Distance: 7.3 miles round trip cross country
Summit Elevation: 2242'
Prominence: 1042'
Elevation Gain: 2513'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 2.0
Round trip time: 5 hours 30 minutes
Recommended water: 90 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Coolidge Springs Road
Difficulty: Moderate
Rain was forecast for most of the coming week, including my regular Friday hike day. I hastily came up with a P1K desert mountain, Coolidge Benchmark, to squeeze in on Sunday. Coolidge was another obscure peak off highway 86 near the Salton Sea. Bob Burds trip report showed him going up a large gully close to Coolidge Springs Road. I reviewed the topo maps and planned a route up one of the eastern ridges. There are multiple ridge possibilites, but they are not all equal, some with big drops or potential cliffs. I also plotted to come down a different ridge further south to form a loop.
I parked on a service road near Coolidge Springs Road, well below sea level, and followed the road toward the ascent ridge. The ridge looked quite steep when I got to the base. Going up involved a lot of hand and foot climbing, but it never exceeded class 2. The ridge was broken into multiple sections with short flatter segements in between. After a steady climb, I reached the summit area then investigated three possible high points before finding the benchmark. A wooden pole was the first place I looked, but the benchmark and register were south of there. A small register and some loose pages were inside a glass jar inside a red can. The entry prior to mine was from 2016, a five year gap. The front row view of the Salton Sea was unique. Wind was gusting keeping it generally cold on the summit. After signing the register, I continued south off the summit toward a long southeastern ridge. Once I was sheltered from the wind, I stopped to eat my sandwich.
The descent ridge had some steep class 2 sections, but fewer than the way up. I passed a lot of bighorn sheep scat, but no sheep. After dropping the first thousand feet, I could see several abandoned mining roads below. I headed for the lowest road, crossing a major gully to continue down the ridge. I tried to drop down a wash near the bottom, but both the wash and the ridge ended in 60' cliffs. I could have returned to the gully crossing but instead climbed an embankment to reach a higher road. The road went over a hill, then came to an end, but the ridge down was low angle at this point. Finally at the bottom, I walked along Wonderstone Wash, tracking the base of Coolidge back to the truck. I was pleased my planned route worked out. Coolidge was a hearty bit of work.
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