Veteran’s Day fell on a Monday this year. And what does one do with a 3 day weekend in November? Head to the desert and bag peaks of course! Keith Christensen, Jen Blackie, and I hiked Kingston with Daryn Dodge & crew on Saturday, but made advance plans to continue east in the legendary van to meet Mat Kelliher and climb Bridge on Sunday before moving on to McCullough on Monday. Sunday morning saw us waking up freezing below Bridge at our campsite on Lovell Canyon Rd. Mat arrived shortly and we were off in the Jeep, headed for the Bridge trailhead via the southern approach. The road is washed out about 1 mile before the 4WD trailhead. It’s pretty much impassable to anything but a rock crawler vehicle. Even Mat’s mighty Jeep stopped and parked. We were able to follow the road to the trail, following the standard DPS route down to the beginning of the climb. A recent snow storm had blanketed Charleston peak in snow, but Kingston and Potosi were untouched, so we figured we would be good on the lower elevation Bridge Mtn. 
Things were not looking good as we began to ascend the standard route. By the time we hit the famous bridge, the rock became too icy to proceed. Sadly, we made the smart choice and bailed. On the way out Jen led us up North Peak, straight out of the Zdon book. It was a peak, but not nearly the challenge we were looking for. North Peak has a Class 1 use trail to the top. Despite being turned back from our objective, the area is incredibly beautiful, and the hike to the bridge and our consolation prize of North Peak made for a decent day, though a successful DPS peak would have been nicer. There is a sign that says “North Peak 0.3 miles, difficult” as you head towards that peak. We all got a good laugh out of that one. 0.3 miles of class 1 on a use trail is about the furthest thing from “difficult” a real DPS peakbagger could imagine…
We parted ways with Mat, who was working Monday, and headed towards McCullough Mtn via dinner in Vegas to make camp and prepare for the next day’s hike. The road into the McCullough was right at the threshold of what the van could handle in the sand, but we made it to the bottom of the eastern route up the peak (DPS route A). There was a sign warning of a hunter in a “blind” in the area, so we wisely stopped just short of this sign so we wouldn’t be confused for quail or deer in our sleep. DPS route A advertises difficult navigation, though we found it quite easy. I loaded some points into my GPS to assist in navigation, but we ended up not needing them. We managed to hit every turn and climb out of washes at nearly the right spot. Three brains worked quite well for this one.
When we were about 20 minutes into the hike, tragedy struck. I went to turn on my camera for a picture and nothing happened. Somehow the camera had drained its battery overnight. I had a handful of spare AA batteries for my GPS and headlamp, but you know how those camera companies make oddball batteries for cameras… Anybody who has hiked with me can attest to my pleasure in taking pictures, especially on the summit. I currently have pictures of myself on 48/49 of the DPS peaks I have completed, in the hope of making a collage of myself on the summit of every peak. Quite a vain pursuit to some, but it’s my thing. Take only pictures and leave only footprints.
At this point, I was a bit upset with my electronic device, and may have even unleashed a few naughty words, possibly cursing like a Sailor. Well, the hike continued on since my legs still worked and the combined brains of Keith and Jen kept us on route. My brain was crying like a baby since my toy didn’t work. After a bit, Keith, the electrician, came up with an idea. I had a handful of AA batteries on me and the summit of most desert peaks are littered with old wire and wood. Maybe we could figure out a way to charge the camera battery using my AA batteries and wire. I was skeptical and consulted my science teacher friend, Jen. She said it may work, and Keith was even more confident, but I remained wary. The hike continued on with a successful summit where we dutifully signed the register and ate some lunch. As expected, there was some old wire on the summit. While I ate my food, Keith began to prepare the wire for our little electrical engineering experiment. As I finished eating, Keith had the wire ready and plans for all 6 hands we had available. I would hold the three AA batteries together in a line, Jen would hold the positive wire and the camera battery, and Keith would hold the negative wire. The ends of the wire went from the AA batteries to their respective receiving ends of the camera battery. We huddled together in this interesting closed circuit system for about 5 minutes and figured it was time to give it a test. We popped the camera battery into the camera and “bing” it turned on! I quickly handed the camera to Jen so she could get a summit shot of Keith and I. She then tossed me the camera and I got a summit shot of her and our master electrician, Keith. The camera was still working! We even managed a few of those timer shots with all 3 of us holding our batteries and wire and I snapped about a dozen more pics on the descent.
We arrived back at the van to find our hunter friend gone, though he left behind the usual hunter-related trash which we grabbed to pack out. We were in the van and off. We barely made it up one steep section of road before hitting the good condition power line road, which can be driven by any standard car. Was our adventure over? How could it be? The sun was still up and we were looking at arriving home at a decent hour. No way was our adventure over. The plan for the drive out to pavement was to stop and grab the Wee Thump Joshua Tree BLM Wilderness High Point on the way before we hit pavement. It’s on the Random Bonus Bumps List, and looked like it would take a good solid 20 minutes for a round trip stroll from the road. When we stopped the van to begin our hike, I jumped out and heard a hissing sound. Not the good rattlesnake hissing, but the bad air releasing from rubber hissing. I informed Keith of the noise and we weren’t worried. He had a spare. Then Jen brought to our attention the other flat tire. Uh oh. Two flats, one spare. Not good. We hobbled to pavement and began to think through our options. In the end, I got a ride to Searchlight, picked up a tire plug kit and some fix-a-flat, and got a ride back to the van. We plugged one tire, used the spare for the other one, limped into Searchlight for air, filled up, and headed to Vegas (opposite direction from home) for 2 new tires. One dinner and a few dollars later, Keith was the proud new owner of 2 brand new tires.
Lessons learned: I now own a tire plug kit and one of those tire inflation pumps that you can pump up a flat with and carry it in the back of the Yaris at all times with my spare tire. We were incredibly lucky that we made it to a state highway before the tire went completely flat and were able to find a person good enough to help us. I also know how to charge my camera battery MacGyver-style, though that camera (Sony) met its fate in Kelso Dunes less than a month later (sand and moving parts don’t mix well). Thanks to the warranty I wisely invested in after destroying 5 cameras in the last 3 years, I now have a better camera that shuts itself off if you don’t push any buttons for 3 minutes. That should prevent further battery issues. I also have a spare battery for this camera (Fuji) since the camera I dropped off a cliff in Joshua Tree earlier in the summer is the same model and I kept the battery, figuring I would own one again someday. In the end, we got 2 of our 3 peaks (Kingston & McCullough), learned a lot about electricity and tire repair, and generally had another great weekend in the desert, even if it was a bit colder than we had hoped for. Two weeks later I found myself on the summit of Clark with my son looking over at Charleston and noticing that the snow had all melted away. If it was gone from Charleston, it was certainly gone from Bridge. I guess timing is everything...
By James Barlow, November 10-11, 2012, Cast: Keith Christensen, Jen Blackie, Mat Kelliher, & James Barlow