Little Chuckwalla Mountains High Point

Hiked: 3/3/2023
Distance: 6.1 miles round trip on dirt road and cross country
Summit Elevation: 2466'
Elevation Gain: 1142'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 0.9
Round trip time: 3 hours 30 minutes
Recommended water: 64 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Graham Pass Road
Difficulty: Moderate (route finding)

Since the hike to Chuckwalla was short, I had looked for nearby peaks to combine with it. After looking at a couple of ideas, I decided to blaze a route from Graham Pass Road to Little Chuckwalla Mountains High Point. The few recorded ascents I found were from the south near Bradshaw Trail. I plotted a route using CalTopo trying to minimize obstacles, but topo maps don't reveal all features of the terrain. While driving back along Graham Pass Road, I found a turnout and unmarked dirt road near where I had randomly selected my starting point. I parked, started down the faint road that happened to go the right way, then stopped and thought I should drive as far as possible on the road. Then, stopped, and thought I needed some extra miles and didn't want to risk getting stuck in deep sand on an unknown road. So I continued on foot. The road turned out to be in great shape and I could have driven almost another mile toward Little Chuckwalla.

When the road started to veer away, I left it and dropped into a wash with 20' walls. There were many washes and canyons to cross. The deepest one was about 100'. I had to go slightly out of the way to a find spot to cross the deepest one. As I got closer to Little Chuckwalla, the rocks and boulders got bigger and more dense. Some of the rocks were black volcanic. My topo track had me going straight up, the other option was to follow a large gully around the left side and come up behind the summit. With plenty of obstacles in the gully, I decided to attempt the direct approach. It was going OK, but the rocks and dirt were chossy and I was sliding around a lot. About 100' below the top, I decided to side hill over to the gully, then walked up to the high point. I found a register in a glass jar, and someone had left a small pile of quartz stones. The register was slightly brittle, like it had dried out after being wet. There were no marks that I found. I did my rituals and enjoyed the scenery. It was a satisfying hike since success was not a given until the very end. I descended the gully and hit no big surprises. The long drive back was easier with Little Chuckwalla in the bag.