The Eagle Mountains are a spread-out range located in the deserts of Riverside County, north of Interstate-10 and bleeding slightly into southern Joshua Tree National Park. The community of Eagle Mountain lies within the northeast section of the range; a signed exit off of Interstate-10 west of Desert Center is the only hint there is a town up in the hills. Or more accurately, used to be a town. Eagle Mountain (the town) was a thriving mining town with homes, businesses and schools up to about the 1980s, when the mine shut and the town as essentially abandoned. The actual highpoint of the Eagle Mountains is located toward the southwest of the range, visible north from Interstate-10 between the Chiriaco Summit and Mecca-29 Palms exits. Like all desert ranges in this part of the Mojave, the range appears to have a nice even profile, whereupon closer inspection it has considerable rockiness and challenges, although the de facto route to the summit can usually avoid the worst of these obstacles.

I have been interested in Eagle since viewing it up close in 2008 while hiking Orocopia Mountain, directly across the interstate from Eagle. I have a somewhat serious interest to hike each of the 2000-foot prominence peaks that line Interstate-10 inside California. So far I have Big Maria, Orocopia, Quail, Toro, San Jacinto and San Gorgonio, which only puts me about half-way into the list. Some other hiking plans I had lined up fell apart at the last moment so I found myself with a few free days, so I opted to make the longish drive west to Joshua Tree and make an attempt for Eagle. It was just by happenstance that it happened on Christmas Day (although the fact that traffic would be low was in my favor). A cold wet storm had moved through the southwest a couple days’ prior, but when I left home on the 24th, the weather was crystal clear, but quite cold and very brisk. I arrived at the south entrance of Joshua Tree National Park about 4 p.m. and found a nice spot in Cottonwood Campground, not far from the trailhead. The Eagles were in the distance, with a nice late-day glow in the setting sun.

The Sierra Club Desert Peaks Section guidebook lists three approach routes to the summit, two that head southeast first via Mastodon Mine then cut north to the range, and one that starts way north and approaches from a canyon due west of the summit. I figured I’d rather head up the canyon closest to the summit so I chose a variation of the latter route, starting my trek from the campground. I got a good night’s sleep in the back of my truck, although the wind blew heavy all night. When I awoke I was pleasantly surprised to note that it was cold but not freezing, even here at 3,000 feet. The wind still blew steadily but lighter than at night. Even a soft wind exacerbated the chill, but I bundled up good and generally stayed warm. I locked everything up and started my hike at 6:30 a.m. local time, just as the sun was rising in the east.

From the campground I walked a broad sandy wash/path due north (the one that starts at camp-space B-17). I stayed on this path for about a mile by my reckoning, gaining slight elevation and trying to line myself up with the approach canyon, still a long way off to my northeast. I was walking right into the wind, and at times it was quite uncomfortable. When the sandy path started to braid and connect in and out with other sandy paths, I started to angle on a bee-line toward the canyon, still a good 2 miles distant across the wide-open alluvial desert plane. Numerous large rocky “boulder” outcrops sit in this plane, and at first I made excellent time on the cross-country portion. The only mishaps were two walk-in encounters with the pencil cholla, a cousin of the more familiar teddy-bear cholla cactus. The spines are an inch long and barbed, so I had to yank them out one by one from my skin – they even went through my pants material. However, I ended up crossing a number of rocky arroyos, being forced into and out of these little mini-canyons numerous times. They were simple to manage, but this added some extra time to my journey. I finally got close to the mouth of the canyon, now onto some rockier high ground, where the brush was extremely thick. I had been hiking maybe 90 minutes and I took a break here.

I didn’t stop for long as I was still in the shade and it was still very cold with a steady breeze, so I got moving again, walking up the rocks into this canyon. The going was slow and often tedious, but there were no real obstacles to stop me. The grade steepened a lot and I was surprised how much I had gained when I would turn around to look out the canyon into the desert. Some paths help too, cutting down on the rock hopping. In time I had gained onto a small level portion inside this canyon at about 4,500 feet elevation where I had an unobstructed view of the main canyon headwall and range crest for the first time. This gave me a chance to plot a course from here.

