SCHEDULED TRIPS

MANLY and CORKSCREW   -   Paul Nelson Your leader, whose influence is unbelievable (as well as his stories), arranged to have good climbing weather for Manly Peak. Snow and 28 degrees with wind. But that was far better than the 110 reported the previous weekend in the valley. Anyway, ten climbers made the top in ten hours. It took us that long to drive in! The stay on top was shortened by the cold and wind. We made up for the quick lunch period by taking longer to down climb because of stops to explore interesting mines in the area. The weather cleared as we drove out that long rough road. Never have I experienced the Black Mountains and the west side of the valley as clear and colorful as they were on the drive to our camp site near Rhyolite. By Sunday morning we had lost one and gained three and by using my toes to count I found that we had twelve climbers heading for Corkscrew Peak. Your leader tried an unfamiliar route which only proved that the peak can be climbed anywhere. About three hours of easy going got us to the top. Because over half the people wanted to leave to explore other parts of the valley, your leader officially ended the trip on the top of the peak. Your now ex-leader and four others stayed two hours on the summit to enjoy the fine, clear, warm day. We had a fine trip but I heard a week or so later that after the trip Paul Lipsohn's VW bus blew up and he had to leave it in Trona. Bill Banks' bug stopped a mile from home and he had to walk the rest of the way. I guess that like all cars, VWs get old too. MARTINEZ    -    John Vitz Friday night while Jon Inskeep was sleeping in Pinyon Flat Campground, a sports car came blasting into the area, skidded up to Jon's campsite, backfired a couple of times, and roared out. And Jon says to himself, "Well, Vitz is here." An hour later Larry Fink and I drive up so quietly that he doesn't even wake up. Once you get a reputation... The next morning we met at 7:30 - all of us except Les Stockton - leader extraordinaire - who was out getting lost looking for the roadhead, and Harry Brumer who, of course, came screeching in at the last moment. It was at this time that I was introduced to some insidious HPS device known as the sign up sheet. Paul was judiciously making sure that everyone signed in. My friends were justifiably suspicious of the whole thing, but I told them that, it was standard procedure for those funny other sections. So they signed it - they trust me, the dum-dums. It seems that there has been a considerable amount of road construction in the area and the old road to the trailhead had been bisected by a new graded road, the banks of which had to be jumped. The big cars were left behind and the VWs, Toyotas, etc were used to get everyone to the roadhead about 8. Rumor has it that Harry Melts left for the peak before we did - but since I didn't see him all day will assume that he was not really with us. Les put in the lead as we ran down the 500 feet to Horsethief Springs where we regrouped. Les asked me to drink some of the water so that we would know, on the return trip, if it was OK. It was at this point that the last DPS meeting was brought up. It was then that someone asked for the recipe for pupfish chowder and someone else pulled out the book "101 Ways to Prepare Pupfish". We then started to climb out of the canyon. Near the top we asked each hiker if he had written to his congressman lately. A yes answer allowed him to continue - a no answer allowed them to be pushed over the edge.

Page Index	Prev	Page 7	Next	Issue Index