Eleven peak baggers met at the mouth of Jawbone Canyon to set up the car shuttle that is required for these two peaks. After dropping some cars at the regular parking area for Cross Mountain, we drove back out to Hwy, 14 and then down to the starting point for Chuckwalla.
We hiked up the ridge to the dirt road which leads up to the peak and then traveled cross country over to Chuckwalla. Mitch Helbrecht announced that he had good news and bad news for us. The good news was that this was his emblem peak and he had some bubbly to share. The bad news was that he had left the cups in the car. This did not seem to discourage anyone. Serious peak baggers always seem to be able to improvise when there's a party at stake.
After a short celebration we headed off toward Cross Mountain. After signing the register on Cross we were ready for the best part of this route. That is the scree slope on the way down to where we had parked the cars. The peak guide describes a route which utilizes the road at the bottom of the scree slope. I decided to try a route down into the large wash to the NE of Cross. We ended up on a soft dirt ridge which was more fun then the scree slope. After reaching the wash we headed north to the old mine area and then out to the cars.
We said goodbye to some people while the rest of us set off to undo the car shuttle. We reached the other parking area just before dark.
The participants were George Thomas, Jack Haddad, Jim Fujimoto, Laura Webb, Keith Martin, Mitch Helbrecht, Delores Holladay, Paula Peterson, & Donna Nenes.
