Martinez Mountain, Sheep Peak

12-Nov-88

By: Bill T. Russell

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Our trip was a navigation noodle, jointly sponsored by the DPS, HPS and LTC. We checked off three LTC enrollees who did very well. Three others were relative beginners who made great progress and four had already passed the leader requirements and wanted practice which they got.

We parked in the parking area named in the HPS peak guide. It is at 51151550. WE did nav exercises there and then left for the back country at 0900. We made camp at the easterly Cactus Spring which was flowing at perhaps 1 1/min of clear water from a sizeable pool. This spring is not shown on the topo; it is. about 150 m SE of the one that is shown. We then climbed Sheep in two groups with the students taking turns leading along two assigned routes which they were asked to follow quite closely. We returned to camp just before dark.

On Sunday, we hiked along the trail to the 4600' contour line and again split into two groups with the students taking turns leading along pre-assigned routes. One route went over the bump at 599127 while the second went to the saddle at Elev 5168 and up the west ridge to the summit of Martinez. We had lunch on top and then descended as one group via the standard route which goes down the gully that starts at 608130. At the gully bottom, the route follows the main wash back to the Cactus Spring trail. The trail is located in the wash between 581139 and 574140, not north of the wash as shown on the topo. We shouldered our backpacks at camp and hiked out to the roadhead which we reached between dusk and dark. We had a fine set of people and very good weather. All twelve of us learned new things. Participants were:

Dale Van Dalsem
John Gibba
Charlie Knapke
Carolyn West
Dave Petzold
Eugenia Rohrberg
Bill T Russell
Pat Russell
Don Slager
Ursula Slager
Asher Waxman
Vieve Weldon


Detailed information for visiting one or more peaks mentioned in this article can be found in the
Desert Peak Section Road and Peak Guides

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