Black Butte is the name of the highpoint of the Chuckwalla Mountains, in the Riverside County desert southwest of Blythe. The Chuckwallas run for about 40 miles, south of Interstate-10 roughly between the Wiley’s Well and Red Cloud exits. Black Butte itself is set farther back in the range, so it is not obvious it is the range highpoint, especially when viewing it from the Interstate. Its summit elevation is 4,504 feet, but a few other peaks in the range rank above 4,000 feet so the summit sort of hides in plain sight. It’s best viewed from the south along the Bradshaw Trail, but very few people ever come this way. Needless to say, Black Butte sees very few visitors. I had been in the region just a week earlier, hiking Eagle Mountain in the Joshua Tree National Park, but now I was heading to Southern California for a couple days to visit friends and family, so I worked in a hike of Black Butte as part of the journey. Black Butte would add to my list of peaks I have climbed along the Interstate-10 corridor, plus it is well-known for peakbaggers working on the 2,000-foot prominence lists and the Sierra Club’s Desert Peaks Section list.

I left Arizona on the 1st, covering the 180 miles from my home to the Red Cloud exit. The directions on SummitPost are accurate so I won’t repeat them here, but I will say that Red Cloud and Gas Line Roads are both very washboarded due to the high volume of off-road traffic they get, while the Bradshaw Trail is very nice. I had an unintended cat-and-mouse game with a BLM Ranger, who tailed me for a little bit, presumably to run my plate. When I pulled over to let him pass he passed but stopped, then reversed and simply glared at me. Huh? I told him where I was headed and he seemed okay with that. Then he rolls forward and pokes along at about 1 mph. I had no room to pass and 7 more miles to go (this was all on Gas Line Road), so after a few minutes I got close to his rear bumper and at last, he pulled aside. What was the deal, man? This sucked since I was battling daylight and wanted to get to camp before dark. The ATV and dirtbike crowd seem to thin out after about 3 miles along Gas Line Road, so after that it was just me. I made good time on the Bradshaw Trail, then managed the rocky and gravelly 4-wheel drive track north about 2.5 miles to a rocky clearing at the base of a canyon below Black Butte. I decided to camp here, and I was treated to a beautiful sunset just as I rolled in.

The night was quite windy. It’s always windy in the deserts at night, so that’s no surprise, but I was in a clearing directly below a canyon, so I presume the winds would funnel into this canyon and come barreling out faster than usual, right at me. I slept in the bed of my truck, but the wind knocked the truck around pretty good. I daresay gusts were 50-60 mph, and sometimes sustained 30 mph. I ended up being kept awake a little more than I would have liked. On the plus side, the skies were clear and a mostly-full moon was up, lighting everything up in a beautiful moonglow. The only hints of civilization were two beacon lights, way far off to my south on the Chocolate Mountains Gunnery Range.

I woke with the sunrise and spent a few minutes warming up in the cab of my truck. I was parked just north of a junction of two roads (shown on the map). I had gone up the left fork, while the right fork curls south a little bit then north, going far up into this canyon. However, I decided to drive this left fork to its end, and I managed another half-mile before it petered out in a big rocky wash. I decided to park and start the hike from here. I was about 2,700 feet elevation, and I started walking at 7 a.m., sharp.

I walked north through this broad wash, in and out of many sandy braids and avoiding the brush whenever possible. The wind was still blowing but not as fast, but at times I had to lean into it, and it did make me work a little harder. After a few minutes I came upon the road, the right fork I had ignored. Do I go back and drive a little more? Nah, I decided I was close enough and my truck well-hidden where it was, so I continued north along the road, making very good time. After about 1.5 miles of hiking from my truck, the road ends at a wilderness sign, well within the main canyon and directly above a huge wash. Turns out that there were a couple of tricky rocky bits along the road back a ways that would have probably stopped me in my truck, so driving this road would not have gained me much overall.

