Casa
Diablo Mtn, 9 January 93
There were only a couple places
left up here for skiing in early January, The Mammoth Mtn ski reports were
advising us to "Pray for snow". You could still find good snow patches at
Deadman, but it was already time to start some desert peak-bagging.
Visible from Bishop in the south end of the Benton Range is Casa Diablo
Mountain. It is desert-like and is seen as a large pile of worn-out granite
boulders. Roads reach it from all sides. LeRoy Johnson and I drove the Casa
Diablo road from Hwy 6 at Five Bridges. We parked at a turnaround on a short
road west of the summit.
We jammed through the boulders and arrived at
a summit which was tagged VABM "Casa Diablo No. 1" in 1933. A seismic datum
plate had also been installed there.
The summit we saw to the south
appeared to be 20 feet higher. Getting over to it was done mainly on the east
side of the ridge and we located a way up via a steeply inclined true chimney
on the south side. The chimney begins inside of a cave which can be entered via
one of at least two portals. This is class 3; the remaining climb is nominal 2
to 3 with holds sometimes at a premium on the decayed and sometimes gritty
rock.
This higher summit is also a surveyed VABM but no elevation or
name is shown (The Casa Diablo Mtn 15' topo gives 7912'). The 1933 survey was
apparently adjudged incomplete until a party in 1935 found the way up to this
higher summit. A solitary and very old soldered tin can serves as a container
for a register which was not found. We improvised by placing a business card
therein. |
Black
Mtn, 20 January 93
This named peak is visible from Bishop's
other side. Black Mtn is passed by Hwy 395 at the south end of the White
Mountains. The occasional DPS-led party formerly climbed it from the east.
Ed Zdon Senior and I drove to the intersection of Black Cyn and Marble Cyn
and then sought out the beginning of the mine trail shown on the Blanco Mtn 15'
sheet. The weather was again sunny and without a hint of chill in the air. By
now the Sierra snow of November was thinning and, in fact, the White Mtn road
was driveable all the way to the locked gate.
The mine trail on the
northwest side of the peak is where the topo says it is but its start is not
seen from the road. The trail begins within the canyon behind rock shelters
dating from the original mining camp. After arriving at a substantial inclined
prospect we climbed upward on broken and fossil-bearing limestone. We topped
out just west of the 9083' summit. The true summit appears to be 30 yards east
of where the VABM plates are anchored.
A register book was placed in
1990 by a person who then laboriously hand-copied many pages of earlier climbs
which he had found on scraps of disintegrating paper. Following the first
transcribed entry involving Gordon MacLeod and Barbara Lilly in 1976, I read
with interest about my own first climb of the peak, in February 1977, then in
the company of Mike Manchester. Andy Zdon's name was incorrectly spelled in his
1987 entry and this elicited the inked-in comment by Ed that "My son doesn't
know how to spell his own name!". We determined later that this was a
misunderstanding during the transcription process. Climb stats: 3 mi, 3500',
3.6 hrs (out-of-shape). |