without proper gear. The next day was a rainy trip back home.
My next trip, a decade later in 1936, was comprised of two couples of UCLA math students. We had one Model A and one VW Bug. Headed for Las Vegas, and it had been a wet winter. Soda Lake was full, the water only being a couple of feet below the highway. Above Las Vegas, Silver Lake was likewise flooded. The highway was passable, but the railroad was closed. Spent a night at a motel in Indian Springs. This about the same time that Margaret Long was using this same motel, while she was scouting for The Shadow of the Shadow of the Arrow. We never met.
Our base in Death Valley was Bennetts Well. Then we drove up to Dantes View, where the road was under construction. The Model A made it without trouble, but VW bogged down. However the road crew came by and swept up the Bug with a bulldozer blade, along with a yard of gravel, and placed all on the upper road.
From there we headed for Beatty. We were running low on grub, and the only store in town had a sign "FRESH FRUIT AND VEGETABLES". Having hopes for a fresh salad we entered. Yes, they did have fresh fruit and vegetables, if you consider apples and potatoes a good selection.
Visited Rhyolite, then across the valley floor to "Stovepipe Wells Hotel", which consisted of canvas huts. We exited via Wildrose Canyon. Camped in Skidoo, and were ordered off by a miner who claimed he now owned the area. After some discussion, he agreed to let us stay.
The Panamint Valley road had been just realigned and was quite rough. Crossed the Slate Range on the "new road" and it looked much better than the old, which wandered off to the right. If you drive it now, you can see an old road just east of the pavement. This old road is what is left of my "new road" and a set of faint tracks to the left is all that can be seen of the original Panamint-Mojave road.
When we got down, found that the rear spring on the Model A had broken along the road, but it still brought us home.

From then on, had intermittent trips from until the present time. In the l960s became active in the DPS, serving as chairman in 1960. After passing 80, found my climbing ability has fallen off. However, much to my surprise, find I am leading a DPS trip in 1992!

In the 1970s started work on a series of Desert Peaks Guides. These do not compare with the present DPS guide, being published by the Desert Peak Section. Frankly they are both more and less. The DPS guide goes into great detail on the peaks listed. In my case, I only gave brief information on the approach route and the climb. For, on many Desert Peaks, if you are pointed in the right direction, any seasoned climber would have no trouble climbing the peak.
On the other hand, the DPS, by an involved process determines which peaks are worthy of being listed. For example, the peak must have been led on a scheduled climb. In the early days, this would have blocked scheduling the peaks, because we are often trying to explore new peaks. However, due to such a bureaucratic procedure, many worthy peaks are
 
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