I was planning a trip to Southern California to visit my family for the holidays and wanted to work in a peak along the way. I had been eyeballing the Big Maria Mountains north of Blythe for some time now as a peak I’d like to climb, but this is a winter-only peak, as it would be too hot any other time of the year. The Big Marias are only about a dozen miles north of Blythe, and driving to Blythe would break up the drive to Southern California nicely. A day after climbing Harcuvar Peak in western Arizona with Scott Casterlin, I got everything in order again and hit the road for Blythe on the 20th, arriving around 6 p.m. in very cold, blustery weather. I ditched my plans to camp and took a cheap hotel—the Blythe Inn—in town.

Sunday the 21st broke with some guy trying to roust whomever was in the room next to me, kicking at the door, calling for the guy, you name it. I was awake anyway—it was 5 a.m.—but I didn’t much appreciate this wake-up call. The Blythe Inn is a dump. Even the bible in the room had gang graffiti-lettering all over it. I figured I’d best get moving. I waited for the sun to rise, about 7 a.m., before hitting the road, following the directions provided in my handy Sierra Club Desert Peaks Road and Peak Guidebook. I went north on Lovekin Road five miles to where it bends left, crosses over some railroad tracks and turns into Midland Road. After another 8.5 miles on Midland, I turned right (north) at some power lines crossing the road, staying on a decent dirt track presumably there to service the power lines (the BLM marks this road as the Midland-Vidal Road). The DPS guide says this road is 2-wheel drive passable to about the 4-mile mark, then it gets rough, needing 4-wheel drive for the remaining 1.5 miles to the de facto parking stop. I hit some nasty erosion right at the 4 mile mark, got past one tricky section, then parked after another quarter-mile where the road dips into a big drainage and was heavily eroded. I didn’t want to waste time battling roads so I decided to park, which would add about three extra miles (round trip) to my hike. I was right about at 1,000 feet elevation, per the map.

The day was gorgeous but very, very cold and windy. A major storm had hit the southwest in the previous days and although here it was mostly clear, the cold Arctic air was obvious even here. I bundled up pretty good and started my hike at 8:15 a.m. (California time), hiking north along the road right into the wind. I made good time but the temperatures were still barely above freezing and the wind was blowing at about 15 mph – enough to really make it uncomfortable and even sting my face a little bit! The Big Maria Range rises about a half-mile across the desert flats to the east, a stark range of steep slopes on its west and cliffs on its east—obvious uplifting patterns. No forest on this range to speak of here, not even a smattering of lonely junipers. This is a classic desert peak: lots of rock, and anything organic probably has spines on it. The range has four summits, two of which are awful close for highest-point honors: the second-from-north peak at 3,381 feet, and its immediate southern neighbor at 3,380 feet. I had plans to climb them both but the priority was the 3,381-footer. I’d wait to see how things went.

The road-walk portion ends after about a little over a mile, near where the road zigs and zags through some hills. Here, I took off eastish across some very rocky (dark basalt) desert flats for about a half-mile, soon coming upon a big deep-cut wash emanating from the principal western-facing canyon of the Big Marias. At some point I dropped into the wash and started the slog into the canyon, into the heart of the range, working my way steadily through the giant boulders amassed in this wash.

The good news was that the brush was mostly light, and the route-finding was pretty straightforward, but the downside was the tedious walking up through the wash, managing the boulders each step of the way. Although the DPS guide said to head east, in reality the wash meanders a little bit, so the going is slightly extended, but in time I had covered maybe three-quarters of a mile, well into the heart of the range. In all I had been hiking for maybe 75 minutes, having gained not a whole lot, maybe 600 feet from where I parked. I still had another 1,800 vertical to go. I took a couple breaks to gauge my elevation (via my GPS and the maps) and also to let the sun rise a little more to warm things up. The DPS guide said to hang a left at the first major fork in the canyon at 1,600 feet, which I did, and again a left at another fork at 2,000 feet. At the 2,000-foot canyon junction I stopped and took an extended break, debating my next course of action. I have to admit I was growing weary of the bouldery terrain and even for a few minutes debated heading back out and trying this again another time. It was all very pretty—sheer canyon walls, spires, beautiful solitude—but my spirit was running low on the endless tiring boulders. I gave myself 15 minutes, had a snack and let the sun come up some more. I decided to scout the last of the drainages I’d need to climb to the range crest. In the sun I could see good detail and it seemed fairly friendly so I decided to keep at this silly quest and went for it.

