Red Mountain, Rand Mountains (HPS)

Red Mountain + Peak 4,625. This was Day 3 of the desert season's first peakbagging weekend. Returning home from Death Valley, I spent a gorgeous night in Trona Pinnacles and decided to rise early to hit Red Mountain on the way home to LA.

The web of dirt roads must be followed closely on a suitable mapping app once turning off Trona Road, and they degrade steadily as they near the base of the mountain. Technically speaking, a road DOES exist all the way to the northern saddle that divides the two peaks, but it is shockingly steep, deeply rutted, and scattered with boulders, making realistically suitable only to dirt bikes and those eager to file insurance claims on their vehicles. In short, ditch your ride as soon as you feel the road has progressed beyond your car's capabilities--it gets no better.

There is a large cairn and rock-circle at the saddle, and if you're lucky enough to time your ascent with sunrise (as I was,) views of the surrounding hills blushing with the dawn are stirring; a fine spot for breakfast.

From here, cut south toward the ridge. Enjoy a series of flats and bumps lush with brittlebrush and cheatgrass until mounting a final false summit. From here, the true summit looms before you. Abandon all hope of a use-path and enjoy making your way up the rocks and, if you so please, along the final jagged spine. The summit has a 8x8 granite foundation of unknown provenance; at the time of my visit the register box contained an informative sheet on the detritus surrounding and its inexact origins.

Descend by the same path and if time allows do not miss the change to hike the rarely-visited Peak 4,625, which should take you no more than 20 minutes. The long runway of a summit has worthy views of its own, and regardless--life is too short to forgo any peak, even those with such banal names as "Peak 4,625." Which, in all fairness, is no fault of the mountain.