Distance: 2.4 miles round trip on trail
Summit Elevation: 11160'
Prominence: 3180'
Elevation Gain: 2020'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 1.6
Round trip time: 3 hours
Recommended water: 64 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free at Sawmill Meadows Road turnout
Difficulty: Moderate
I spent the previous night trying to decide what to hike after Conness. I decided on Glass Mountain, a remote desert peak (DPS #13). I drove about 12 miles down Sawmill Meadows Road to a small turnout where maybe 3 cars could park. The drive in was on a good dirt road. Sedans should be able to get there, going slow in a few places. When I started up the trail, it was following a drainage. Shortly, the trail went up the ridge line, leaving the drainage below. The trail was steep and went over a couple of obsidian fields. Several slopes had an obsidian shadow. I was pretty far up before I could see the true summit. Since the gain on this hike is compressed, (2000' gain in 1.2 miles), I had moved slowly. But I was steady and reached the summit in less than 2 hours. I enjoyed nice 360 views. I found where the missing benchmark should have been. The register had several books filled with signatures. I noticed a structure on the Glass North Peak and it was only a little more than half a mile away. I was tempted to head for Glass North, but I wanted to drive back up the 395 to check out the Aeolian Buttes. After taking a short break, I started down.
Not far below the summit, I ran into a lone hiker coming up who mentioned that he had parked next to me and that his plate said "MTNTOPS". I identified him immediately at Patrick O'Neill, a prominent SoCal peakbagger. He maintains thistrail.com, a web site heavy with beta on almost anything in CA. I owe Patrick for inspiration and the thorough photo journals of many peaks I researched on his site. He had seen my name in local registers and sort of knew who I was. We spent 20 minutes talking mountains, current plans, trip lists, and more. Patrick said he was going to get both Glass and Glass North. We wished each other well and hiked on. It was a real pleasure meeting Patrick and a wild coincidence that we both decided to solo Glass on the same morning. I should also mention that I lost cell service and didn't get it back until I was at least 25 miles away from Glass. Something to keep in mind if you rely on cell service for navigating the dirt roads.
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