Castle Dome Peak is a distinctive summit in southwest Arizona, topping the Castle Dome Mountains about 45 miles northeast of Yuma. The summit is an imposing fin of bare rock, which from some angles looks like a big square block, with vertical walls up to 300 feet high. The surrounding range is a typically rugged southwest Arizona desert range with steep, rocky and brushy slopes, pointed summits, convoluted canyons and washes, and glorious isolation. It is similar in many ways to the nearby Kofa Mountains, which lie north across the King Valley. Both ranges are enclosed within the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.

I have known about Castle Dome Peak since viewing it from Signal Peak in the Kofas over ten years ago. I filed it away as a peak I’d like to climb. An opportunity came when Ken Jones and a couple other climbers (all from out of state) were looking to climb Castle Dome as part of a week-long series of peaks. I was to join them, along with fellow Phoenix-area climbing pal Scott Peavy, but (a) I got sick the week before and was in no condition to do much of anything, and (b), the morning we were to climb with Ken and the gang, a big storm blew through the state. They had to cancel the climb that day too. Peavy and I decided to stay in town and try again the following weekend, bringing us to this weekend.

We met at my place in Scottsdale and took my truck to the trailhead, taking Interstate-10 to Quartzsite, then US-95 south to the Castle Dome Mine Road, with the blocky summit in plain view ahead of us. We followed Castle Dome Mine Road about 10 miles to the Castle Dome Mine Museum, then past that another five miles on slightly-worse road to the trailhead, arriving around 6:30 p.m. as the sun was setting. The road past the museum was pretty good, but some arroyo crossings were kind of rough, including one where I scraped my truck’s undercarriage on some rocks and thudded down one 10-inch drop that I never saw. Interestingly, the one-way mileage from my home to here was 200.1 miles. The trailhead is located about 3 miles west-northwest of the peak, a simple pull-out along the road. When it got dark, we turned in, Peavy in his tent and me in the back of my truck.

The weather was of concern to us, since forecasters were predicting another “major winter storm” for Arizona this weekend. The main storm would not arrive in the state until Saturday afternoon, so we figured we had the morning open to us before any precipitation came in. Given the rocky nature of the peak, any moisture would make the climbing treacherous. During the night the clouds moved in but by and large, the wind was calm and the clouds looked like “high clouds”, nothing menacing … yet. The morning was cool but still. We started hiking just before 6:45 a.m., with the sun barely breaking the east horizon. Since we were west of the range, we would not see any direct sun for a couple more hours. In the dim dawn light, we began the first leg of the hike, a 1.7-mile segment up the main wash emanating from Castle Dome Peak’s northwest flanks. The summit was not in view for the first few hundred yards.

The wash hiking went well, with no mishaps. The first wash we followed led us into a dead end, but we crossed some rises and found our way to the main wash. Fortunately, the wash was wide and mainly sandy. No endless rocks to hop over, no thick brush to plow through. We made great time, covering this stretch in about 40 minutes. We came upon the “Arrow”, a big rock arrow pointing us to leave the wash and start up the slopes. By now, the massive hulk of Castle Dome Peak stood high above us, imposing and menacing. I was at times not so sure I would have a lot of luck with this peak, but I wanted to give it my best shot. When we left the wash, the sun was higher but the sky was still overcast. Nevertheless, the winds were still calm.

From the wash, we entered into a rocky side-channel, with small pools of water from last week’s storm. We followed this channel in a few dozen yards until it started to get thick with brush. We ascended out of this channel up onto a ridge where we had much better views of our intended route, and more importantly, a scant trail to follow. Looking at Castle Dome’s block, we would presumably aim for its right, following a rocky slope to the base of the cliffs, then traverse left (clockwise) around the cliffs toward an obvious rock pinnacle set immediately to the left of the main summit mass. We followed this trail, which disappeared on us a few times, up the ridges and down into some more rocky drainages, before emerging onto some greenish-yellow rock (sulphur?). Here, we marched up this rock, which was covered in thousands of little rubbly rocks, making for some ideal slipping conditions. This part was tiring and not too much fun, but it gained us some good elevation fairly quickly, which was good.

