Distance: 7 miles round trip on dirt road and cross country
Summit Elevation: 3289'
Elevation Gain: 2443'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 1.9
Round trip time: 6 hours 50 minutes
Recommended water: 120 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Hayfield Road
Difficulty: Strenuous (exposed scramble, route finding)
I was looking for challenge. Anschutz Benchmark fit the bill, tucked into the southeast corner of Joshua Tree, far from any public access road. To reach my starting point, I drove I-10 East to Eagle Mountain Road. I took a side dirt road to a T-intersection, then turned left on Hayfield Road. These were the smoothest dirt roads I've ever driven. I was doing 30-35 mph without a problem, so any car could make the drive. I planned to ascend the aptly named "Difficult Canyon", no really, that's the name on the topo. I planned to exit down Dragon Wash, so I parked in between the two canyons. I hiked about half a mile down the road to get to the entrance to Difficult Canyon. Pretty quickly, I ran into the crux section where giant boulders blocked progress. The boulders were solid. There were multiple class 3 obstacles and catclaw eager to rip my clothes and flesh. There was quite a bit of backtracking as I hit dead ends. I made a couple of scary moves, not always on the cleanest route. As I got deeper into the canyon, I was motivated to get through, knowing I didn't want to come back this way. After scrambling and crawling through several tunnels, the canyon opened up for a quarter mile, then came the second scramble section, with new problems and more course corrections. Past that, the canyon got easier. I walked up on a beautiful king snake basking in the sun. He had no interest in me and let me get quite close. I wound around the canyon to the ascent gully on the south face of Anschutz.
The gully was class 2 with crummy, loose rock, gaining 1500' in the final mile. I slid around and slowly picked my way up. By the time I reached the middle of the south face, it had warmed up and I had to take short, frequent breaks. I could not see the saddle at the top, but GPS gave me some encouragement. For a fleeting second, I considered abandoning the summit and just completing the canyon loop, but I was too close, and vowed to continue the fight. From the saddle, it was a short walk over two small bumps to the summit. I found a reference mark but not the station mark, and a register placed in 1981. The last visitors to sign in before me were Bob Burd, Patrick O'Neill and Karl Fieberling seven years ago. Definitely a seldom visited summit. I took a longer than usual break on top to rest, finish my Flame Broiler bowl, and enjoy the view. The return trip down the loose gully was a slow and painful knee buster. I tried to stay on what little solid rock was available. With great relief, I reached the bottom of the gully and started down the mellow Dragon Wash. I had a second snake encounter there, a huge red racer, 5-6' long and larger than the king snake. Unlike the king snake, she was skittish and disappeared in the rocks before I could snap a photo. Shortly after, I was back at the truck. Anschutz was exactly what I needed, a strong test and serious fun. For an easier day, go up and down Dragon Wash and avoid Difficult Canyon.
Sounds, er...difficult.
ReplyDeleteMadison,
DeleteIt was just what the doctor ordered. I think it even cleared up my acne.