Quail Mountain, Queen Mountain, Bernard Peak, Little Berdoo Peak, Mount Inspiration

14 January 1989

By: Patty Kline

Leaders: Craig Estes, Patty Kline

Eighteen people came for one or both of these days. The campground was Sheep Pass in Joshua Tree National Monument. If you ever book reservations here, it must be done three months ahead to the day for group sites - through Ticketron. State parks need less time to book.

I must be honest and say that Craig and I are getting a reputation for leading motel hikes. Saturday night eight were in a luxurious one bedroom apartment motel. Even though most of us were BMTC graduates, we didn't like the 20°F weather outside.

Because of lack of daylight hours we didn't plan on getting all the peaks listed in the schedule. We skipped Ryan and Lost Horse.

Saturday morning everyone met at the campground at 7:00AM for a busy day. Quail was done first with 8 miles round trip and 1600 feet of gain. We had lunch back at the cars because the wind was blowing too hard on top.

We started for Queen at 1:45PM. We were on a route that was great for bouldering, but not for getting back to the cars before dark. After we returned to the campground, the consensus among the remaining participants was to go to town for pizza and then to the motel rooms. No one wanted to stay overnight at Sheep Pass. Frank Goodykoontz and his two friends Eleanor Carter and Bill "Iceberg" Lien came out Saturday night to camp out at Sheep Pass just after we left for town. Frank said they would have joined us if they had known which motel to go to. The next day we drove on a very scenic road to Bernard and Little Berdoo. We had lunch on Bernard. The two peaks were about seven miles round trip with 1500 feet of gain together.

At this point, half of the group left for home and the rest of us did Inspiration. It was a very short and scenic hike with a spectacular view looking straight towards Palm Springs and on the south to Rabbit and north to San Gorgonio.

The trip ended with this peak, giving us five for the weekend. The names of the other participants were Phil Weinreich, Kate Pope, Rocky Morton, Joe Thornton, Jim Fujimoto, Ron Baker, Karen Leonard, Jim Fleming, Graham Breakwell, Ruth and Cal Boyer, Barbara Cohen and Roy Wolfe.

P.S. On Sunday when we were coming back from Little Berdoo, Joe Thornton found a nice camera in the bushes near the stream bed we were walking in. He showed it to me and I said, "It probably belongs to an HPS'er and the film should be developed for proper identification of the owner." When the film was developed it showed pictures of Bill T. Russell and Jon Sheldon on the HPS trip they led March 19-20, 1988. It is Bill T's camera, but I doubt if it would be any good after 10 months in the desert. I lost a camera on an HPS hike I was leading on Folly in 1986, and it was found by an HPS'er 10 months later on a BMTC experience trip. I guess no one else goes to these remote peaks.