Thanks Andy for your story! I have wanted to do this peak for many years. Really sounds like such a unique area and so different! The rock looks beautiful!
Thank you again :)
You're right about the rock... were this area not so remote, it would be quite the climbers paradise. Long granite walls with beautiful lines. I was thinking how cool it would be to climb some of those potentially unclimbed faces, but then I would snap back to reality.
Nice writeup Andy! What can you say about the current condition of the road to the Llanitos shack. You say you stopped to lock the hubs into four-wheel drive but did you find that it was necessary? Is traction/clearance rough, or can this drive still be made in a passenger car?
Short answer: You will need 4x4 to get to the shack. But only in two or three places. Otherwise the road is in good condition but there is no way a passanger car could make it. However, you can drive a passanger car to the Vallecitos area which is an alternate trailhead for the hike into Canyon Diablo. This adds about two miles to the hike through aspen groves and rolling Jeffrey pine forests.
Right! I just read about that on Cal Tech Prof Christopher Brennen's website (http://dankat.com/swhikes/devil.htm). My car is all-wheel-drive but this is clearly not the same as 4X4, although I have to say I have driven to a few places that I was lucky to get back out of. You guys have inspired me to go. Hope to be there in about a month!
If you wait another month, be prepared for a lot of heat, and a lot less water in the canyon. We did this trip one week earlier than last year, and it was noticably hotter this year than last. There seemed to be about the same amount of water in the stream this year, but I don't know how long it lasts through the summer.
Very well written and informative. I enjoyed it a lot. I may never visit this area to it's nice to experience it viscerally at least. Some of those slabs look to be harder than Class 3 I must say.
The only (small) suggestion I would make is to embed some captions in the pictures as viewed within the report. Helps the reader visualise which section of the climb it pertains to without having to click on the image.
This is a tiny drawback, however, and I had no hesitation in giving it 10/10.
Thanks for the suggestion! I agree, it would help to "fill in the blanks" of the story to have captioned pics. Sadly, my HTML skills are worse than my writing skills. I did put captions on the pics themselves, so there is a description if you click to see the larger image.
Altitude of north summit is 10,154 ft. South is 10,152 ft.
After inserting the image in the text, simply insert the caption between the colon and the square bracket eg (the bold text) [img:225783:alignleft:medium:CRD Summits from Mt Wells]
Thanks for the lesson! I'll go give it a try.
Starting altitude depends upon your approach... From the east it's almost at sea level. From the west, you can drive to about 8,200 ft, but then you hike up to just over 9,000 to a saddle then descend to about 6,300 at Campo Noche, the start of the climb.
I intend to build a mountain page for this peak soon, so I'll add all that info when I do it.
Thanks again for the help.
Just back from a mid-June trip to San Pedro Martir. We were on top of Picacho del Diablo Thursday June 14 2007. Plenty of water in the canyon which was ice freaking cold in spite of the warm afternoon temperatures. Not too hot at all, in fact still fairly cold at night with temps around 40 degrees. If the temps are in the low 90s down in San Felipe it won't be too hot for you on the climb. I suspect there is good water flow year round in canyon del diablo.
It was a 4 day trip from Santa Monica via the Blue Bottle pass approach. Note that the park fee is now 40 pesos per person per night and the ranger issues a pass for each one saying so in writing and thanking you for supporting their conservation efforts. Fair enough. It looks like the road will be paved right to the park gate/entrance by the end of the summer. It was a little difficult navigating around all the construction equipment but we did in fact make it OK in a passenger car - once the road is done it will be cake. After the day 1 drive, we spent the first night at the Blue Bottle trailhead and noted that the chain was still down on the 4X4 track heading up to Llanitos shack. That was a cold night in June. Day 2 we hiked over to Blue Bottle and dropped down to Campo Noche and stayed in the same site that Baja Andy camped in (we know it was because of all the "Baja Andy Wuz Hear" graffiti, empty beer bottles, and T-bones-picked-clean everywhere - heh, heh, heh). Day 3, summit and back. Day 4, hike out and drive home.
Great wilderness hike and we were able to navigate between the GPS waypoints that we downloaded from one of the resource sites without problem - for navigation we simply used GPS, compass, and maps we downloaded off the Web. We found it was easy to get off the sometimes sketchy route at any time but since we knew we were moving in the right direction we always picked it up again - we may actually have avoided one or two of the more difficult sections simply by being off the ducked course at the time. No problem finding 4 birds on the GPS at any defined waypoint, and many places in between as well. This would be a much more difficult trip without the GPS. Once we were in the park we saw no one else - what an awesome wilderness trip that will test your strength and navigational abilities from beginning to end. Highly recommended!!!!
