Charleston Peak, Mummy Mountain

6-Jun-81

By: Fred Camphausen

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This one went on nothing but pure luck. Our Mary Jane Falls parking lot meeting place announced in the tripsheet turned out to be the right place after all. I was going on memory. Then all the fears that the spring at our planned camp was bad proved to be groundless. The weather on this Saturday morning turned out to be good for a change and 33 hikers were rarin' to get started at 7 AM. 3 The only bad part was we didn't have Phil Bruce to assist because he had to work. We went up the Deer Crk trail to where there's a spring on the North Loop trail indicated on the topo just SE of Mummy Mtn. Here's where we made camp. Finding a campsite for each one in our mob required some doing. People were clustered together in some prehistoric looking caves. The social aspects within these isolated groups were perfect. I ended up on a much improved but small and lonesome perch above the main group. The spring and camp is encountered on the trail when you come to a dried up wood horse trough. We found the spring by climbing uphill a few yards to a cliff with water seeping out. It goes into a pipe which is disconnected in the middle so you can fill your water container easily. This spring lasts all year. After awhile we left camp to climb Mummy Mtn (VABM 11,530'). We took the trail N a ways and then up a broad scree slope to the E ridge. We spent a lot of time waiting and shooting the bull. There was no hurry. We got to the summit and rested some more in the sun. Then we went back down the ridge and ran down the scree slope and resisted the temptation to keep running and cutting all the switchbacks in the trail back to camp. Every camp has its firebug and ours had Stan Rosenwald. He gathered the wood and let out a hoop for a fire well before sundown. It finally got started and we stood around and talked for awhile about some real heavy subjects but fatigue soon got the better of us (worst of us?) and we went to bed. Bright and early at 7 AM (Edna Espamer wanted to start earlier.!) we lined up on the trail for Charleston Pk (11918'). There were some DPS Emblem Award finishers in our midst. Leaving our ice axes in camp seemed to be the safe thing to do and this might have been obvious to some of us even before leaving LA. The North Loop Trail is long but fairly level. We moved along without resting for a long time and finally halted briefly in the last trees below the summit. Then we charged up the remaining trail and I could hear the Champagne sloshing in people's packs. We gathered around the wind shelter and soon Sherri Harsh orchestrated the opening of the Champagne bottles and lots of pictures were taken while Sierra cups were being filled. Ben Preyer wore his usual tam-o-shanter for the occasion. By 10:30 AM some of us were already pretty well partied out so we started back down to camp. Most of the people who weren't going to drive straight back to LA decided to pig out at the Mint. After that big meal I don't know what went on in other people's cars but in our van everybody couldn't help but fall asleep and that included the driver. We have room to list the participants. First I want to thank Jack Koshear and Westy Fletcher for assisting. Susan and Paul Etner, Maris Valkass, Ray Borun, Marlin Clark, Donnetta Hattabaugh, Dick Farrar, Michael Lorr, Harry Forry, Tom Kirchner, Bob Wyka, Howard Derrickson, Ed Forry, Catherine Schmidt, Paul Edwards, Ron Young, Allan Samuels, Bob Meador, Jackie Van Dalsem, Glen Bashore, George Toby, Rose Certini, Bob Ives, Owen Maloy, Igor Mamedalin, Lisa McKay, plus everybody I already mentioned.


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