Heart Bar Peak, Onyx Peak #1, Plus a Bonus
Thursday morning, I woke up at 5AM to bag a couple peaks in the San Bernadino Mountains. This would normally be great, but I'd been up drinking and carousing 'til late the night before, because I hadn't gotten the final word that we were going until pretty late. Doh.
I was hating life during the drive out -- I had considered just dropping off my maps (my two compadres didn't have topos of the area) and going back to bed. My sweetie convinced me I should go, and the group agreed to start off with the easier of the two planned peaks, Heart Bar Peak, leaving the harder Sugarloaf Mountain for later.
Once we got on the ground, I felt a bit better, although I still moved pretty slowly. The directions weren't entirely clear, but it sounded like we were supposed to stick to the well-maintained dirt road we were on until we got to the summit, passing a few intersections on the way.
Unfortunately, as we staggered up a really steep section, and checked the map again, it became clear that we'd missed a turn. By this point, G. was out in front by about 10 minutes, trying to keep warm in the chill air, and M. and I were scratching our heads. We were almost at the wrong summit by then, so we went ahead and finished off the last mile or so and enjoyed an unnamed, unlisted summit.
After a bit of a break, and a chance to catch up with G., we headed back down, watching more closely for the right trail. It turned out that the "old, overgrown road" was so overgrown that only a small pile of rocks marking a small trail clued us in. After walking back a hundred feet or so, the remains of the road became apparent.
We wandered on for a half mile or so, on and off of the road, which was choked with brush and fallen trees, staggered up to a couple of false summits, and finally found ourselves on Heart Bar Peak. It was kind of nondescript -- the register was a who's who of HPS list finishers, since that's about the only folks foolish enough to trek up there.
After our bonus hike up to the unnamed summit, we dropped the idea of hitting Sugarloaf Mountain, and bailed to Onyx Peak #1, which should've been a short, one-mile hike. Unfortunately, last year's rains had messed up the road enough that M. wasn't comfortable taking his van on it (as a guy who's turned around more than once on rough roads, I'm sympathetic).
We wound up making a six mile roundtrip hike -- to rub salt in our wounds, the gate was open for the last mile, and we could've driven the whole way! Still, it was fun to grab the peak, and we enjoyed some great views out into the desert.
On the way up, I'd spotted a wrecked vehicle down by the side of the road. On the way back, we watched for it all the way down, but couldn't see much. By the time we'd made it back to the road, I was wondering if we'd be able to help out some poor folks who'd gone off the road and not yet been spotted or helped.
Alas, we were about 10 years too late -- when we finally drove up to the right spot and spent five minutes walking back and forth along the road to find the vehicle, it turned out to be an old junker (still shiny white, though) that'd crashed long ago, and obviously been explored and investigated. Oh, well, that's probably better than finding some poor folks in distress.
After my five hours of sleep that night, I staggered home, showered, and napped -- 'til 7AM the next day, when I started packing for my weekend backpack to the Sierras!
I was hating life during the drive out -- I had considered just dropping off my maps (my two compadres didn't have topos of the area) and going back to bed. My sweetie convinced me I should go, and the group agreed to start off with the easier of the two planned peaks, Heart Bar Peak, leaving the harder Sugarloaf Mountain for later.
Once we got on the ground, I felt a bit better, although I still moved pretty slowly. The directions weren't entirely clear, but it sounded like we were supposed to stick to the well-maintained dirt road we were on until we got to the summit, passing a few intersections on the way.
Unfortunately, as we staggered up a really steep section, and checked the map again, it became clear that we'd missed a turn. By this point, G. was out in front by about 10 minutes, trying to keep warm in the chill air, and M. and I were scratching our heads. We were almost at the wrong summit by then, so we went ahead and finished off the last mile or so and enjoyed an unnamed, unlisted summit.
After a bit of a break, and a chance to catch up with G., we headed back down, watching more closely for the right trail. It turned out that the "old, overgrown road" was so overgrown that only a small pile of rocks marking a small trail clued us in. After walking back a hundred feet or so, the remains of the road became apparent.
We wandered on for a half mile or so, on and off of the road, which was choked with brush and fallen trees, staggered up to a couple of false summits, and finally found ourselves on Heart Bar Peak. It was kind of nondescript -- the register was a who's who of HPS list finishers, since that's about the only folks foolish enough to trek up there.
After our bonus hike up to the unnamed summit, we dropped the idea of hitting Sugarloaf Mountain, and bailed to Onyx Peak #1, which should've been a short, one-mile hike. Unfortunately, last year's rains had messed up the road enough that M. wasn't comfortable taking his van on it (as a guy who's turned around more than once on rough roads, I'm sympathetic).
We wound up making a six mile roundtrip hike -- to rub salt in our wounds, the gate was open for the last mile, and we could've driven the whole way! Still, it was fun to grab the peak, and we enjoyed some great views out into the desert.
On the way up, I'd spotted a wrecked vehicle down by the side of the road. On the way back, we watched for it all the way down, but couldn't see much. By the time we'd made it back to the road, I was wondering if we'd be able to help out some poor folks who'd gone off the road and not yet been spotted or helped.
Alas, we were about 10 years too late -- when we finally drove up to the right spot and spent five minutes walking back and forth along the road to find the vehicle, it turned out to be an old junker (still shiny white, though) that'd crashed long ago, and obviously been explored and investigated. Oh, well, that's probably better than finding some poor folks in distress.
After my five hours of sleep that night, I staggered home, showered, and napped -- 'til 7AM the next day, when I started packing for my weekend backpack to the Sierras!
posted by K at
10:24 AM
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