then you see the rocky bumpy ridge, which looks like a stegosaurus back with the peak at the western end.   We got up to the first bump, just class 2, by negotiating rocky ribs and other bones.  We were unsure about finding a route along the ridge, but just below the top on the far side there was a level class 2 (OK, a touch of exposure) slightly beaten use trail.  We rounded the last corner, ready to be daunted by what appeared to be a 30 foot sheer cliffed summit block, but lo, there was a mostly grassy walk up and... a couple of bighorn rams who stopped and posed very nicely on the ridge they headed over.



Nice views south toward Corkscrew and Little Corkscrew



And north over Titanothere Canyon to Thimble



At the end of the week, we decided that had been the best day of all, and even though there was no shade, there was enough breeze and it's high enough that we had reasonable temps for walking.

OK, next day, back to the forest, and out Colville Ridge from Mahogany Flat.   You cross a huge scree slope, which look very daunting, but there is a cairned trail (Indian??) across it, and if you follow that, not bad at all   Hint: the trail starts fairly high on the slope as you approach it, or ask me for a way point.



Nice views out at the end.  And there's a register.  We'd been t here 6 years earlier and 9 parties had signed in.   Not a lot of visitation.





Last full day together, we decided to try the ridge which forms the south headwall of the south fork of Trail.  We'd scoped it out from Colville and it looked possible.  So we followed the Wildrose path a bit, and then broke out cross country.   A lot of big downed trees, 5 or 6 smaller scree slopes, some cliffrose thickets, a bit of route finding in rocks, all slowed us down considerably.   We got out on the ridge but not nearly as far as I thought we might, but hey, goals are just get you motivated and we ended up lunching at a very scenic spot with enough of a drop off going ahead on the ridge that we had excellent views.





On the way back out on 190 on our last day we stopped just a bit past Travertine Point and follwed the old railroad grade from Death Valley Junction to Ryan, got a great view of a golden eagle, and then headed across smooth basalt rocks to a moderately nice view point back into the valley.  It was rather hazy so the photos aren't really worth posting.

Well, with this I've used up a lot of the forest areas that I know, but also realized that once you get above 6 or 7k feet its cool enough that April sun is tolerable, if you can haul enough to drink.   There's other spots I want to visit up there, but hopefully next trip will be cooler and I can catch up on the big backlog of lower elevation places I've got plans for.

It was great to be out.  It was great to be back in the Valley!

Oh, communication at SPW is pretty marginal.   Apparently the AT&T cell service was out, but we got some other network with an ID that was all digits.   Could phone and text off that, right in the immediate area.   I don't get much roaming data on my plan so I wanted to save that for emergency use.   The usual wifi around the lobby (have to sit outside) but it was really slow - usually if I go over there around 6 AM it's fine but not this time.

The gift shop and moved into what was the general store - don't count on getting much in the way of food there.

[netllama]

Thanks for the great, detailed trip report. Sounds like you made the best of the weather conditions.

[GowerGulch42]

Great stuff! Sorry to hear about the Stovepipe Store, that's bad.

I'm excited to see pictures from those ridge areas, I've eyed those for a long time. Share more if you care to!

[Sparky of SoCal]

Very good, I am partial to the higher wooded areas. It may be me, but it seems like the Horned Toads are getting more rare than the sheep.

[MojaveGeek]

It may be me, but it seems like the Horned Toads are getting  more rare than the sheep.

I think of them as pretty common, although on this trip we saw one "toad" and 2 sheep so...  They don't act like other lizards - instead of running away as fast as the wind, they are slower, just try to crawl into a place where you can't grab them, and if really trapped, flatten themselves.   So relatively easy to see (if they move - I wonder how many I pass and just never see).

Walking once a bit east of the Skidoo road, there's a fun mine back there with a tramway tower you can climb, we encountered two - a brown one living among brown rocks, and a grey one living among grey slate-ish rocks.   But there were no more than 50 yards apart!

[TacoLand]

Thanks for the trip report, Mojave. Love how you spent the majority of it in areas at elevation that I've never really touched on. Also got some nice wildlife encounters – check out those bighorns! Titanothere Peak looks like a nice one ... I'll make sure to bring my selfie stick next trip. Hope you got yourself a nice mug or magnet at SPW.

[MojaveGeek]

 Hope you got yourself a nice mug or magnet at SPW.

Nah, I've got too much of that crap at home.  But I did get a nice hat at the natural history association, which was selling out of a back room behind the auditorium, with limited stock.  But I'm a sucker for nice DV baseball hats

[Kauri]

Wow, thank you for posting this detailed TR with lots of photos! Someday I'll do more exploring in that area near Wildrose Peak. Two of your hikes, the one to the saddle above Wood Canyon and the Wildrose saddle to Mahogany Flat, are ones I'd thought about doing years ago, but never got to.

We saw lots of horned toads on the road to the cabin (can't remember what it's called) that's north of the Telephone Canyon/Tucki Mine Road, but that was back in 2015. I remember seeing so many of them on that hike that I was constantly watching my footing because I was worried I might accidentally step on one.

Speaking of horned toads and mugs from the DV gift shops... I got a really cute horned toad mug from the SPW gift shop on our last DV trip; not sure if they still have them, but it was made by the same company that does the ones with the ceramic snake head in the center of the mug, that appears as you drink your coffee or whatever you put in the mug. It's one of my favorite DV souvenirs.

[David_Bricker]

Great report, great pictures. Thank you for posting. I live vicariously through these reports.

David Bricker / SYR

[John Morrow]

Some fun looking ridgerunning there, MG. Psyched to follow in your steps out to Colville some day. Did that trail seem to continue beyond down toward the valley? I am wondering what its purpose is and why it is cairned? Peakbaggers...?