| The trip was advertised as a one day
climb. It followed the now-standard approach from the California side. Earlier
writeups have described this approach. I drove with friends to the meeting place at Hwy 395 and found nobody there. The next meeting place was on the way in a mile or so where I suggested people could crash after driving during the night. That's where they were found, and we helped everybody finish their coffee and then we drove to Queen Saddle. The hike on the ridge to Trail Canyon Saddle was in warming sunlight. The group spread out on the steep trail to the Boundary Peak summit and some of us were there before 11 am. I asked Tom Moumblow to take the summitteers over to Montgomery so others of us could stay behind to snooze in the sun. We who snoozed became aware of the company of a quite active small mouse. This was a deer mouse, with white colored tum-tum, |
and conversation focused on the
dread hantavirus which was reportedly carried by some of these critters! I
think this caused us to lose some sleep. We got up off the ground, although it
could have been the weakening sun's warmth that caused us to start back
down. We arrived at the cars around 3 pm and waited for the arrival of Vicky Hoover and Debbie and Shane Smith. Congratulations to Debbie who climbed Boundary and now had her DPS list finished. Steve stayed with the young kids so she could do this. Thanks go to Vicky Hoover who drove from San Francisco to be assistant leader. Steve Smith was on hand also if needed to assist. Our participants Included Stan Rosenwald, LeRoy and Jean Johnson, Tom Moumblow (who did assist), Tom Sumner, Vic Henney, Sue Wyman, Debbie and Shane Smith, Laura Webb, Bob Greer, Gordon Smith, and Austin and Betty Stlrratt. Everybody did Boundary and almost everybody climbed Montgomery. El Charro Avitla was the appointed Bishop dinner location. |
| Needle Pk, Manly Pk | Sat-Sun, Nov 1 3-14, 1 993 | Bill
T Russell Duane McRuer |
Our group composed 20
people in ten 4wdr vehicles. We met at 0700 at the foot of Goler Wash where we
left two 2wdrs. The trip up Goler Wash and over Mengel Pass went just fine,
which showed that we had real drivers because this route has a lot of real 4wdr
road. We drove to Willow Spring, the usual trailhead for Needle and climbed
that peak. George Pfeiffer turned back so 19 made the summit.We then drove to the broad saddle 3 km north of Manly Pk to camp. This spot is just outside the DVNM boundary so we were able to have a cheery campfire using four manufactured logs. They have an amazing heat content. About 0100, a strong gusty wind came up and a small amount of snow came down. This caused uick activity by those sleeping outside or those who had loose light objects waiting to be blown.
Sunday morning, 18 of us were underway at 0705; George Pfeiffer started climbing in the dark at 0530 and Wes Shelberg left for home. There was a dusting of snow at our camp and one to two inches higher up. A cold wind came in gusts but occasionally sunlight sneaked between the low clouds. We hiked south up and along the ridge to Manly Peak. The route is mostly class 1 with some class 2 at rocky points along the crest. The summit block was a bit wet and snowy which discouraged all climbers, except Tom Randel and Dan Richter, who made the utter summit. Our descent included some very enjoyable down running in the soft dirt.