panamintrange

We were welcomed to Panamint Valley Saturday night with a beautiful full moon. Myself and a old Panamint City Buddy of mine had planned to hike from Mahogany Flat, up to Telescope Peak. From the Peak we would head along the western slope above Hall Canyon and over to the top of Sourdough Canyon. I have been to some of the Cabins in this area, in the Eyesore, and wanted to get a closer look at some of the mines and sites in the area.

After leaving Chad's truck with Rocky at Novac Camp, we made are way to Wild Rose Canyon and made a stop at the Kilns. We then headed up towards Mahogany Flat Campground and the trail head for the Telescope Peak trail. We often have the tendency to think we are mountain goats and rarely find ourselves staying on a trail for very long. This hike would be no exception. After a short while we decided to head straight up the east slope of Rogers Peak and meet up with the service road near the summit.

Weather at the peak was windy with the wind chill gauged at about 12 degrees. We found ourselves heading back down the hill a short ways so as to be able to eat lunch out of the wind. We then headed towards Bennett Peak and this was when we made our second mistake.(The first one was hitting the trail so late in the day. 2PM) instead of staying on the trail, we again decided to hike the slope from Bennett's to the head of Hall Canyon.

We neared the head of Hall at about 6PM with only a slight amount of Sun light left. We knew we would have to find somewhere to hunker down for the night. Chad found a pretty good sized Pinion Pine on the slope that would serve as a wind break and we tried to make flat areas to roll out our sleeping bags. Chad had a good spot but my spot consisted of a spot in the tree where some dead limbs had gathered. No matter how I laid, a arm or leg would fall asleep.

It was pretty cold but we were prepared with layered clothing and I was using this trip to try out a new 10 degree mummy bag. The position I laid in made it hard to get all the way into the bag so I added a space blanket over my head and chest to keep out the wind. It was now dark.

After about a hour of light sleep I awoke to a bright light. I had forgotten about the full moon and began thinking maybe we should hike back to Mahogany Flats and attempt this same hike at a later date. I discussed this with Chad and we decided why not. So we packed up and headed back the way we came using the moon and our Mini Mag lights.

We made it back to the 4Runner by 11PM and Midnight found us crawling back into the bags for a well deserved sleep out in Panamint Valley. The next morning we went up Surprise Canyon to get Chad's Ranger and from there we hit Panamint Springs Resort for lunch. From there we headed to the Trona Pinnacles and then to Ridgecrest for dinner and a stop at the Maturango Museum.

Sure we did not accomplish what we had set out to do ,but we felt the trip was a great success. We got to see some new territory and just being back out in the Desert was all I needed to have a great time.
Happy Trails