Several of us spent the lpng weekend dodging rainclouds and slippery mud while climbing Pico Risco and Cerro Pescadores. We followed Dave Jurasevich's 1989 map with little difficulty only to find Laguna Hansen totally dry, windy and cold. We camped in a wash(real smart) about a one mile away from Rancho San Luis. As some of you know, the old woman, Lydia, died a few weeks ago, but to add to the depression, her house also burned down 2 weeks ago. We talked with some instructors who were leading a backpack to Canon Taos down the old cattle trail in the notch south of Pico Risco for a semester class from San Francisco State and who also possess the lodge east of the corn field communally with others including Kent Madin of Boojuin Expeditions. Chato, the old man, is not in good shape and really wants others to take over his land and the Ejido. There is a young San Diegan named Pancho hired on to help out Chato and another house(red) built by another family who may work the ranch. We were asked to stress that these are hard times for Chato and that any gifts or supplies are very much appreciated, even just visits from smiling faces. The Americans really want to take care of this family and ranch, stressing that we should all recognize what a resource we have. More than enough said! In spite of the rain, we were able to drive out north with little difficulty and no wrong turns to La Rumorosa. I think it would go OK to drive in to Laguna Hansen from the north in the daylight but real risky at night. It is a good 3 hours.
On another note, after struggling up the steep slope of Cerro Pescadores and reading Ron Jones' 1987 entry of 2.75 hours, I decided to look more closely at the water gap at our canyon mouth. With binoculars I could follow an obvious good track from the main road. It starts 1.5 miles south of the sign reading "Hipolito Renteria" north of that village. It also corresponds to the old road washout and "Desviacion" where the once 4 lane road goes to 2 lanes. Based on the other tracks we were on, I am sure that it is 4WD only but it looks worth the effort. I haven't driven it yet.
| Spectre, Granite #2 | Nov 4-5, 1989 | Bill T Russell Karen Leonard |
We met at the spot 3-1/2 mi south of hwy 62 that is identified in the peak guide. The "granite slab" at this spot is about 10 ft square and hard to see in the dark. The road forks here. One fork for 4wdr only goes into and up the wash. The other fork, which is ok for cars, stays on the hard ground and goes another 1/2 mi to a good camping spot. The access road was quite sandy for the first 100' from the highway but this soft area could be bypassed. There were two other sandy stretches on the access road that might give trouble to some small cars.
Bill Tryon, David Werner, Pat Russell and I had a good hike to Spectre via the route shown in the peak guide. It took us 3-1/4 hours to reach the summit. The 7-1/2' topo for this peak Cadiz Valley SW, shows the highest contour line on Spectre as 1300m. This is wrong. Spectre is the high point of the Coxcomb Mtns and is about 80' (25m) higher than the nearby benchmark "Aqua" with elev 1346.5m. Therefore Spectre is about 1370m which means that the top six or seven contour lines are missing from the map. I shall tell the USGS of this unusual error.
After Spectre, we went over to nearby "Dyadic" (see note 4.9 of the Peak List) which David and I climbed by a hard 3rd class route. We camped 1/2 mi from the hwy where we were joined for a pleasant evening by Karen Leonard and Dale Van Dalsem.