[John Morrow]

Turtle Mountains Wilderness Kofa National Wildlife Refuge Muggins Mountain Wilderness Palomas Mountains The Needles BLM Nov 21-23, 2020 Turtle Mountains Wilderness Jerry and Drew drove from Seattle together and Linda met Kimberly in OR and they drove down together. We rendezvoused at the Mopah Spring TH. I had time for an evening walk up on Peak 2120, just inside the wilderness.

Evening walk from camp up Peak 2139

Evening walk

Arrived at Mopah TH. Met everyone and set up camp. Then an evening jaunt up this peak.

Tomorrow's day in silhouette

Eve color

The next day it was onto the Desert Peaks Section classics: Mopah Point 3530' and Umpah Point 3553'.

Climbs of Mopah and Umpah with return hike loop and a trip up to Gary Divide/Mopah Spring

Objectives ahead in sunrise light

Terrain

Mopah appears

hmm?

Jerry scouts a line

Kimberly on the route

everyone

stretch across (off route!)

well known crux

The gang on Mopah Point

tiny oasis below (palms in center)

crux downclimb

route we missed

Kimberly on route descent

final descent

about down

Turtle Mountains Wilderness

Mopah

2/3 way up Umpah Point

traverse to summit finish

Drew on Umpah

Jerry with Mopah behind

Umpah downclimb

Jerry views sunset

gonna be a late exit

last light

The next day we hiked up to Mopah Spring and Relocated to Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.

Turtles morning

Oasis ahead

Mopah Spring

spring and staghorn

petroglyphs

petroglyphs

petroglyphs

spring and mount

petroglyphs

banded tail

Nov 25-26, 2020 Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, off of the King Road (camp). On the 25th we devised a big crosscountry loop of fine Sonoran desert terrain, stitching together no-name peaks, saguaro and ocotillo cacti, a tight water tank holding canyon, and long flats of "desert pavement" in and around the Hidden Valley Hills.

Crosscountry hike connecting four peaks with a worthy variety of scrambling.

Back in Kofa!

starting a long loop

on Peak 2100' looking back

Under Peak 2095'

essential Kofa

Peak 2095' scramble face

Jerry on scramble

big views north

starting up Peak 2327'

good scramble

a bit of knife edge

cholla are feeling drought

Castle Dome south distance

traverse to High Peaks next

Descending Peak 2120'

great west ridge descent on 2120'

Hidden Tanks mouth

closing our loop hike

Moonrise!

Nov 26th we headed to the old mining area near Kofa Butte for a scramble of Polaris Mountain 3624' and what we found was an incredible loop.

KOFA Polaris Loop

It began up a beautiful switchbacking miners foot trail to below the High Henry Mine. It led to a wide gully that, unfortunately was loose and with a prolific amount of cholla cactus the bit us over and over.

Polaris Mtn for today

old trail and droughty ocotillo

neat spire

Polaris far above

the "cholla poke" route (gully)

Once near the summit we went over it and down great scrambling of the North Ridge to complete the loop via a western canyon that could be considered a right fork of Big Dick Canyon. Once it got wide and slow going we located a parallel mining trail up on the east bench for a quick route to the cars.

Near the summit

epic crags west in Kofa Range

deep canyon

North Ridge Polaris descent

classic look at Kofa terrain

moving on the north ridge

will eventually get there

detour to pinnacle 3288'

headed to the saddle

along the crooked shadow/light line

the pinnnacle

about to descend

found a bit of tight canyon

fun canyon descent

almost through

big open unnamed canyon

Polaris west slope

moon over Kofa Butte

Nov 27th: Muggins Mountain Wilderness. This small wilderness has a surprisingly large number of aesthetic scrambles. We chose the namesake Muggins Peak 1424' and its supposedly classic knife edge SW Ridge which splits two obvious gullies. Exciting it was, but we found it too loose to fully enjoy. We said farewell to Kimberly and Linda at camp...yes we were camped higher than the Muggins Peak summit, but 1424' is not a typo!

Jerry and Muggins

Muggins with Central Rib

Onto the central rib

would be classic if solid

Jerry leads on

Drew next

Jerry and Drew on rib

steep step

through

Drew heads to summit block

summit block crux Class 4

exposure

Jerry on top

descent time

friction downclimb

more downclimbing

parting shot

Jerry moving up

Nov 28-29; Palomas Mountains classic peaks. Ibex Peak 2822' and Haystack Peak 2783' are well known by desert mountaineers and justly so. We varied the standard routes by adding a day and adding what I call North Haystack 2320'. It is a fun scramble in itself but doesn't compare to the incredible amount of Class 2 and 3 solid rock on the other two. We found variations that only added more scrambling, and rejoined the good parts of the standard routes.

Variations from norm: lower north ridge approach to Ibex West face to North Ridge of west peak of Haystack (great scrambling). North side descent in a nice waterpolished draw to N Haystack base

Haystack and Ibex

easy, pleasant approach

Onto the Ibex route

low down easy north rib

getting steeper

this is all still on approach

upward

now we traverse left to wall base

scramble the base of the great wall

Higher up easy scrambling

Haystack from Ibex

Eagletail Mtns far distance

arch and north slope descent

Haystack, NW slope/Face

Ibex last look

anthropomorph with spear of white quartz stones

Ibex Peak

the Fisherman

Evening approaches

this is a variation that adds much scrambling and avoids a long traverse on the SW side

Drew on NW Face

N Ridge of western peak

great north ridge scrambling

almost to rejoin usual route

on the high west ridge

to go

N. Haystack for later (right peak)

one of the best Cl 3 scrambles

summit block area

last few steps

N Haystack, aiming for "bowl"

Jerry in the bowl below top

garden in the bowl

Cl 4 variation Jerry liked

descending

staying on rock and off gravel

The Haystacks

parting shot

Moonrise

sunset

moonset

I am photo happy I know, but they tell the story and keep the typing at a minimum! Time to begin a northward path for Jerry and Drew so we exited the Sonoran Desert with a couple drive-by quick scrambles. One of which was impeccable. Nov 30; Courtney Purcell's (guidebook) Little Haystack 1360' and Shangri La Butte 1520'. Purcell really has his descriptions backwards as to which was solid and which was dangerous. Shangri La was excellent. These are opposite the highway of the spectacular looking Havasu Wilderness.

Drew races up

Drew

Jerry and cars below

Tough pitch

finishing

Havasu National Wildlife Refuge

Shang Ri-La next

descent

traverse

down

the route on Little Haystack

Onto Shang Ri-La

Drew having a great time

Jerry routefinding

impeccable rock

Descending a lower west face gully

avoiding scree on west face

Northward we travel next....

Shang Ri-La Peak

[Gimpilator]

Really enjoyed this report. Thank you.

[awilsondc]

Looks like some great scrambling down there! Great report, thanks for writing this up!

[John Morrow]

[Bloated Chipmunk]

"Big Dick Canyon"? I may have to check this place out.