Old Dad Mountain, Avawatz Mountains

24-Nov-73

By: Bill T. Russell

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Eleven good people met at Baker on Saturday at 10:45 am. Howard Stephens, the scheduled assistant, was unable to come and How Bailey agreed to help out. This he did in a fine fashion for the two days and we all appreciated it.

We consolidated into three cars and drove out the Kelbaker Road, then to the power line road to a spot just east of the south end of Old Dad. We hiked up the wash to the north and then up a prominent steep ledge which ends as a 90° skyline notch a few hundred meters north of the summit. The climb is second class with a few easy third class spots and very enjoyable. Our total trip time from the cars was about three hours.

We camped in the grove of trees about a mile north of the site of Silver Lake, which is about 8 miles north of Baker. Rain threatened, but instead we got very high winds during the last half of the night.

On Sunday we gained two climbers and lost one. We drove up the mining road, which goes into the canyon south of Old Mormon Spring. This road is not shown on either the topo or the auto club map. It starts from Highway 127 at the south end of Silurian Dry Lake (about 19.6 miles from Baker.) We drove about one mile into the canyon and started hiking about 0745. We proceeded up the road, taking the right hand branch at a point with a prominent painted rock, until the road climbs a ridge to the right. At this spot we climbed to the south and gained the main ridge system leading southeast from the summit. This location is southwest of Old Mormon Spring and about 1/4 mile off the edge of the Avawatz Pass topo. We then went up the ridge about 3 miles to the summit which we reached at noon. We had a quick lunch and returned to the cars by 3:00 pm. The day was cold with high thin clouds arid a fair breeze. The view from Avawatz is spectacular and everyone seemed to enjoy the day.


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