Woolsey Peak is a prominent dome-shaped mountain located in the deserts north of Gila Bend, about 60 miles southwest of Phoenix. Woolsey Peak's summit is a broad, rounded dome, surrounded by a palisade of cliffs on all sides. Below the cliffs is an encircling apron of black basalt lava rock seemingly set at its angle of repose. Then, of course, down below that is wide-open desert. It's very beautiful country, and the peak is the centerpiece of the Woolsey Peak Wilderness, covering 64,000 acres. I made an attempt to hike Woolsey Peak a year ago, but failed more in part to wasting time on the dirt roads than actually hiking. On a recent trip with my wife to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, we passed through Gila Bend and Woolsey Peak's profile caught my attention again. I was primed for another attempt, so I decided to try Woolsey Peak with a day open from teaching.

I knew what not to do after my attempt from last December. Then, I was seduced by a low pass east of the peak, which I figured might make for an easy scramble up the ridge to the top. However, the roads I followed were in abysmal shape, heavily eroded and littered with rocks. I spent 45 minutes going a half-mile in one case. I'd have to walk out, inspect the road, remove rocks, then drive 200 feet, and repeat. I hoped once at the end of the road that it would be an easy hike from there. I finally got to the road's end, but the hiking went slow since I had to cross many steep-cut drainages. All this had put me three hours behind schedule, and I finally gave up while still over a mile from the base of the peak. Since I live close by, I wasn't too disappointed and I chalked this up as an educational experience.

This time, I knew where to go, where not to go, and what to expect. I left home around 7 a.m. and went south through the city of Maricopa and west along State Route AZ-238 to the town of Gila Bend. This is the "back-way" to Gila Bend, and saved me about 25 miles (and traffic) had I gone through Phoenix and down State Route AZ-85 from the north. In Gila Bend, I topped the gas and found Old US-80. I went north 25 miles along Old-80, the most interesting part being where the road crosses the Gila River along the Gillespie Dam. The bridge is a neat, rusting steel-truss relic from the old days. We had a storm three days ago, there was actually quite a bit of water behind the dam. The whole time Woolsey Peak stood high in the western viewshed. The morning was surprisingly humid and misty, almost foggy. I finally exited Old-80 at Agua Caliente Road.

Agua Caliente Road is paved for the first half-mile, then a sign directs one off the pavement and onto a wide graded continuation (with the paved road ending shortly later at the gates to the Gila Compressor Plant, a big ugly plant that compresses things. This wasn't the only big elaborate plant plopped out this way, as the well-known Palo Verde Nuclear Plant is a few miles to the north, its cooling towers visible in the distance.) I drove Agua Caliente Road to another turnoff on my left, marked by a pink ribbon. This unnamed dirt road proceeds southwest toward Woolsey Peak. There are a few road splits early on, but I stayed right each time, heading toward the peak. The first few miles of the road are decent, sometimes rocky. Near a small clearing about 4 miles in, the road worsens and I needed 4-wheel drive for the remainder. The road runs in and out of many arroyos. One section of road was eroded so that I was driving with about a 20-degree lean as I passed through it. Finally, the road came to a fence-line north of the peak. It was 9:30 a.m. when I started the hike. My odometer had this point as 6.8 miles from the paved Agua Caliente Road turnoff. The map reports a spot elevation of 1,180 feet here.

From this vantage, Woolsey Peak looks nearly impossible to climb without advanced rock-climbing gear. The entire north flank of the peak is a near-continuous cliff. However, on the map, some promising approaches seem to come in from slightly northwest angles. I tried not to think too much about those sections quite yet. The first mile of hiking went fast, as I hiked south along a road that parallels the fence line. The road ends near spot elevation 1,366 feet and I covered this in 20 minutes. Once the road ended I continued cross-country, veering slightly right (southwest), and scooting under the fence. I continued up, aiming for a small flat ledge on the ridge connecting Woolsey Peak with a pointed subsidiary peak (elevation 2,030 feet) to its northwest. The gradient had steepened and the ground was covered more densely in the black lava rocks tumbling down over the eons from Woolsey Peak. The flora was moderate but easy to avoid. Plants featured saguaro, palo verde, staghorn and hedgehog cacti, and the most fearsome of all, teddybear cholla. In time, I arrived somewhere near the flat ledge.

The flat ledge was really just a general navigational destination. The main intent was to get myself onto one of the more pronounced ribs of rocks surrounding Woolsey Peak. I had to dip into and out of one major arroyo to get there. I hiked some more and finally took my first break after hiking into the shade afforded by Woolsey Peak itself, with the winter sun hidden behind the peak. I had walked about a mile and a half in about 45 minutes, and the GPS had me at about 1,750 feet elevation. I could gauge my progress relative to the 2,030-foot pointed peak to the west. Looking up at Woolsey Peak, though, the ambient sunlight mixed with the moist hazy air and sort of glared everything into visual mush. I really couldn't make out any fine detail. I continued to hike up the volcanic talus slope, which steadily steepened. Parts of the steeper grade were covered in low creosote bush. Other sections were just rock.

Once well within the shade, I had better viewing conditions when looking up. I could see that the rib of rocks I was following looked promising, as it seemed to end fairly high up on the cliffs. Furthermore, I could see that I was not heading toward sheer cliffs, but toward a sections of breaks and variations. The route seemed to become a little more obvious and promising from my vantage, although I was still 400 feet below the cliffs. I marched onward and upward, going slow and watching the rocks. At this steep angle, the rocks moved easily, prime conditions for a busted ankle or knocking a rock loose for a tumble. On the positive side, every little bit of effort translated into good uphill gain. I constantly checked myself against the 2,030-foot peak, and it got smaller and smaller every time I looked. This was good for the spirit. The rib became more pronounced and constrained the higher I climbed, and eventually it leveled slightly. Shortly I was within the cliff bands, as I had just passed two significant cliffs on my left and right. I took another break here, roughly 2,700 feet of elevation. So far, so good.

