What’s in a name? In this case, 4 things: a man-made water catchment; a village; a peak; a mountain range. As you might have guessed, the only one that interested me was the peak itself. Dos Cabezas Peaks (it’s a double summit, as its name implies) happens to be the highest point in the range to which it lends its name. Back in the 1980s, I was deeply involved in a little project, that of climbing the highest point of each mountain range in the state of Arizona. Since this one was on the list, I set out one fine October day in 1988 to climb to its summit. I went in to the peak in the normal way, driving up an old mining road to park at a saddle at 7,200 feet. Most of the work already done, I headed west, then northwest, for a mere 1.3 miles to reach the higher south summit at 8,357 feet. Tantalizingly close sat the north summit, shown with a spot elevation of 8,354 feet. Getting over to it was a bit of a chore, but to be sure I was on the highest point, I visited it too. It seemed pretty clear to me, sighting back and forth in both directions, that the south summit was in fact a few feet higher.
The two summits are awfully close in elevation, though, and have tricked a few people. My friend Mark Adrian, one of only 6 climbers to ever complete the Arizona range highpoints (a feat which will never again be repeated by anyone else), went and bagged the north summit with the spot elevation and considered the matter closed. When he later learned that the south summit was a few feet higher, he made the trip all the way back from southern California to climb the other summit, being the perfectionist that he is.
Fourteen years after my first visit, I returned to the peak with two folks from California, legendary peakbagger John Vitz and his friend Donna O. Our approach was a bit different this time. We walked an old road to a point just east of the peaks at an elevation of 7,500 feet. It was a steep, slippery climb up through the forest to the notch between the two peaks, at around 8,200 feet. From there, it was an easy scramble to the north summit. Back down at the notch, we tackled the higher south summit. It was a steep, gritty climb on good rock, Class 3-4, to reach the top.
John Vitz on the top of the South Peak of Dos Cabezas
John led the way in fine form, I followed and Donna waited for us at the notch. Once finished, we climbed back down to her and we all headed out the way we’d come in.
But hold on, I need to go back in time several years to tell you about my most important involvement with the Dos Cabezas Mountains. I had come up with a plan to do something that seemed quite grand – I would do a traverse through the entire range, from one end to the other, in one huge push. It would require some support, though. My plan was to be dropped off at one end of the range, then be met halfway along where I’d camp for the night and re-stock, then leave the next morning to finish the trip and get picked up at the other end of the range. On the surface, it seemed like a great plan and I was really excited about it. Little did I know how spectacularly my scheme would fail.
Very early on the morning of May 18th, 1991 I set out. My friend was driving my Toyota 4WD pickup, and left Interstate 10 at exit 344. This is about 4 miles from downtown Willcox, Arizona. There’s nothing at that exit, just some desert. She dropped me off on the shoulder of the road and said goodbye. I carried a day-pack with 5 quarts of gatorade, a compass, maps, a bit of food and little else. It was 4:45 AM when I started out. My plan was to follow the divide, the height-of-land along the spine of the range and climb everything I met along the way. If you click on the link below, you can then use the +/- symbols in the upper left corner to zoom way in to my starting point, and from there you can follow along with me on my trip by dragging the map.
https://listsofjohn.com/qmap?lat=32.3086&lon=-109.7936&z=12&t=u&P=300&M=Desert+Mountaineer
My goal was to make it a true traverse – I knew that meant many twists and turns, many changes of direction – it would be far from the shortest route, but it would follow the watershed to the best of my ability. I crossed a fence, the first of many on the day; then the 2 sets of tracks of the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. A quarter of a mile later, I walked past a road junction at an elevation of 4,272 feet, my lowest point of the trip. This was close to my first bump, or hill, of the day, and short minutes later I stood on Point 4350. From there, a quick run NE put me on another, then SE on one more, both interpolated at 4350 feet. One thing I was carefully doing was adding up all of the little bits of elevation gain not shown on the map as I traveled – I knew these could really add up over the day.
Next came Point 4424 and its twin, followed by a drop down to Point 4323 in a gully. Uphill for 300 vertical feet took me to another bump at 4,624′. A drop NE to a saddle was followed by a circuitous climb up to Point 4806. By the time I dropped to the saddle east of it, it was 5:45 AM. I felt good about my time to this point. I was at 4,550 feet, and had made a good start.
