Montgomery Peak

7-Oct-84

By: Glen Bernard

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GLEN BERNARD GETS HIS EMBLEM

Glen Bernard with his fathers (Randy) help had planned on getting his DPS Emblem on Telescope Peak 11,049 ft, a nice peak with a good trail, and 3000 feet of elevation gain making it easy to carry the 7-up to the top. Glen wanted a fun group of desert peakers to help celebrate, so his Dad agreed to lead Telescope Peak as a scheduled trip. Everything was going fine, Glen had climbed 29 peaks on the Desert Peaks Section list (only 15 peaks are needed to get the DPS Emblem, however 5 must be "Emblem" Peaks) including the needed Emblem Peaks; Kofa Peak 4877 ft. Rabbit Peak 6640 ft. Mt Inyo 11,107 ft. Charleston Peak 11,918 ft. And then about 3 weeks before the trip they heard that all the roads had been washed out in Death Valley by the flash floods of last summer. A scouting trip to Wildrose canyon proved things were worse than they had heard, so assistant leader Sherry Harsh and Randy relocated the trip to do the Emblem peak Mt Montgomery.

Glen and his family left Los Angeles Friday night and drove to Fossil Falls for the first nights camp. In the morning they discovered trip participants Joanne Proffit and John Sarna had camped there with them. After getting gasoline in Big Pine, California, they left US 395 and drove east over Westgard pass on route 168 to the site of Oasis, California. Then north on Calif 266 which became 264 in Nevada. Only 325 miles from downtown Los Angeles they stopped at Dyer, Nevada for food & drink. After lunch they drove north 11 miles and meet the gang at the WRONG road marked "Chiatovich Creek Ranch". Steve Crooks advised them to drive north another 1/2 mile (11.6 miles from Dyer) to the real road marked "Middle Creek Canyon Trail". Just after starting west on the dirt road Roy Wiseman & Bob Franks saw the dust and joined the caravan of now 5 cars. Two hours and 13.4 miles later they reached the trial head camp and began the pre-emblem party.

Sunday morning, up at five and on the trail at 6:20 am which is first light in October. John Gibba took the point as they hiked west up the creek all the way to 'Trail Canyon Saddle'. From the saddle Ron Van Cleave who helped as assistant as Sherry Harsh had to work, lead the pack due south to peak 12,201 and then on to Boundary Peak. At high noon they hiked south west down to the saddle which is the Nevada - California state line, Al Franz stopped at the border crossing to wait their return. Going over the saddle Beverly Van Cleave had a chance to improve her rock climbing skills on the 3rd class rock in this area. At last, Glen Bernard took the lead of the last section of the climb to the mighty summit of Mt Montgomery 13,441 ft., a climb of 5000 feet, to become the fourth youngest Emblem holder in DPS history at the age of 13 years 2 months. By 2:20 pm the celebrating had run down so they left the mountain to run down to camp. Arriving back just before 6:20 pm for a round trip of 12 hours. After a final round of congratulations to Glen they departed for home.


Detailed information for visiting one or more peaks mentioned in this article can be found in the
Desert Peak Section Road and Peak Guides

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