The final 500+ feet to the range crest went reasonably well. I kind of hustled up the first couple hundred feet, happy to finally be making some serious elevation gain. The going here was steeper than before but (most) everything was set fairly solid. However, the last 150 vertical feet below the ridge line was very steep, and the rocks all seemed to be loose and set at their angle of repose, meaning even a slight touch—or a dirty look—would set them sliding and tumbling. I angled in for some seemingly more solid bands of rock but discovered even these guys weren’t as solid as they looked: handfuls would flake off as I grabbed them. Needless to say I was extremely careful here in this section. I double and triple-checked each step and hold to ensure it was solid before moving forward, and in time I had achieved the range crest, elevation about 2,550 feet. I knew once I got here the terrain would be far friendlier, and it was. I was finally having some fun on this danged hike!

The remaining hike from this 2,550-foot point to the summit breaks into two parts: a half mile heading east and gaining about 500 more feet to come to a low point on the main north-south ridge spine connecting the Big Maria peaks, then the final bit(s) to the peak(s). I still had not decided whether I would visit both. In any case, I was heartened to find a rough path and some cairns marking a way up and down the easy rocky obstacles up this first ridge; it probably took me only about 20 minutes to knock out this first part. Now on the main north-south ridge I bore left (north) to tackle the 3,381-foot summit first, having to climb up and down a couple of intervening false summits. Finally I could see the objective, a nice skewed profile with an easy slope from the west and some very impressive cliffs to the east. There was nothing here to cause me trouble and I made the top fairly quickly. The top is rocky and bare, and the sign-in log was encased within a strong box with a China Lake sticker on it. Lots of signers over the years, many I presume with the Sierra Club Desert Peaks group. The most recent visitor was about a month ago. Although some wondered if the south summit (the 3,880-footer) was possibly higher, others had scoped it with some levels and seemed to feel this peak (where I was at) was the true highpoint. I signed in and admired the views. In all directions I had beautiful desert and mountain range views. Immediately west were the Little Maria Mountains and the Palen Range, south were the Chuckwallas (a future goal of mine), but east had the best views: an incredible jumble of peaks, spires, hills and cliffs, all part of the Big Maria Wilderness. Lovely stuff. Unfortunately the sun was still kind of low in that direction so any photographs would not show the intricate beauty through the glare. You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I didn’t stay long as the breezy wind and ambient cold was uncomfortable for long periods of inactivity, so after maybe 5 minutes I started the hike down. Once back to the junction with the east-west ridge, I decided to forego the southern 3,880-foot peak. I felt happy with what I had done and wanted to get moving down that icky rocky section just below the range crest (plus I had some serious driving to do the rest of the day). The hike down the lower ridge went without any difficulty, then it was that steep bit with all the loose-set rocks. Here I decided to trade style for practicality, and took much of it on my butt, crab-crawling downward very slowly and ensuring the rocks on which I had my feet and hands were solid. More than once they weren’t and having one break loose at an inopportune moment would have been real trouble. It probably took me 20 minutes just to down-climb (or down-scoot as the case may be) this section. But once below the loose stuff the gradient lessened a bit and I could now stand and rock-hop much of the way down into the canyon bottom.

Going down went quickly as I could see routes a little easier than going up, and in some cases found some I had missed coming up – scant cairned trails that would have been nice to know about on the ascent. Oh well. Although I didn’t keep track of time closely, it felt like less than an hour I was out of the canyons and back onto the desert flats. Then it was just an easy matter of hiking the road to my truck. I did check the time when I returned – 2:15 pm, a six-hour hike – and changed into some drier, more comfortable clothes for the drive back out to Blythe where I had me a nice Del Taco feast before driving another 200+ miles into Monrovia where I crashed at my old pal Schneider’s place for the night, topped off with football on the tube, take-out Japanese and Mad magazines from the 1970s!

Big Maria proved to be a tougher customer than I had planned. The DPS guide calls it class 1, which I disagree. It should be class 2 sustained. However, there is no proper scrambling or climbing needed anywhere and other than the few minutes where I had lost my summit mojo, all went well and I’m happy I kept at it for the summit. A nice neat peak, but not one to visit in summer, that’s for sure.