Up a steep hill past a mining prospect took me over Point 5468, to soon arrive at a benchmark named “Sommer”, at 5,540 feet elevation. It didn’t have enough prominence to classify it as a true summit, but finally I was getting up into higher country. Near here, I saw a group of 8 javelina and also a deer. My route now took me SE over more bumps, following a ridge, to arrive at my first true summit of the day, Peak 5708. It was 7:10 AM, and I stopped for a half-hour break.
My route when I resumed was for the most part in a southeasterly direction. There was no end to the small bumps I was going over, many of them way too small to show with the 40-foot contour interval. At 8:15 AM, I reached my second summit of the day, Peak 5674. I left a register and moved on – although I’d covered quite a bit of ground, my concern was for the great distance I still had to cross before the day was out.
The better part of a thousand feet below me to the NE, I could see some structures belonging to the Flying W Ranch. More bumps, more zigging and zagging, and at 9:00 AM I reached another summit, Peak 5682, at the head of Smith Canyon. Quickly moving on, I soon arrived at something called Camels Back, elevation 6,337′, passing several old mining prospects along the way. It was now 10:05 AM – the day was wearing on, and I had been moving for over 5 hours to this point. Camels Back had a lot more relief than anything I’d done up until now. I was 2,100 feet higher than my starting point but still had a lot of climbing to do, especially with all the ups and downs along the ridge. I’d no sooner make some gains than I’d have to drop down again and lose much of it.
Such was the case now as I dropped a good 800 feet down to a saddle at the head of Ash Gulch. As I resumed climbing, the bumps I had to cross over seemed endless. I’m not complaining – I knew going in what to expect, and I wasn’t surprised. The miles passed. I crossed over Point 5878, Point 6097, Point 6110 and plenty of smaller, un-named bumps. Finally, at 12:45 PM I reached the top of Silver Peak, elevation 6,580 feet, a climb of over a thousand feet from the saddle below Camels Back. Wow, I’d been on foot for 8 hours now.
I had a clear view ahead to the range high point – it seemed close, but that was just an illusion. Silver Peak had nothing to hold me, so I soon moved on. Crossing many more bumps, I reached Point 6418, but not before I saw a herd of 12 deer along the ridge. From there, I crossed 4 more bumps before I arrived at Silver Camp Divide just before 2:00 PM. The stretch from Silver Peak to here had cost me another 700 feet, all of which I’d have to make up again as I continued. My route was, for a while, in a more easterly direction as I climbed up to and over Point 6949. Something called Simmons Peak was just to my north, but too much out of my way to consider climbing. Once at a bump at 7,000 feet, I could see an area of mine prospects to my north called Mineral Park, but didn’t bother going down to have a look, as the day was wearing on. I turned south for a bit to reach Point 7627, crossed it, then a hard turn east and several hundred feet of climbing put me on Point 8095 – it was now 4:00 PM.
I couldn’t go much higher, because straight ahead loomed the double summit of Dos Cabezas Peaks. The terrain was becoming very brushy, my first real bushwhacking of the day. There was no point in climbing the lower north summit, so instead I opted for a quick climb of the south summit at 8,357 feet. I was starting to really feel the day’s effort at this point. I skirted the west side of the peak and then up I went the normal way, tagged the top and headed back down immediately. I crossed over a small bump informally known as the Iron Tower at 7,900 feet, then moved downslope several hundred vertical feet to cross one final bump at 7,320′.
Hallelujah, it was done! A final walk down a gentle slope and I was there, at a saddle just over 7,200 feet elevation, to meet my ride. As I neared that spot where an old mining road climbed up to the saddle, I strained to see the truck. Hmmm, I’m not seeing it yet. Just need to be a bit closer to have a better look, probably. It was 6:30 PM, and I was all done in.
Something was wrong. I stood there in the saddle on the road, right where I was supposed to be to meet my friend with my truck. I double-checked my map and notes – yep, I was in the right spot alright, but where was she? Was this some bad dream? She’d had 14 hours to drive around from my drop-off spot to get over to this area and up the mountain road. Even if you took your sweet time, it could be done easily in 2 hours. Had something happened? A mechanical problem with the truck, or perhaps an accident, or something else? I started to panic. What should I do? It would soon be dark, and I was high in the mountains with just a day pack, no more food and a sip of water.
Please stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of this story.