Toro Peak is the name given to the highest summit of the gigantic Santa Rosa Mountains, a compact range of peaks located south of the desert cities of Palm Desert and Rancho Mirage in Riverside County. Although "only" 8,716 feet high, Toro Peak is a thoroughly impressive mountain due to its huge prominence - nearly 4,000 vertical feet - and it lack of foothills, giving the range and peak the appearance of being essentially one giant hulk of mass. The Santa Rosa Range is not far from the higher Mount San Jacinto, but Toro's impressiveness is hardly diminished by San Jacinto's own grandeur. To put analogously, if San Jacinto were a hot babe, a 10 on the 10 scale, Toro would be her equally hot little sister, maybe a 9.5. Driving west in the desert along Interstate-10, Toro looms as a distant peak way off on the horizon from points as far as Desert Center-Chiriaco Summit. It is even more impressive viewed from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park to the south. We camped once at Fonts Wash and had uninterrupted views of the full 8,500 feet of vertical, given that Fonts Wash is only a few hundred feet above sea level. 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 heck 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 – the whole experience sucked. So now Toro zoomed to the top of my vendetta list.

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, on my way back to 'zona, my second tangle 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 in Palm Desert, it is a bit over 18 miles up CA-74 to the Santa Rosa Mountain Road, marked by a sign mentioning Santa Rosa Mountain as 10 miles ahead. Toro (unmentioned on the sign) is about 3-4 miles further via the road. The road itself is bumpy, narrow, exposed and sometimes rough. Four-wheel drive is mandatory, in my opinion. It’s not really the most scenic mountain road as too much of the views are obscured by trees, foreground hills and chaparral scrub. Mostly, the road is 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. In time 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, or care if people go up there. But a National Forest guy might ding me for ignoring the fire closure sign and cite me - they don't mess around with that. So, after a few more minutes of hiking up the road, I got kind of skittish and decided to make myself invisible, escaping the road and starting directly up the slopes. I was at a point where I could see the summit towers 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 - fairly easy overall, with solid footing. Big trees made for good cover; I could see parts of the road but never saw anyone or any vehicles. All was well so far. The rocks start in earnest about 200 feet below the summit. From below the rocks looks very jumbled and maybe a bit cliffy, but up close it’s just talus and very 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. I had no desire to meet anyone at this juncture. A couple of quick photos to document my visit, and I started down. Last year on my "almost-got-beat-up" hike, I did go slow and admire the views, especially looking down into the Anza-Borrego region to the southeast. This time, there was no time for views.

For the downhill trip I felt slightly more confident there was no one up here to hassle me so I started to walk down the road, which zig-zags steeply in this section. There is a heliport here, built to service the towers. The road does in fact go to the very summit, but it is extremely steep and rocky for the last few dozen feet. I passed the area where I had my impromptu meeting with the tower workers from last year. 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 actually there, keeping in mind the gate below was open when I walked up. I thought it wise to hide myself again and ducked back into the rocks and tree cover. The downhill went very quickly, the pine-needle mat on the slopes making for easy solid steps all the way down. I came back upon the road still a bit inside the prohibited area. As I hiked down on the road, I could see the road coming up and see if anyone might be driving up – if so, it would be easy to just jump into the forest again and play hide-from-the-man. But no one came along, and I made quick time to get out past the gate, back on to "legal" land. 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 against a camp and to just get moving and put in some miles back to Arizona. The drive down the truck trail 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 as long as the summit is not a known religious or spiritual place of significance for them. 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!

It is interesting to note that the Desert Peaks Section of the Sierra Club has at times included Toro Peak on its list, and at other times has excluded it due to its cloudy access situation. This is presumably not new: one reference shows that in 1975 the peak was excluded from the list, but then again added back on ... and very recently, excluded again, probably for the very reasons I describe here. It's amusing to note that the DPS instead suggests a hike to the "Toro West" summit, in which one ascends the slope above the gate, ascending to a bump slightly west of the true summit and thereby staying off the restricted property. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge...