Martinez Mountain, Sheep Mountain

12 November 1989

By: Bill T. Russell

Leaders: Bill T. Russell, Dale Van Dalsem

Our trip was a navigation noodle, jointly sponsored by the DPS, SPS and LTC. We checked off three LTC enrollees who did very well. Three other relative beginners made great progress and four had already passed the leader requirements and wanted practice which they got.

We parked in the parking area named in the HPS peak guide. It is at 51151550. We did nav exercises there and then left for the back-country at 9:00AM. We made camp at the easterly Cactus Spring which was flowing at perhaps 11 qt/min of clear water from a sizeable pool. This spring is not shown on the topo; it is about 150m SE of the one that is shown.

We then climbed Sheep in two groups with the students taking turns leading along two assigned routes which they were asked to follow quite closely. We returned to camp just before dark.

On Sunday we hiked along the trail to the 4600 foot contour line and again split into two groups with the students taking turns leading along reassigned routes. One route went over the bump at 599127 while the second went to the saddle at BM 5168 and up the west ridge to the summit of Martinez.

We had lunch on top and then we descended. One group went via the standard route which goes down the gully that starts at 608130. At the gully bottom the route follows the wash between 581139 and 574140, not north of the wash as shown on the topo.

We shouldered our backpacks at camp and hiked out to the roadhead which we reached between dusk and dark. We had a fine set of people and very good weather. All twelve of us learned new things. The participants were: Dale Van Dalsem, John Gibbs, Charlie Knapke, Carolyn West, Dave Petzold, Eugenia Rohrberg, Bill T. Russell, Pat Russell, Don Slager, Ursula Slager, Asher Waxman, and Vieve Weldon.