Wait Wheelock
Last evening, was rereading Desert Sage 212, and Ron, you are turning out an excellent Newsletter. Was amused by the discussion of Moilles Nipple, and a climb of a similar peak in Baja, about twenty years ago, came to mind. Since I am sure I have been researching this for three decades longer than you, I remembered climbing a Baja Peak (Chichi de la India=later, Teta de la India, another nice peak.
This peak lies a few miles south of Mex 2, almost in line with the Sierra Juarez and the Laguna Mtns, north of the border. Long before the Cantu Grade was constructed (1915?) the main road ran south of the present roads, dropping down at El Condor, passing through Tres Pozos, to the Japa mines.
In John Robinson's CAMPING AND CUMBING IN BAJA, we find, describing the Plateau Country:
"If one enters this region from El Condor, then for miles the northern skyline is accented by a beautiful cone, Chichi de la India (Squaws Tit). If the approach is from La Rumorosa, it looms ahead for the first half hour of the trip...at about ten miles a good road branches left. Follow this road, past a woodcutters trail, a good road branches left. Follow this road east, around a shoulder of a ridge, for about a mile and a half. The summit looms immediately to the north."
Actually Robinson had explored very little of the western slope of the Sierra Juarez. It was I who wrote most of the material of this chapter. However the editor thought it would be better not to attribute this to me, publishing it as part of the main text. (I could hardly protest, as I was the editor!)
Then in about 1970, I decided to climb this interesting summit. It had been a Landmark for years, orginally known as Chichi de le India. This term is probably a slang form, possibly even an Indian expression. Modern Mexican maps call it Tel, deli India. ie. Teat of the Fenmale Indian.
I drove in as described above, parking near a large stone outcropping, surrounded by pinyons. My companion, Helen Ellsberg, was not much of a hiker, so remained in the van. [later she wrote articles and books about Baja, including Dana Anita of El Rosario, and passed away about five years ago.]
It was an easy stroll through the chaparral to the base of the peak, and perhaps a 500 ft. climb to the summit (5000'?). The base is of a whiteish granitic material, with a six foot reddish rhyolite plug, forming the "tit". Really it looks much more like a bosom than any other of our mountain nipples! From the summit, one looks south along the Sierra Juarez, to the north to the Laguna Mountains of San Diego County, and eastward to the Sea of Cortez.
However clouds started rolling in, so after gently stroking the "nipple", It was back to the car, for dining and camping.
Helen opened a bottle of wine, but just then a thunder storm broke overhead, it was a question as to where to wait out the storm, under the stone outcropping, or in the car?
Happily, after a few close flashes, the storm moved on. We cooked dinner, finished the wine, listened to some Mozart on the tape deck, and so to bed. With the current Sierra Club rules, there is no use in proposing this for a DPS Peak.