The nature of the path changed here, now more brushy, with bigger talus blocks and scree slopes. We made good time, walking three steps, looking, walking three more steps, looking again, over and over again. We made all sorts of little deviations and corrections, but always seemed to find a solid path or way through a steep or brushy section. While this was tiring and tedious, it didn’t waste our time: we were gaining good elevation fast. We finally came upon the base of the massive rock cliffs of the summit itself. To here we’d gained about 1,300 feet, and everything was still holding steady for us, including some heartening patches of clear blue sky to the west.

Now we traversed along the base of this cliff. A very good path skirted the cliff, and we made good time here too. This section gained us another 300 feet or so. After about 20 minutes we rounded a bend and there was the pinnacle again, now much larger. We bypassed some lesser rocks, then scrambled up a steep, sloppy slope to get ourselves onto the tiny saddle separating this pinnacle from the main summit mass. The saddle was maybe 10 feet wide. We took a longer break here, having been on the trail now just over two hours. Considering the terrain, this was very good time! The crux of the whole climb was now before us: a 20-foot moderately-exposed gully, just vertical enough to warrant a class-4 rating. During our break we heard some rumbling. Alarmed it may be thunder, we were relieved to realize it was just some bombs going off on the nearby Yuma Proving Grounds.

Okay, now it was go time. I needed to work up a little courage to get up this gully, to not let the exposure get to my head. The rock was wonderful: all sorts of little nubbins and cracks, nothing crumbly or loose. Well, it was far easier than I had feared; I was up the damn thing in about 15 seconds. We walked up a little path to some cairns, went left, walked past a small grotto/overhang, then rounded a small bend and came upon the first of a series of gullies that would lead us to the top. These gullies were exposed but not bad at all. They leaned back moreso than that 20-foot crux down below. The rock was solid, and the scrambling very safe. Despite the fact the exposure was quite impressive, it would take a real effort to fall. We wormed our way toward a small cliff, then went right to a cleft, down the other side, then up again to the summit ridge. We were here! The summit itself was a few feet to the right, and we sat down on the nearby rocks to sign in the log book, and enjoy the amazing views. Peavy’s watch had our one-way time as 2 hours, 40 minutes. Not too shabby for two old guys.

The views are remarkable. The Castle Dome Mountains splayed all around us, while the Kofas were visible to the north. Looking west we could see peaks in California (Picacho, Cargo Muchacho) and even the big profile of Centinela, inside Mexico. Unfortunately the clouds and general moisture in the air made for less than ideal viewing conditions, but even so, the views were some of the best I’ve ever seen from a summit. Just amazing. Yuma County really does have peaks in a class by itself. We had a little more wind up here and it was very cool. We didn’t stick around much, maybe 20 minutes. I wanted to get down that gully while my mind was still in good spirits. The downclimb started out a little awkwardly as we somehow got off-route and cliffed ourselves out, but we could see some cairns where we needed to be, and shortly had corrected our error. Climbing down the gullies was cake, and the downclimb of that class-4 section went very well too, both of us facing outward and using the butt as a point of contact. Back to the saddle below the pinnacle we took another break before starting the hike down the slopes and back to my truck. Alas, somewhere in here I lost my sunglasses. No big deal, they were a $20-pair from Target. I’ll get another pair.

The hike down went very well. We had gravity working with us now, and we retraced our steps, just being careful not to slip on the scree or get caught up in the brush or cactus. We were down to the lower slopes in less than an hour and back out onto the main wash not long thereafter. The walk out back to my truck took about a half-hour, and we were back to the trailhead at noon exactly, a two-hour, fifteen-minute egress. The hike had been a success, and had gone much better than either of us thought. I had been unsure if I would be up for the gullies and/or exposure, but it was not a problem at all. The whole hike took less than six hours, including breaks, a great time for me given the type of terrain. We were both very pleased to have been successful on Castle Dome Peak, and happy the weather had not acted up at all.

From here we drove into Yuma for lunch and gas, then the long and exciting drive back to Phoenix via Interstate-8, Gila Bend and Maricopa. My sincerest thanks to Scott Peavy for his good comradeship on this mountain, and we both can now lay claim to one of Arizona’s finest desert summits.

Two shots of me from Scott Peavy's camera:

Me near the cliffs.

Descending.