Old Dad Mountain

8-Dec-62

By: Bob Bear

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17 TURN OUT ON OLD DAD MTN. TRIP

People arrived in camp Saturday from early in the afternoon 'till after midnight. In the evening a tire-fire lighted the sky and people in Baker must have had some worries about smog getting to their hometown. A miner drove up in the belief that evil people had come to steal his rocks, but did not seem to mind our warming fire. We were apparently camped near the hunting grounds of a desert fox, who closely watched our disposal of tidbits of steak, bologna and cookie crumbs. When almost everybody was asleep, he finished dinner with Tom Ross's Hawaiian Punch.

Sunday morning we drove from camp, located on the east side of the mountain, around the south end of the range to a spot on the west side. (Roads from Baker directly to the west side of Old Dad are impassable.)

Al Dageforde and Harry Melts led the main group from here to the summit, avoiding all false summits which is a fact worth mentioning, as there are at least two to the south and one to the north. Four of the group who had been delayed by an extensive breakfast climbed the peak from the southwest via a steeper, possibly shorter route but third class in places.

17 people signed the register. There does not seem to be a valid reason for the fact that Old Dad Mountain is such a seldom climbed peak. We have rarely had a better view from a desert mountain. Below us to the east is a reddish volcanic area, to the southwest a "devil's playground", a dry Lake, and the Kelso sand dunes. San Jacinto, San Gorgonio, Charleston, and Telescope Peaks were all clearly visible.


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