Toro Peak is a giant mountain although it stands “just” 8,716 feet high. Toro Peak is the name of the summit of Santa Rosa Mountain, which looms high over the desert cities of Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage, about 20 miles east of Palm Springs. Its size is more a result of its enormous prominence - nearly 4,000 feet - and its lack of prominent foothills. In other words, it appears as one gigantic hulk of a mountain. It is an impressive-looking peak, visible for many miles along Interstate-10 especially if coming from the east—it is the first “big” mountain one sees traveling west, becoming visible between Desert Center and Chiriaco Summit. A more impressive vantage point is from the south in Anza Borrego Desert State Park near the Fonts Wash area. There, the elevation is just about 300 feet above sea level, so nearly all of Toro’s magnificent 8,700 feet of height stands uninterrupted by foothills. When the peak is shrouded in snow, the effect is especially nice.

Getting to the summit of Toro should be easy enough since a 4-wheel drive road called the Santa Rosa Mountain Truck Trail winds up from state highway CA-74 all the way to its summit, where an assortment of communications towers and a lookout stand. However, it took me two tries to visit the top, the first culminating in a near fight with some tower workers!

A year ago, May 2007, I came through on the tail end of a four-day quickie of peaks in Southern California. I hoped to visit Toro Peak’s summit, then get some miles put in on the way back to Phoenix. On that trip I drove up the road – carefully – to a Y-junction about 12 miles from the entrance from the highway. I got my boots on and figured on a quick hour round-trip up the remainder of the road. As I approached the top there were lots of work trucks parked in the various nooks and crannies of the road. Closer to the top I came upon a group of workers and just continued on past, but they stopped and came toward me. One guy – the leader I assume – started to give me a spiel about “being on Federal Indian Property”. I asked if it would be fine if I walked the final few feet to the top, then I’d be on my way. Again, the leader started to get all worked up. He asked me if I knew I was on Indian land and if I had seen the sign. I tactically played it dumb and answered no to both questions. He ended it with a “you better turn around right now.” In the meantime all of his work buddies had circled me. It looked like a rough crowd. The numbers were not in my favor so what choice did I have? I turned around and walked out. So frustrating, so close to the top.

Naturally I was not happy about how this all went. It’s one thing to be told to get lost, but another thing to be surrounded by a bunch of white-trash losers itching for a fight. What bugged me was the mock air of authority this guy put on, as if he gave a crap himself about this being Indian land. That, and almost getting beat up – that bugged me too. So now Toro zoomed to the top of my list. I would do Toro!

So here it was May 2008, a year later, and a good time to be looking at Toro once again. With a week off before teaching, and a freak cold-front that moved through dropping temperatures about 15-20 degrees below normal, the SoCal desert peaks looked enticing where otherwise they’d be too hot this time of year. Once again, I placed Toro on the back-end, convenient on my way back to Arizona. The first two peaks went well, Rodman and Ord up near Lucerne Valley in the high desert. Then, a fun visit with my brother’s family and my favorite niece and nephew. And finally, my second go-round with Toro.

I arrived in the Palm Desert area around noon in pleasant conditions (80s instead of 100s), got some food and supplies, and started up the Palms to Pines highway (CA-74). This is a spectacular scenic highway that leads eventually into the San Jacinto Mountains and into Hemet and eventually Orange County. From the intersection with CA-111, it is a bit over 18 miles up CA-74 to the Santa Rosa Mountain Road. A sign mentions Santa Rosa Mountain as 10 miles ahead. Toro is about 3-4 miles further. The road is bumpy, narrow, exposed and sometimes rough. Four-wheel drive is mandatory, in my opinion. It’s not really the most scenic mountain road – too much of it is obscured by trees, foreground hills and chaparral scrub. Occasionally there are fine views. Mostly, it’s a chore – just take it slow, watch the ruts and rocks, and hope no one is coming in the opposite direction. After about an hour I had passed the turn-off to Santa Rosa Mountain; another mile and a half later I parked in a broad clearing called Toro Camp on the map. This is a campground, but the forest service seems to use it as a place to store cut logs for transport. It’s pretty ugly. It was about 2 p.m., and I had enough provisions for an overnight camp. I had plans A, B and C for the peak, including possible middle-of-the-night hikes in the moonlight if need be. Nevertheless, I thought to go with plan A first, to hike the road to the top and hope no one was home.

I had parked about a mile short of the Y-junction mentioned on my first attempt. The road walk along this stretch was easy and mostly level, and went quickly. I came to the Y-junction. On a tree right at the junction, the Forest Service had taped on a big sign about “No Entry, Fire Danger”. I continued on a few more feet to the gate that spans the road, presumably at the Indian Reservation boundary (up to this point the entire route is within the San Berdoo National Forest). A newer “no trespassing” sign than from last year was on the gate, describing the penalties for entrance. Crap… I could have conceivably played ignorant on one sign, but not on two; getting caught up here could be real trouble. The gate was also open, which also suggested there may be someone up top. Who, I have no idea. The Santa Rosa Indian Reservation is a tiny “rez” of checkerboard sections mixed with forest and public sections, typical of how California subdivides its lands in places. The Indians, I had no worries about; I doubt they even know they own the summit. But a Forest guy might nab me on both counts and cite me. So, after a few more minutes of hiking up the road, I decided to make myself invisible, escaped the road and started directly up the slopes. I was at a point where I could see the summit tower about 600 feet up and maybe a half-mile distant. I hiked up the slopes, which was a mix of branches, brush, open areas and rocks. The rocks start in earnest about 200 feet below the summit. From below it looks cliffy, but up close it’s just a big pile of talus and easy scrambling. I came upon the top directly, achieving the summit rocks, careful to observe if there was anyone about. No one was home, but I didn’t stay long. A couple of photos and I started down.

For the downhill trip I felt slightly more confident there was no one up here to hassle me so I walked down the road, which zig-zags steeply in this section. I walked right past where I met the nice guys from a year before. A little lower down there is one last building, and I could hear a generator buzzing. Again, this is not uncommon to hear, since they are often on timers, but in this case there was the outside chance of someone there (remember, the gate was open below). So I decided to go back into the forest and cross-country it down. The downhill went very quickly, the pine-needle mat on the slopes making for easy solid steps all the way down. I met the road still a bit inside the prohibited area. As I hiked down I could see the road and see if anyone might be coming up – if so, it would be easy to just jump into the forest and play hide-from-the-man. But no one came along. I was relieved, though, to be outside the gate and the “no entry” sign. The walk back to my truck took another 15 minutes, and my total round-trip was about 2.5 hours.

It was getting real breezy up here – gusty breezy, and cold – so I decided to just get moving and put in some miles back homeward. The drive down took an hour to CA-74, then another hour from there back to Interstate-10 (including stops for photographs). I ended up camping in the desert southwest of Blythe at the Wileys Well BLM campground, south of the giant Chuckwalla State Prison. With Toro Peak done, I have no reason ever to go back up that road or retry that peak. I cannot comment for sure what the overall access is like. It seems others have had no trouble at all. 99.9% of the time tower workers don’t care if hikers come up, and 99.9% of the time if the summit is on Indian land, the Indian band itself usually does not care (or, more typically, is not aware of it). My attempt last year must have been a fluke, given what I encountered. It feels good to get it done and out of the way!