Sentinel Peak

20-Jun-53

By: Lloyd Balsam

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The trip to Sentinel Peak will be remembered as a very interesting and thoroughly enjoyable one by the ten, who undertook it on the weekend of June 20-21st. After meeting early Saturday morning in Ballarat, a ghost town in Panamint Valley, Walt Collins and the Werners, the Blasams, Roland Kent, Polly Connable and Ken Rich arrived in the mouth of Surprise Canyon in a froth (the cars, that is) where the hike began. The destination for the day was the old ghost city of Panamint hidden 5-1/2 miles up the canyon through spectacular stream-wetted narrow gorge shaded in many places by cottonwood trees. Panamint City campsite was reached in the early but hot afternoon and the rest of the day spent in looking for the water supply and in exploring the ruins of the once busy City. Toward evening John Delmonte and his son Jimmy arrived in camp; after a liesurly meal all turned in early. In true Desert Peaks Section fashion the party arose at the crack of dawn on Sunday for the easy climb to the peak. The party passed abandoned mine shafts, lovely desert lupine, apricot marlow and colorful mine dumpings of white quartzite spattered with bright blue azurite and green malachite. The peak was reached by 9:30 A.M. and there was plenty of time to enjoy a superb view of Death Valley and distant Sierra and to bask in the sun.


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Desert Peak Section Road and Peak Guides

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