Toward sundown it turned cold, and Malcolm and I separated, searching the slopes on both sides of the canyon for a cave where we could find shelter for the night. It was dusk when he shouted across the canyon that he had found a shallow cave that would serve our purpose. A dead tree growing just outside the cavern provided the wood which enabled us to dry out our clothes and keep warm that night.
Rain fell during much of the night, and the next morning the slopes of the range above were white with snow. We started up the canyon soon after sun-up and within two hours bad reached the snow line.
We realized now that we had underestimated the time necessary to climb Picacho del Diablo. From the 1500 foot elevation where our base camp was located at the mouth of Providencia Canyon we had spent an entire first day reaching the 3800-foot level -and it was certain we would not gain the top on the second day. We were wearing tennis shoes, and it became evident this was the wrong kind of footgear for climbing over snow-covered rocks. Rubber on wet rocks is treacherous footing. Our feet were
At ten o'clock we agreed that El Diablo was beyond our range for this trip, and turned back, reaching camp before nightfall.
That was failure number one.
Just a year later, on March 21, 1935, I crossed the Calexico border on a second attempt to reach the summit of El Diablo. Malcolm Huey was driving his pickup again, and this time I had my Model A Ford with big tires. Our companions were Wilson McKenney and Paul Cook, both of Calexico.
On this trip we blazed a new trail from the Mexicali-San Felipe road inland to the base of the San Pedro Martirs. Malcolm had flown over the area in a plane during the year which had elapsed since our first assault on El Picacho, and had decided it would be possible to take our cars through a pass between the north end of the San Felipe hills and the southern end of the Pinta range. There was no road, but we had two good sand cars-and we found it a feasible route. We flushed a small herd of antelope as we crossed this desert where no wheeled vehicle had ever before been seen.
Due to a knee injury Paul Cook was unable to accompany us on the climb. The first night out, Malcolm, Wilson and I camped not far from the cave where Malcolm and I had spent the night a year before. This year we had a cloudless sky and perfect climbing weather.
The third day we might have reached the top-and it was my fault we failed to do so. In mid-morning I separated from Wilson and Malcolm to explore a ledge which seemed to hold the possibilities of a short-cut to the summit. It offered such easy going at first that I continued my ascent in high hopes-and then after an hour of good progress my path was blocked by a field of soft snow. For awhile I floundered in the snow, making little headway, and then realized this route would never get me to the summit this day.
In the meantime Wilson and Malcolm had climbed a long talus slope which brought them to the top ridge of the San Pedro Martirs nearly a mile north of its highest peak. They worked along the ridge toward the south and eventually reached a secondary peak -250 feet below their goal. But a 600 foot chasm separated them from the highest point. It was near sundown, and as bedding and extra food had been left at the previous night's camp, they left a record of their climb to this point and returned to camp shortly after I arrived there. We had less than a day's provisions left, and had commitments which prevented our spending a fourth day on the ascent and the