Much of the climbing was done on exposed faces. Here, Ed. Gammon is leading the way up the ancient crater. Lillian I. Casler and Willard Dean pause for a rest near the summit. Dean is chairman of the Desert Peakers.
Mopah Peak In the Turtle Mountains of Southern California has long been a landmark for lost-mine hunters, prospectors and gem stone collectors. More recently this ancient volcanic crater has become a challenge to the mountain-climbing fraternity, and here is the story of a recent ascent by members of the Sierra Club of California. By RANDALL HENDERSON Map by Norton Allen		ert terrain in quest of semi-precious gem stones, some one reported that chalcedony and agate were weathering out of the seams in the volcanic rock of the Turtle Mountains-and today collectors are still climbing the slopes and combing the surrounding mesa-and getting lovely specimens of creamy chalcedony roses. This is a gem field that will never be exhausted. My first trip to the Turtles was in 1940 when I accompanied Louise and the late Arthur Eaton on a rock collecting hip to the newly discovered chalcedony field. We camped along an arroyo five miles from the base of Mopah Peak at an elevation of 1100 feet. That great spire of rock was a challenge I could not resist, and while other members of the party roamed over thc desert and climbed the lower slopes in quest of gem specimens, I explored the possibility of reaching the
LATE IN February this year I was a member of a little group of Sierra Club members who reached the summit of Mopah Peak in the Turtle Mountains near the Colorado River in the southeastern Mojave Desert. We were not the first to scale this ancient volcanic crater, or what is left of it, for the forces of erosion have broken down most of the walls of the vent from which lava once spewed forth on the surrounding terrain. What remains today is a great pinnacle of	igneous rock which serves as a landmark for lost gold hunters, prospectors and gem collectors--and as a goal for those mountaineers who like to try their skill in difficult places. For 75, years lost mine hunters have been drawn to the Turtles by stories of a fabulously rich placer field which once yielded great nuggets of gold--and then was lost. This is the locale of the legendary Lost Arch mine. Then 15 years ago when the new fraternity of hobbyists known as rock-hounds began to swarm over the des-
MAY 1954		15

Page Index	Prev	Page 7	Next	Issue Index