Distance: 5.8 miles round trip on dirt road and cross country
Summit Elevation: 9535'
Elevation Gain: 1187'
Elevation Gain (in Empire State Buildings): 0.7
Round trip time: 3 hours
Recommended water: 40 oz.
Parking/Fees: Free on Crooked Creek Road
Difficulty: Moderate (drive, scramble)
The second highest Iron Mountain in CA was in the eastern White Mountains, Mono County. This one was very remote and required about 20 miles of dirt road driving. The first 11 miles of the drive was on White Mountain Road, only six miles from the White Mountain trailhead. Then, another ~9 miles on Crooked Creek Road. The road followed the creek and there were a half dozen shallow stream crossings. The road was not too bad, but had some rough spots and a couple of boulders. 4x4 recommended. I stopped at a turnout about 1.7 miles from the end of the road. On the drive in, I managed to scrape a boulder at a bad angle and broke the weld on the rear passenger predator step. I'll probably just remove the steps since we don't use them much.
Having driven in from SoCal, it was late afternoon when I started hiking. I continued to the end of the road, then started across open country and low scrub. This Iron Mountain was a rounded jumble of reddish-brown talus. The scramble was class 2 on mixed size rocks. I found the benchmark and some old wooden posts, but no register. Views in this part of the White Mountains were limited. As the afternoon waned, big clouds rolled in, some with dark centers. While driving out, a few fat raindrops pelted my windshield, but it never rained. I checked into the Best Western in Bishop and got prepared for a much bigger day on Arc Dome.
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