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| On the way up Asbestos Mountain. |
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Southern California Map
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*Parking is 11 miles east of the Highway 74/371 junction at the end of Jeraboa Rd.
Google Maps Parking Link
Trailhead Coordinates: 33.61255°N, -116.46142°W.
Peakery Link: Asbestos Mountain, 5,265 ft.
Hiking Stats:
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| Hiking Map |
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| Heading up slope over boulders. |
Summary:I was originally looking to hike Lookout Mountain and Table Mountain on the same hike. However, since my day started late, I cut out Table Mountain, since it would have taken more time than my backup plan, which was Asbestos Mountain.
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| Approaching the summit block. |
After completing one HPS summit on the day, I accepted the challenge of doing two of them. The start of the hike to Asbestos Mountain begins after driving a series of residential dirt roads in the community of Pinyon Pines. I parked in front of the last house at the end of the road, and started hiking on a jeep road leading toward Asbestos Mountain. When the road started bending away from the peak, I left the road and went cross country toward a gully. When reaching the gully, I found trail cairns which mark the route to the peak. |
| On the summit. |
Without the rock cairns, the climb would be rather difficult, so I found them to be helpful, though often difficult to spot. The climb up the gully is a rock scramble for the most part. Time was starting to run out on me, though, so I had thoughts of bailing out and coming back another day. To complicate matters, I lost the rock cairns about 3/4 of the way up, and wound up doing a much more difficult rock scramble. Before reaching the summit, I again found the rock cairned route. The sun was getting close to dipping behind the nearby Desert Divide, so I quickly followed the cairns to the peak.
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| Summit views. |
The summit is not a simple walk to summit. I had to climb some class 3 boulders before reaching the summit high point. I stayed for about 2 minutes, where I shot a short video and took in the views. I then immediately climbed down the boulders and stuck close to the rock cairns. I was determined to not get caught in the gully when it got dark, so I wanted to get back down as soon as possible. Fortunately, navigation was much easier going downhill, where I found myself on the desert floor and back at my parking spot at about 5 minutes before it got dark. Mission accomplished!
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