DUDE! Stoked that you made the climb! And that you had such awesome weather. I really would have thought it to be too hot in June. That really is a true wilderness experience. So cool to be that far out of town and have the place all to yourself. Good on ya!
Oh yeah, for anyone else reading this TR and the subsequent comments: THERE IS NO GRAFFITI, T-BONES OR BEER BOTTLES. Ranjack's comment was only a JOKE.
NewDayRising - Aug 15, 2007 7:08 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Summited June 14, 2007
"Baja Andy Wuz Hear" graffiti, empty beer bottles, and T-bones-picked-clean everywhere
WTF?? Thanks for leaving all your trash dude. So now I can have the "true wilderness" experience.
Hi Ranjack, Good info in your comments.... Do you happen to have the addresses for the web sites where you got the GPS waypoints. I did Picacho del Diablo in 1982 and 1984 by the Eastern Approach and I am thinking of doing the Western approach in a couple of months.
Thanks.
NewDayRising, please remove your ignorant reply. Ranjack was trying to be funny with his comment. It was a JOKE! There is NO graffiti from me. There is no trash left by my party. Learn how to read and interpret meaning from what you read.
theronmoon - May 4, 2007 9:25 am - Voted 10/10
I'm jealousGreat page! This is my most wanted mountain. Thanks for posting!
1mvertical - May 4, 2007 12:59 pm - Voted 10/10
Thanks!What a great page! You should do a mountain page for this peak. I would love to climb a remote peak like this one.
madeintahoe - May 4, 2007 7:30 pm - Voted 10/10
One Day!Thanks Andy for your story! I have wanted to do this peak for many years. Really sounds like such a unique area and so different! The rock looks beautiful!
Thank you again :)
bajaandy - May 4, 2007 7:34 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: One Day!You're right about the rock... were this area not so remote, it would be quite the climbers paradise. Long granite walls with beautiful lines. I was thinking how cool it would be to climb some of those potentially unclimbed faces, but then I would snap back to reality.
Cy Kaicener - May 5, 2007 5:34 pm - Voted 10/10
Picacho del DiabloExcellent trip report. It brings back fond memories.
ranjack - May 5, 2007 6:30 pm - Voted 10/10
Baja!Nice writeup Andy! What can you say about the current condition of the road to the Llanitos shack. You say you stopped to lock the hubs into four-wheel drive but did you find that it was necessary? Is traction/clearance rough, or can this drive still be made in a passenger car?
bajaandy - May 5, 2007 9:02 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Baja!Short answer: You will need 4x4 to get to the shack. But only in two or three places. Otherwise the road is in good condition but there is no way a passanger car could make it. However, you can drive a passanger car to the Vallecitos area which is an alternate trailhead for the hike into Canyon Diablo. This adds about two miles to the hike through aspen groves and rolling Jeffrey pine forests.
ranjack - May 6, 2007 12:27 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Baja!Right! I just read about that on Cal Tech Prof Christopher Brennen's website (http://dankat.com/swhikes/devil.htm). My car is all-wheel-drive but this is clearly not the same as 4X4, although I have to say I have driven to a few places that I was lucky to get back out of. You guys have inspired me to go. Hope to be there in about a month!
bajaandy - May 6, 2007 1:37 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Baja!If you wait another month, be prepared for a lot of heat, and a lot less water in the canyon. We did this trip one week earlier than last year, and it was noticably hotter this year than last. There seemed to be about the same amount of water in the stream this year, but I don't know how long it lasts through the summer.
KathyW - May 14, 2007 3:20 pm - Voted 10/10
Great report!!!Picacho del Diablo has been on my list for a while - hopefully, I'll find someone willing to make the trip with me next spring.
vancouver islander - May 16, 2007 1:54 pm - Voted 10/10
Super ReportVery well written and informative. I enjoyed it a lot. I may never visit this area to it's nice to experience it viscerally at least. Some of those slabs look to be harder than Class 3 I must say.
The only (small) suggestion I would make is to embed some captions in the pictures as viewed within the report. Helps the reader visualise which section of the climb it pertains to without having to click on the image.
This is a tiny drawback, however, and I had no hesitation in giving it 10/10.
What's the summit altitude by the way?
Cheers,
Martin
bajaandy - May 16, 2007 2:11 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Super ReportThanks for the suggestion! I agree, it would help to "fill in the blanks" of the story to have captioned pics. Sadly, my HTML skills are worse than my writing skills. I did put captions on the pics themselves, so there is a description if you click to see the larger image.
