mayhem in the area, so the road to
this trailhead is gated. John Pelonio, the State Park Ranger, sent a copy of an
event permit which must be completed and submitted well in advance of a planned
hike in the Winding Stair Cave area. Write to
Providence Mountains State
Recreation Area Mitchell Caverns Natural Preserve
PO Box 1
Essex, California 92332-0001 |
Nothing in the current peak guide indicates the
severe terrain and exceptionally sharp and loose rocks on this hike to and from
Mitchell. If I ever consider doing this route again (pure foolishness!), I
would insist that all participants have heavy gloves, long pants, and possibly
even hard hats! We didn't dally on this climb but we left around 8 AM and
finally reached the cars around 4:3 0. The cat's claw, cholla and the slicing
rock were somewhat less than delightful. A usually cheerful Henry Arnebold was
heard growling and grumbling to Rick Schneider and the leader (and anyone else
with ears) about the quality of the terrain on the descent.
We camped
about a mile from the Blair Brother's ranch on Black Canyon Road, which was a
nice camp despite the high winds we had suffered through all day and that
night. Happy hour was highlighted by quesadillas by Ken and some large mouth
bass caught from Presa Novillo in Sonora Mexico, along with lots of various
other goodies, and not quite enough wine.
Mike and Cyndi Runyon of
Hundred Peaks fame were on their first DPS trip, and I hope it was the draw of
Mitchell Caverns and not the landscape or company that led them to choose a
cavern tour over the climb on Sunday. As it turned out, they made a fair
choice. Oscar, a friend of Ron Matson chose to stay with Rusky, Julie Rush's
dog on Sunday, as Rusky suffered from the climb of Mitchell as much or more
than the rest of us. I left some reading material with Oscar for the day, and
now Rush Limbaugh probably has another subscriber.
We had several
qualified leaders on this trip, and I was still more than grouchy about the
Mitchell climb of Saturday, so Ken relented and was obliged to lead the climb
of Edgar. We parked in the Cavern visitor's center parking lot ($5 per car),
and, after a quick glance at the writeup, we took off on the Mary Beal Nature
Trail, and up the canyon. Sure enough, after about. 5 miles, the trail ended,
and we hiked on up the delightful canyon. No sharp rocks, very little cactus or
cat's paw, good dirt, nice shade and some water!. It was a wonderful contrast
to the |
previous day's ambush, and I thought
to myself that I might not quit hiking after all.
We reached the ridge,
and bobbed and weaved around the 3rd class false summits, following ducks and
really enjoying the terrain. Ken reached a point where his route was stopped by
a cliff, so I headed east and down from the ridge. and worked my way back up
toward the summit. Upon cresting the summit block, I was slightly stunned by
the appearance of a somewhat higher peak to the north. (Edgar), that wasn't
Mitchell! I opened the register and saw that on previous occasions. several
DPSers besides ourselves had managed to climb beautiful Fountain Peak! Rusky,
was right! We had climbed the wrong canyon and an alternate peak, but we found
nice pools and vegetation on the way up, and I hope that the rest of the
climbers, (good wonderful people) like Brian Smith, Rhoda, Eileen Ricks, Ron
Zappen, Julie Rush, Ron Matson, Erik Siering, and Rick Schneider won't hold it
against us. We chose to ignore Henry when he claimed this was a DFU and not a
DPS peak.
The light of day was limited, and we chose to come back
another day (Oct 29-30. '94) to climb Edgar and Mitchell from the Winding Stair
Cave trailhead. Erik signed out just below Fountain Peak and raced over toward
Edgar. The group was at. the cars by 3 PM, just in time to miss the last cavern
tour. We cleaned up a bit, and decided to leave, but I wanted to wait until 4
for Erik. Henry claimed that if Erik made it back down by 4PM. he would "k...
CENSORED BY EDITOR and give him 20 minutes to draw a
crowd!" Erik walked up to his car at 3:59. Editors Note: One should
certainly be wary of underestimating Erik 'S speed. it's not clear from Scott's
article what happened next.
Western Arizona Peaks
Extravaganza TEN EWE MOUNTAIN, HARQUAHALA PEAK, BIG HORN PEAK
March 18-20, 1994 PRIVATE TRIP by Mark Adrian |
Expanding one's horizons is an inevitable byproduct
of peak bagging. At least it was for our adventurous group of six: Mark Adrian,
Richard Carey, Gall Hanna, Shelley Rogers, Charles Hummel and Hilda Bejarano. I
was fortunate to arrive at the Kofa Wildlife Refuge, Palm Canyon entrance, just
at the prime of sunset. The spectacular western face of Signal Peak exploded in
a blast of fiery orange hues that just about brought me to my knees -- what a
sight! Later that evening, after several thundering |