The DPS guide suggests to follow a prominent side canyon on a slightly northeast bearing to gain the highest ridge, from which it’s a short stroll to the top. I wasn’t exactly enthused for more steep canyon hiking so I chose a lesser poison, to keep on my due north bearing and aim for an obvious saddle on the main range crest, about ¾-miles distant. The saddle has an elevation of about 3,700 feet. I dropped into the big wash and worked my way up its north channel. The going was pretty straightforward, just the usual blend of rocks, sandy bits, brush and sometimes confusing bits. I covered maybe half the distance to the far-off saddle when I ascended out of this canyon and started hiking on the slopes, trying to parallel the canyon as best I could. I started to angle slightly to my right, aiming to reach the range crest a few hundred feet above the saddle. This worked but was very sloppy and loose in places, but I did meet the main range crest at roughly 3,800 feet elevation.

From here to the summit was about another ¾-mile and another 700 feet of gain. And to my delight, I noticed a few cairns and a very scant path, but a path nonetheless. This allowed me to put my head down and my brain on autopilot, and I trudged up this little path to gain another 150 feet or so, coming out on a small rock knob where the gradient was much gentler. That was a nice surprise. The next small portion was a series of little gains to rocky outcrops, culminating with a sidehill across Hill 4,132, then a descent of about 60 feet to a saddle below. The summit ridge was now visible and the summit itself sometimes visible when not obscured by foreground rocks. There was no more path but the route-finding was plainly obvious.

From the small saddle below point 4,132, I walked up a slope to another flattish bench, where I had a full view of the top. I walked up yet another slope, wormed my way through one last rock band, and then the final few easy steps to the summit! I arrived at 9:45 a.m. and took my time to enjoy the views and a well-earned break. The log held entries back to the early 1990s and probably averaged 10-15 people ascending this peak per year, most of them probably via the Desert Peaks Section outings. There were a lot of familiar names in the log, a few I knew personally and others I “know” electronically. I was the first to sign in for the 2010s decade. The views were tremendous. To the north was more of the Chuckwalla Range, plus Interstate-10 way out in the valley beyond, a simple little line in the sand. To the west was more of the Chuckwallas as well, plus the Orocopia and Eagle Ranges, and way off, the snow-capped “Sans”: Jacinto and Gorgonio. To the south was open desert and the Chocolate Mountains, and off to the southwest I could make out the Salton Sea and some interesting steam plumes (I would find out what they were two days later!). The wind was brisk but not bad, but I did start to chill after 15 minutes, so I bade the top farewell and started my trek back to the truck.

The hike down went fine, my only variation being that I actually descended to the saddle itself before turning south and going back out the lower canyon. I made fantastic time and every time I stopped, the saddle and summit was so much higher and farther off than before! I got back to the road and was back to my truck at nearly noon, making for a five-hour hike overall, covering 6 miles and a gross of 2,000 feet of gain. It was warming up very nicely now and the area was simply beautiful. I took the time to snap more photographs than I had going up. After some time to change, I rumbled down the road back to the Bradshaw Trail, then from there back to Interstate-10. Gas Line Road was crap again, enough to put me in a slightly crabby mood, and then I got pulled over by the Border Patrol! He just wanted to know what I was up to and if I’d seen anything suspicious. Back at the highway I stopped for awhile to relax, check my tires, and call my pal Schneider, telling him when I’d be showing up.

The rest of the day was spent driving into Schneider’s place in Monrovia, watching Droopy cartoons, eating Japanese and talking all things football and baseball and hockey and basketball and cars and pistols with my old high school chum. The next day I visited my brother and his family, which is always fun, then I drove back east for a little fun along the Salton Sea (the story continues)

Overall, the Black Butte hike had gone very well. I usually under-estimate my times for hikes like these but everything went fine for me on this one and I was actually quicker than I had expected. My wife and I have looked at driving the Bradshaw Trail for its entire length, and this outing served as a scout of the road’s quality, and yes, we will be back. A beautiful, remote, mostly untouched area of the desert.