SPECTRE PK, GRANITE MTN #2		l/2-27/74	JOHN BACKUS
Fourteen people joined the leaders at the appointed meeting place. We then caravaned in toward Spectre, parking on the plateau and hiking the last mi1e or two rather than chancing the sandy wash at the end of the road. We followed the usual route up the mountain, arriving at the summit at lunch time. After some discussion, it appeared that half the group wanted to do Tensor and the other half wanted Dyadic, so we spilt into two groups and climbed them. We were out by the middle of the afternoon. We then headed for the gravel pit which is the roadhead for Granite. This involves crossing a rather nasty wash; after some anxious moments all the cars made it through, and we congregated at the gravel pit. Unfortunately, the weather had worsened, and it appeared to be pouring rain all around us, so it was decided to get out before the wash became impassable if it should rain. Of course, the last car became stuck on the way out, so by the time we got everyone across it was dark. We camped near the aqueduct crossing, visited by strong winds, and an hour after we got there the stars were out and the threat of rain had vanished. Next day we drove back to the wash (not wanting to cross it again) and started hiking from there. After an interminable hike across the desert, we reached the mountain. The canyon your leader chose to go up turned out not to be the best way, having a waterfall part way up that discouraged three people into quitting at this point. The rest of us made it past the waterfall, after which the going got easier, and we were on the summit by 12:30. As frequently happens, we found a better route down which we should have taken up. Off the mountain, we started the interminable hike across the desert hack to the cars, arriving about 5 PM, ready for supper.
KOFA PEAK, CASTLE DOME, PICACHO PEAK		2/16-18/74	GEORGE HUBBARD
Saturday morning dawned bright and beautiful at the Palm Canyon turnoff with the sun just poking over the Kofa range. Fourteen climbers signed in and after driving to the mouth of Palm Canyon, we started hiking up the canyon. We soon passed the solo grove of palm trees far up a side canyon to the north. After some 3rd class climbing, we were seemingly out of the canyon near the headwall. Inspecting what seemed to he hopeless possibilities to the right, we went off to the left and found a route with two short 5th class pitches which led to what we thought was the summit ridge, After proceeding up this ridge and on to the top of the "peak", we discovered that we were on the peak roughly 1 mile NW of Kofa. After some groans and about 15 min of scouting, we found a 30' 5th class route from which we descended onto a shoulder to the south. From here it, was about 300 yards until we joined the upper portion of the "standard" Palm canyon route and the easy walk up to the summit. There we rewarded for our efforts as Tom Cardina and Delores Holladay celebrated the attainment of their Desert Emblem by "showering" us with the bubbly (well, Tom did anyway). After consuming all of Delores's champagne and the rest of Tom's we had a quick snack and headed down the ridge to descend via the 2nd class route down Four Palm Canyon. We overcame some minor problems locating the notch leading into the canyon and made our way down to the desert floor just at dusk. The remainder of the walk was routine (finally) and we were all back at the cars by 8:00PM for the end of an 11 hour day. Because of the late hour, we camped in the Palm Canyon Road just a mile in from the highway. The next day we were joined by Steve Weiss, a BLM desert ranger from Yuma, and his wife, Maxine. After an uneventful drive over to an abandoned mine, we piled into the vans and VWs for the last three miles of rough road to the Castle Dome roadhead. The cholla cacti were out in large quantities and more than one got "stuck" during the course of the day. We walked about 1.5 miles up the standard canyon west of the peak before heading up a ridge and around to the SW face of Castle Dome.

Page Index	Prev	Page 10	Next	Issue Index