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| Hiking | 12.60 Miles |
1,290 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.60 Miles | 7 Hrs 16 Mns | | 2.31 mph |
| 1,290 ft AEG | 1 Hour 49 Mns Break | 12 LBS Pack | | |
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| no linked trail guides |
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| no partners | | Summary: Highly recommended remote wilderness adventure with wild horses to be seen.
The Signal Mountain Wilderness (BLM) does not have any defined trails. Signal Mountain itself, rarely climbed, is at the heart of this wilderness. Exposures, poor rock, and class 3-4 ratings are beyond my skills. However, the wilderness has a lot of washes which are mostly walkable without a lot of falls and are for the most part not clogged with Palo Verde trees.
I sat down with aerial photos and mapping software and laid out a 12-13 mile circuit around the mountain on my GPS. I thought I could do it in about 8 hours, which proved to be generous. I set myself target waypoints every hour, so I would know (and my wife watching my progress via satellite would know) if I was on schedule to make it home for dinner.
About half the trek is walking along washes, which is easy walking, and about half is up and down walking perpendicular to the washes, which is more work. The views are better when above the washes. Walking perpendicular to the washes, I worked on setting a bearing to the next waypoint and walking towards it. This is a skill I learned as a youngster, and usually is not needed when following the GPS track. However the washes regularly force you off your track, and you can drift off course if you are not careful. The passes from one drainage to the next were pretty easy to navigate. The game trails tend to pick the best route over the passes.
In the course of my walk, I saw no one. I think I may have had the entire 13,000 acre Signal Mountain Wilderness to myself. Probably the adjacent Woolsey Peak 64,000 acres as well. This is a wild place. In the middle of winter, there were no flowers to see, but I had coyotes howling at me in the morning, crows watching me eat my lunch, and wild horses who were none too happy to see me. They continually hissed at me. I’ve never heard that sound from domestic horses. The horses seem to occupy the washes to the south and west of the main ridgeline, and rarely travel to the north and east of it. There was a huge pile of horse manure at the top of the last pass I crossed, as though saying, “This is as far as we go”. I saw evidence of deer, and one horn from a big-horned sheep.
There are two ways to drive here from the gas compression plant on Old Route 80 at Agua Caliente Road. Both are high clearance when dry with 4WD highly recommended. Coming out via the route north around Webb Mountain, there was one particularly long and steep section coming out of the wash that I don’t think I could have made in 2 wheel drive. I recorded the route south of Webb Mountain last week while visiting Woolsey. The two driving routes, as well as my walking route, are loaded to HAZ.
I was disappointed to see tire tracks in the wash leading from my starting point for over a mile inside the wilderness. On the other hand, the only litter I saw within the wilderness were two mylar balloons that had drifted from far away, and crash-landed here.
I found water in some pools along a couple of washes. I have proposed a couple of water sources in HAZ. If you wanted to do an overnight in this wilderness, these could sustain you. |
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