Altitude of north summit is 10,154 ft. South is 10,152 ft.
vancouver islander - May 16, 2007 4:04 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Super ReportAfter inserting the image in the text, simply insert the caption between the colon and the square bracket eg (the bold text) [img:225783:alignleft:medium:CRD Summits from Mt Wells]
What's the starting altitude?
bajaandy - May 17, 2007 11:06 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Super ReportThanks for the lesson! I'll go give it a try.
Starting altitude depends upon your approach... From the east it's almost at sea level. From the west, you can drive to about 8,200 ft, but then you hike up to just over 9,000 to a saddle then descend to about 6,300 at Campo Noche, the start of the climb.
I intend to build a mountain page for this peak soon, so I'll add all that info when I do it.
Thanks again for the help.
Robertthethird - May 19, 2007 11:51 am - Hasn't voted
Great ReportIf anyone would is thinking of planning a trip to this peak, I would love to join. Sounds like a great three day get away.
ranjack - Jun 16, 2007 1:56 pm - Voted 10/10
Summited June 14, 2007Just back from a mid-June trip to San Pedro Martir. We were on top of Picacho del Diablo Thursday June 14 2007. Plenty of water in the canyon which was ice freaking cold in spite of the warm afternoon temperatures. Not too hot at all, in fact still fairly cold at night with temps around 40 degrees. If the temps are in the low 90s down in San Felipe it won't be too hot for you on the climb. I suspect there is good water flow year round in canyon del diablo.
It was a 4 day trip from Santa Monica via the Blue Bottle pass approach. Note that the park fee is now 40 pesos per person per night and the ranger issues a pass for each one saying so in writing and thanking you for supporting their conservation efforts. Fair enough. It looks like the road will be paved right to the park gate/entrance by the end of the summer. It was a little difficult navigating around all the construction equipment but we did in fact make it OK in a passenger car - once the road is done it will be cake. After the day 1 drive, we spent the first night at the Blue Bottle trailhead and noted that the chain was still down on the 4X4 track heading up to Llanitos shack. That was a cold night in June. Day 2 we hiked over to Blue Bottle and dropped down to Campo Noche and stayed in the same site that Baja Andy camped in (we know it was because of all the "Baja Andy Wuz Hear" graffiti, empty beer bottles, and T-bones-picked-clean everywhere - heh, heh, heh). Day 3, summit and back. Day 4, hike out and drive home.
Great wilderness hike and we were able to navigate between the GPS waypoints that we downloaded from one of the resource sites without problem - for navigation we simply used GPS, compass, and maps we downloaded off the Web. We found it was easy to get off the sometimes sketchy route at any time but since we knew we were moving in the right direction we always picked it up again - we may actually have avoided one or two of the more difficult sections simply by being off the ducked course at the time. No problem finding 4 birds on the GPS at any defined waypoint, and many places in between as well. This would be a much more difficult trip without the GPS. Once we were in the park we saw no one else - what an awesome wilderness trip that will test your strength and navigational abilities from beginning to end. Highly recommended!!!!
bajaandy - Jul 8, 2007 12:46 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Summited June 14, 2007DUDE! Stoked that you made the climb! And that you had such awesome weather. I really would have thought it to be too hot in June. That really is a true wilderness experience. So cool to be that far out of town and have the place all to yourself. Good on ya!
Oh yeah, for anyone else reading this TR and the subsequent comments: THERE IS NO GRAFFITI, T-BONES OR BEER BOTTLES. Ranjack's comment was only a JOKE.
NewDayRising - Aug 15, 2007 7:08 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Summited June 14, 2007"Baja Andy Wuz Hear" graffiti, empty beer bottles, and T-bones-picked-clean everywhere
WTF?? Thanks for leaving all your trash dude. So now I can have the "true wilderness" experience.
wingedfeet - Oct 18, 2007 11:26 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Summited June 14, 2007Hi Ranjack, Good info in your comments.... Do you happen to have the addresses for the web sites where you got the GPS waypoints. I did Picacho del Diablo in 1982 and 1984 by the Eastern Approach and I am thinking of doing the Western approach in a couple of months.
Thanks.
bajaandy - Oct 31, 2007 11:32 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Summited June 14, 2007NewDayRising, please remove your ignorant reply. Ranjack was trying to be funny with his comment. It was a JOKE! There is NO graffiti from me. There is no trash left by my party. Learn how to read and interpret meaning from what you read.