Cummings Mountain, Bear Mountain

25-26 April 1970

By: Vic Gleason

Leaders: Vic Gleason, Ron Kennedy

Just about everything worked well for Saturday's trip up Cummings Mtn. Ron and Penny Kennedy's early morning roadwork compensated nicely for a late starting time, by halving the distance and elevation gain to 7 miles and 1500 feet. And a combination of deer trails and detours along the south edge of the summit ridge avoided almost all the buckthorn. After a leisurely lunch under a clear, but breezy sky, some forty-one "register signers" returned to the Cummings Campground at the foot of the mountain.

Although Kim Cummings charges a dollar per person per day, the campground facilities were well worth it. Aside from tables, heads, grills, piped water and a running brook, there were such oddities as electric lights, a "ready to light" bonfire, and butane.

Sunday's trip up Bear Mtn. worked well except for the weather which managed to "white out" the summit, starting about half an hour before we arrived there. But then no one in the group had ever been on the summit in clear weather, or even knew anyone who had. Besides dropping the temperature dramatically, the white out and its associated barometric fluctuations left a mystery as to the real "high" point. The 1964 HPS register lies some 300 yards east of the 1950 Riverside Chapter Register which contains an entry describing visual sightings of the three or four high points. The altimeter read about the same at each, some 300 feet higher than the GS Peak List elevation (6913'). The rock structure at the western register, however, requires more climbing than the one at the HPS register.

Twenty-seven people and one black dog completed the 12-mile 3600 foot trip under cloudy skies with everyone on the road home by about 4:30 p.m. Although we missed most of the wildflowers and migrating birds promised in the writeup, the trip did reveal the Tehachapis as a pleasant range of high rolling valleys, running creeks, forested slopes, and snow covered summits.