Now for the real scrambling. The black volcanic rock petered out and turned into the more familiar gray igneous rock. I found something surprising: a very scant trail, but definitely a trail. It was helpful in the most general sense, in that there really was no other sensible route, but at least it suggested others have been this way. Sections were covered in very loose foot-sized boulders so I took these portions carefully. I didn't look down much, but when I did I was surprised how steep and visually exposed this had all become, although the actual hiking and scrambling so far was very tame. I was also trying to memorize landmarks for the descent.

Still somewhat low in the cliffs I came upon some rocks that seemed to have been splashed with white paint. When I got to them it looked like a dried caked-on powder. It didn't look natural. Was this a past visitor's way of marking the route? It was very curious. However, as I continued to climb upward, I'd see a rock with a "splash" of the same paint on it. Maybe it was an inelegant route marking system. Occasionally, I would scamper into a dead end. On one occasion one such "painted" rock did help me, as it showed a passage that looked illogical from below but was actually the best way to go once above it. At that point the whitish rocks seemed to give out. However, looking down I could see the main whitish rocks below which would serve as a confirmation of my correct route on the descent.

I was making good progress and getting fairly excited that I might just make the climb to the top after all. So far, the worst I had encountered were some short cliff bands that always had some way above them. Hand and footholds were everywhere. Sometimes so was the cholla cactus. I worked myself into a small alcove hemmed in by 30-foot cliffs, but toward the right there was an obvious weakness, which I followed. This put me onto a promontory of rock: for the first time since entering the cliff section, I was now above them, although I still had some climbing to go. But now I could see the main summit of Woolsey Peak, not too far up. I made a hard left and came to one last minor challenge, another five-foot mini-cliff to scramble up and over. I was busy watching my foot placement so that when I did hoist myself up, I headbutted a large cholla cactus. Fortunately my hat caught most of the spines, but when I knocked them off, one landed flush on my leg and another onto my left hand. It took some careful maneuvering to get the little bastards off of me and to remove, one by one, the barbs from my skin. There was some more rock scrambling to go, but it was all very easy with no exposure. And momentarily, I was at the top. I didn't know I was this close, but I could see a metal post sticking up and a large scratched-in graffiti from "Gail Richardson" from 1941 (photo at left). I had made it. I hoisted myself up onto the rocks and that was that. I was quite thrilled.

The summit of Woolsey is utterly gorgeous: a little eden of teddybear cholla and scattered black lava rock. Past visitors had made some walkway paths up here, like a little garden. The summit is a sloping plateau covering about a couple of acres, with the highest points along its west rim, where I had come up. Looking east, the rest of the Gila Bend Mountains poked up above the haze on the desert floor. Most of the low-elevation terrain was underneath the haze, but here and there some interesting desert peaks would stick up above it all. For the highpoint itself, one candidate place was the pile of rocks on which I had just come up. The metal post once held a small sign, now laying by its side, in honor of Lee Woolsey, the man for whom the peak is named. The probable actual highpoint (if by no more than a foot) was about a 100-foot stroll through the cholla to another set of rocks, one area cleared into a circle. Here I found the benchmark and the register. I was the first to sign in since this past January. A quick scan of the logs showed about a dozen people climb the peak yearly. I called my wife to let her know I was fine and that I was successful (so far). It was 11:50 a.m.; it had taken me 2 hours, 20 minutes to get up. I rested for about 10 minutes. I wanted to get down past the steep sections before I started to relax too much.

I was skittish about going down some of the sections I had come up, but it all went very well, and I had no trouble whatsoever. Actually, all the downclimbing went easier. Just a couple of sections required me to think some moves through. I did have one minor incident, when I grabbed onto a small rock that was loose, I knocked a couple others loose, one bashing right into my right ring finger. It got me good, and at first I thought it might be busted. It was scratched up good and bleeding heavily, but it was straight and I could move it, so I wrapped some tissue around it to quell the bleeding, and continued on my way down. The descent through the cliffs took me no more than 30 minutes. Now onto the black apron of lava rock, this section went slow too, because each rock needed to be tested for sturdiness. This downhill segment took another 30 minutes, and was very tedious and tiring, given that every step needed to be tested. Finally, though, I could tell the grade was much less severe and that I was, for all intents, back onto the lower desert flats, or at least the transitional slopes getting to them. Whenever I looked back up I was amazed that I had just come down all that. It still looked intimidating, even after the fact!

The remainder of the hike went leisurely. I generally did a cross-country trek across the desert back to the road then back to my truck, avoiding the fence altogether. It was a total of two hours exactly to descend, arriving back to my truck at 2:00 p.m. exactly. I changed into some dry clothes and assessed my finger owie, plus all the other cactus scratches I had picked up along the way. I had plenty. The drive out to pavement took about 30 minutes, and I stopped in Gila Bend for some snacks before driving home that afternoon. It was the fifth anniversary of the first meeting of my wife and I, so we celebrated with a nice dinner out where we met, way back in aught-2. I was sore but happy.

In retrospect, Woolsey Peak is quite a little peak to climb. I had much more of a thrill than usual given the inherent challenge of the peak, and when I set out for this one earlier in the day I was not exactly brimming in confidence I would make it. I am happy that I did, and happy that I did it safely. This surely ranks as one of the sweeter desert summits I have ever climbed.