Iron Hiker: Vallecito Mountains High Point

Hiked: 3/16/2018
Distance: 5.9 miles round trip cross country
Summit Elevation: 3583'
Prominence: 803'
Elevation Gain: 1415'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 1.13
Round trip time: 4 hours 30 minutes
Recommended water: 56 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Fish Creek Wash
Difficulty: Moderate

Matt and I met at Scissors Crossing, then drove to Fish Creek Wash and completed the roughly 18 mile jeep trail to Dave McCain Spring, the trailhead for the Vallecito Mountains High Point (SDC #60). Technically, Whale Peak is the highest point in the Vallecito Mountains, while this peak is the high point of the eastern part of the range. The road to the trailhead has large rocks, a couple of tight spaces, and deep sand. 4x4 is strongly recommended, high clearance may not enough. The drive through Fish Creek Wash alone took about 1.5 hours. We started hiking around 7:45 AM in cool weather with a steady 20-25 mph wind. The hike had three distinct phases: boulders, plateau, boulders.

A faint use trail left the parking area over a small saddle and dropped into the dry spring below. We followed the spring a short distance before heading straight up a large wall of boulders. We found a route up that never exceeded class 2. At the top, we started across a large, sandy plateau. Vallecito was not visible from the plateau. Nearby, Peak 3450 looked like the obvious high point, but fell 133' below that honor. The plateau had healthy and abundant vegetation though it was sparse enough to allow easy travel. We found bighorn scat along the way and some bleached bones, but never spotted one of the elusive animals. At the end of the plateau, we stopped for a break at the bottom of the ascent gully. A giant boulder field surrounded Vallecito. There was no use trail, but we stayed slightly right of the ascent gully on the way up. At the false summit, we got our first look at the summit on the other side an 80' dip.

Start, use trail goes over the shallow saddle

First boulder wall

Long plateau, Vallecito HP at the far end, but not visible

In the ascent gully, second boulder wall

First view of Vallecito summit

There was a small camping spot at the saddle below the summit, somewhat protected from the wind. The final scramble was short. At the top, we found a yellow register can with a glass jar inside. We took turns occupying the highest boulder. The best views were east into Borrego Valley. Whale Mountain filled most of the western view. Parts of the Santa Rosa Ridge were visible and snow capped San Jacinto beyond. This summit and route are extremely remote and seldom visited. The register included the front cover of the first register book (and probably first ascent) from February 9, 1980. Because we were exposed to the wind, we didn't stay on top for long. After signing the register, we started back, taking a slightly different descent route. We looked for an easier way around the boulders, but it ended up being about the same difficulty. We crossed the plateau and started down the final boulder wall. We were about 200' north of our ascent route and ran into some larger boulders that forced adjustments to our path. Back at the truck, the adventure wasn't quite over. I made all right turns at each junction in Fish Creek Wash on the way in, so I planned to take all left turns on the way out. This should have worked, but I took a left onto an unmapped and unnamed jeep trail somewhere along the way. I noticed this when the navigation system showed us well north of Fish Creek Wash. The nav system didn't know how to get us back and neither did Google Maps. Matt checked a satellite view of the area on his phone and thought the trail we were on would meet up with Fish Creek Wash so we continued forward. The road was no worse than Fish Creek Wash and after a few miles, it met the main jeep trail. Getting lost on the drive out would have been bad mojo. The upside of the diversion is that we got some bonus scenery shots.