My concern was if I hiked too far toward the headwall I’d get boxed in or blocked by sheer cliffs, so I opted to exit the canyon by angling to my right (as I looked up into the canyon) and ascending a sloppy rock and scree slope to gain a small side ridge. It looked to be no more than 150-200 feet of gain, so I went for it. It worked but it was a lot looser than I had anticipated and it was quite tricky: large boulders would groan under my weight and some slid right out from under me. But shortly I had made the side ridge and from here it was another steep gain of about 250 feet to gain the main range crest. However, this part went well as the rocks were set very solidly. I took a longer break once on the main ridge, now having hiked for about 3 hours. The sun was nice but the wind was sometimes very heavy. The summit was now visible about a half-mile to the east. Numerous rock outcrops and interesting pillars lined the ridge between me and the top.

The route sidehills past a couple easy ridge points then drops about 100 feet toward the first of the big rock outcrops. Despite the quantity of rock outcrops, most of the route-finding in this section is common sense. Occasionally I’d see a lone cairn or maybe 10 feet of path, but often I had to explore up one way, hit a dead-end, then return and try another way. Nothing was too bad and it was all very pretty. The route essentially zig-zags through the gauntlet of large outcrops, often dropping low to one side before re-ascending again to meet up with the next obstacle. Past the last large outcrop, I came upon a beaten path that worked its way up the last main slope toward the summit ridge. The summit itself was a little further east along the ridge, a nice gentle hump on which sat a USGS benchmark and some low rocks. I signed into the log and stayed a few minutes to take in the views. There were some signatures in the log from about 3 weeks ago, and maybe 10 for all of 2009; the log held signatures from 2000, averaging out to maybe 10-20 people a year who come to this peak. The skies were clear and bright blue. Interestingly, I could see a lot of the Salton Sea behind the foreground ranges. Innumerable other ranges fanned out in all directions. Big Mounts San Jacinto and San Gorgonio were covered in snow off to the west; nearby Toro Peak had a dusting that I could see to the southwest. It was very beautiful, but also very cold in the wind. It had taken me about 4 hours to make the top, but I only stayed maybe 5 minutes before starting down.

The walk back through the outcrops went well since I knew where to go and I was back to the top of the descent ridge after not too long. I had considered a loop hike, going south along the range crest and descending on the range’s southwest corner, but after a good look at the main range crest from up high, it featured a lot of big rocks and heavy brush, and I was in no mood for more rock dodging. So I went with the path I had taken coming up. I descended the ridge quickly to the point above the sloppy rock section I had come up earlier, not looking forward to this part. It looked a lot nastier coming down, and I had to be extremely careful at each step so as not dislodge big rocks. I basically did the five points of contact technique with varying success. At one point I felt a big rock, easily 300 lbs, move under me, and knowing I’d be under it soon and not wanting it above me, I “nudged” it and watched it careen violently into canyon below. One less widow-maker to worry about. That’s how precarious it was set against the slope.

In time I had gently scooted myself into the canyon … and heard some voices! For a peak that gets climbed maybe a dozen times in a year, who else could be up here, on Christmas Day no less? Why, it was Scott Casterlin and John Hamann, partners of mine on many Arizona peaks! Imagine our surprise to be seeing one another up here. I had known they were doing some California desert summits but did not know their itinerary or which peaks exactly, so to meet them where I did and when I did was quite remarkable and funny. We spent a few minutes chatting, but as usual, it got cold and we were all interested to keep moving, them up and me down. We said our goodbyes and I continued down the canyon. What an amusing surprise!

The downward trek out of the canyon went very quickly since I could see paths that were not evident coming up, and I exited the canyon not too long afterward. Instead of retracing my bearing from this morning across the desert flats, I trekked more westerly, following paths of least resistance and trying to mitigate the arroyo crossings I would need to make. When I would need to cross an arroyo I would descend into one and walk its sandy path for a while until some obstacle would force me out. There were some neat slot canyons and even some pools of water hidden in some parts! Eventually I had crossed all the big arroyos and was just now on the open desert portion of the hike, generally hiking south toward a big water tank set on a hill near the campground, which I used as a navigation device. I came across some of my footprints from the morning hike and in time came upon the well-traveled sandy path that led right back to the campground and my truck. I arrived at 2:30, for a total time of 8 hours. In all a very nice, enjoyable hike. I was sore but not too sore. After I changed into drier clothes I noticed a few more cactus spines that needed yanking. Even a few days later I was finding a few more.

I exited back to the visitor’s center where I paid my entrance fee since I arrived too late the day before. From there it was just a 250-mile journey east along Interstate-10 back home, where I arrived about 7 p.m. It was nice to be back home for Christmas with my wife and our furry floor monsters. Eagle turned out to be a very nice, moderately challenging day hike, with marvelous views and well wroth the effort to come all this way for the experience.