Traveling California and Southern Nevada,
summit to desert summit

Desert Summits: A Climbing and Hiking Guide to California and Southern Nevada covers an extensive area of the west, with driving and hiking directions to hundreds of author Zdon’s favorite desert summits, as well as a brief history of each area, from the Sweetwater Mountains of Eastern California to the Mojave Desert.

“The Mojave National Preserve covers more than 1.6 million acres, and has been referred to as the “Lonesome Triangle,” although on a holiday weekend, one will likely encounter more people than expected. The history of the region is tied closely to the two largest sources of water, the Colorado and Mojave Rivers. Native people are known to have inhabited the area as far back as 10,000 years ago, subsisting on the abundance of seeds and pinyon nuts in the area. About 700 years ago, Paiute-Shoshone people migrated to the region, and left behind evidence of their lifestyle through their ceremonial, camp, and village sites. The first known Europeans in the region were the Spanish explorers Juan Batista de Anza and Francisco Garces. They passed through the region during 1775 to 1776 via the Mojave River, passing by the Kelso Dunes and along the Providence and New York Mountains. Garces described in his diary: “I went four and one-half leagues to the east-southeast, having traveled through the big sand dunes and the Sierra de Santa Coleta.”

The Sierra de Santa Coleta was the name used for the Providence Mountains. Garces’ path probably took him through Cedar Canyon between the Mid Hills and Pinto Mountain. Fifty years passed before Jedediah Smith passed through the region on his way to southern California from the Rocky Mountains. John C. Fremont passed through the region in 1844 following the Spanish Trail which roughly followed the northern portion of the Mojave, and along the Mojave River. As early as 1846, Mormons on their way to southern California also used this route. A wagon route was established through the area in 1857, linking Prescott, Arizona with San Bernardino, California.

With the advent of this wagon road, prospecting in the region began in earnest. The late nineteenth century saw the establishment of many of the mining camps, that are today nothing but ghost towns or named sites marked upon a map. The first railroad to cross the Mojave did so in 1883. Soon, other rail lines crisscrossed the region. During the 1930’s, bigger and better topographic maps of the area became available, and exploration of the area for minerals, water resources (tapping into the Colorado) and other resources began to increase. Today the region is crossed by interstate highways, and continues to be traversed by trains. What was once a remote place to be avoided is now a vacationer’s paradise. Throughout the region, the hiker will encounter three main rock types: Paleozoic and Mesozoic-age sedimentary rocks consisting of limestone, dolomite and sandstone (e.g., at Mitchell Peak in the Providence Mountains); granitic rocks of the Teutonia quartz monzonite (e.g., at Teutonia Peak, New York Mountain, and the Granite Mountains); and Tertiary-age volcanic rocks including basalt and rhyolite tuff (as at Pinto Mountain, the Woods Mountains, and Fountain and Edgar Peaks). The variety of these rock types leads to the wide range of scenery in the area. In the Marble Mountains, a green shale called the “Latham shale” is one of the most fossiliferous units in the Mojave with fine specimens of trilobites occurring in its thinly-bedded horizons. The author has observed trilobite cephalons (the head of the trilobite) up to four inches in diameter…” Read more: Desert Summits: A Climbing and Hiking Guide to California and Southern Nevada