Eagle Mountain

Hiked: 10/23/2020
Distance: 10.4 miles round trip cross country
Summit Elevation: 5350'
Prominence: 2230'
Elevation Gain: 2541'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 2.0
Round trip time: 7 hours
Recommended water: 148 oz.
Parking/Fees: $35 National Park Fee (1 car for 1 week)
Difficulty: Strenuous (cross country/route finding)

Eagle Mountain (DPS #62) is a prominent high point in the southern part of Joshua Tree. It is remote and the hike is completely cross country. I started just before sunrise, heading almost directly east from the Cottonwood Campground. The first couple of miles were easy, open desert. Sunlight brightened the landscape behind me, but was blocked by the mountains I was approaching. Most of the ascent was done in shade. I looked for the ascent gully as I got closer and noticed the giant boulder piles in the way. The gully was farther north than I expected and I had to escape the boulder piles to get there. It would have worked better to travel north of the obstacles for a clear shot at the gully. For a brief moment, I considered heading straight up one of nastier looking slopes, but once I got into the standard ascent gully, I was glad I didn't. The gully was fun class 2 and I made quick progress. I took one break about half way up to load up on calories, then completed the 1500' gully. Coming out of it, I broke into sunlight and realized I had another 3/4 mile to the summit.

Monument Mountain distant left

Start of the ascent gully

Eagle across the valley
The path to the summit involved dropping into a shallow valley and navigating through more large boulders. The way was marked by occasional cairns and a use trail was visible in some places. Climbing out of the valley put me on a false summit and there was still a final bit of up. I arrived to fantastic views, especially south where the geology rose like the exposed bones of the earth. I found the benchmark, one reference mark, and a slew of registers dating back to 1994. Since it was on the DPS list, it was fairly popular among a certain crowd. It certainly wasn't popular this day as I was the only human anywhere near the mountain. I only rested long enough to complete my summit rituals. I started back and took a couple of minutes to climb an obvious boulder pile in the valley topped with a round boulder. When I got to the top of the gully, I got too close to a yucca and suffered a nice bleed. It wasn't as bad as it looked, but was bad enough that I had to stop and treat it before continuing down. While it was less work to descend the gully, it wasn't much faster, having to account for loose rocks and dirt. I stayed in gully until I was north of the big obstacles I ran into on the approach. It was a solid day in the desert.

Looking east

Looking south

Got too close to a yucca, it's a bleeder!

Starting down the gully

An unusual dry fall

Final look back