The Pinacate Biosphere Reserve—more formally, Reserva de la Biosfera de El Pinacate y Gran Desierto Altar—is a fascinating, utterly alien landscape located in northern Sonora, Mexico, at the northern tip of the Gulf of California. The reserve encompasses a giant sprawling shield volcano known as Volcan Santa Clara, whose summit is commonly known as Cerro Pinacate (or Pinacate Peak), as well as hundreds of craters and fumaroles created when hot magma hit some underground water pockets, creating giant explosions. To the west is a great sand desert—the Altar Desert—composed of hundreds of square miles of shifting dunes that would seem more at home in the Arabian peninsula than here. The desert sands also have a peculiar trait: they are beige/peach in color, instead of the usual light brown. These desert sands are essentially impenetrable except for specially equipped vehicles. Getting back to the mountain, Volcan Santa Clara is unique to this part of the world, a shield volcano formed by repeated lava flows emanating from common vents, forming over the eons a broad, symmetric mountain of gentle slopes and large, rugged lava fields. The Hawaiian Islands, for example, were formed first as shield volcanoes, with Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa as the best current-day examples. In Arizona, Mount Trumbull north of the Grand Canyon is a shield volcano. And after that, I can’t name any others; most volcanoes on our mainland tend to be the big Cascade-type pyramids that when they erupt, usually explode instead of ooze lava (e.g. Mt. St. Helens in 1980). Suffice to say, the Pinacate Reserve is unique certainly to the Americas, and truly a wondrous, fascinating place. In terms of nomenclature, the Reserve is essentially identical to that of a National Park. I have known of the Pinacate for years, but until now had not ventured there, or much at all into Mexico for that matter.

From Arizona, the Pinacate is reached by following state route AZ-85 south from Gila Bend through Ajo to the Organ Pipe National Monument, and entering into Mexico at the Lukeville/Sonoyta border checkpoint. From here, one follows Mexican Route-8 southwest toward the town of Puerto Penasco (Rocky Point), with the Pinacate Reserve being roughly half-way between Puerto Penasco and Sonoyta. Rocky Point is a very popular destination for Arizonans, being the closest beach city from Phoenix or Tucson. You can’t help but notice the Pinacate range when driving this route, although a tiny minority of Rocky Point-bound travelers actually visit the Pinacate Reserve. The best time to visit the Pinacates would be in winter for obvious reasons. In the summer, temperatures here are obscenely high, often exceeding 120 degrees F. Even spring or fall can be warm and into the 90s.

I wanted a partner along for the adventure, and talked Scott Casterlin into coming along, which didn’t take much arm-twisting at all. He had hiked the peak twice in previous years, most recently in about 2002, and was eager to visit it again. We met at my home in Chandler, transferred gear into my truck, and set out around 11 a.m. on Monday, January 5th. The drive went well: 65 miles to Gila Bend via Maricopa, then 80 miles to the border crossing, with a stop in Ajo to get Mexican auto insurance and some groceries. At Lukeville on the American side of the border, I topped the gas, then did something I’d never done before: drive myself into Mexico. Within moments, there we were, south of the border, in Sonoyta, Mexico—it was that easy! We drove south through town, following the signs, looking for Highway 8 to Puerto Penasco. The Sonoyta portion only covers maybe three miles before being once again in the open desert. Sonoyta itself has about 10,000 “Habitantes”, per the sign. I enjoyed looking at the buildings, dogs, horses grazing beside the road, guys pulling ice cream carts, everything, but also tried my best to keep at the speed limit. I was being extra cautious not to do anything to get me pulled over. Anyway, there was no issue. Within minutes we were on Highway 8; the Pinacates come into view after about 10 miles, once we got past some local hills. About 30 minutes later we rounded a bend and exited the highway at the entrance station to the Reserve, paying some nominal fees for entrance and camping. Scott and I know a little Spanish, the girl who helped us knew probably about the same in English but we got it all figured out.

From the entrance station we drove north for 2.5 miles along good dirt road (sandy, some wash-boarding) to a junction, then left and another 11.2 miles generally west and northwest across broad desert plains, washes and lava flows to reach our destination, the campground at Cono Rojo (Red Cone). All the while the mountain stood grandly in the distance as we slowly made our way to the campground. Cono Rojo is located at the base of a hefty lava flow, so named for a very red colored cone/vent nearby. The campground is very basic, with two main camping spots, a couple tables, some other cleared areas, and a trailhead sign. We arrived about 3:45 in the afternoon and enjoyed the solitude and views. About 6, three other vehicles rolled up, all with kayaks (!) on their roofs, and set up camp in the other main section. Later, their “leaders”, three men, came to greet us. They were from Mexico City, and we surmised that this looked to be a professional tour outfit based on the abundance and quality of their gear.

Comment on our drive: Highway 8 is very well maintained and about half the vehicles had Arizona plates. It’s a “Hassle Free” zone meaning that you may drive this far into Mexico without having to go through a huge maze of bureaucracy of registering your car with Mexican authorities otherwise. The road in from the entrance to the campground was better than I expected, and it is obvious much upgrading has taken place: the junctions are signed, some notable land features are signed, and the road is graded so that minor all junctions are obvious. It took us an hour to drive this stretch. Based on past reports, this development and improvement is new. The road is still rough. High clearance is an absolute minimum requirement. I had 4-wheel drive and used it for the handling and also for some short stretches of sand. Good tires are a must since much of the road is carved into the lava, and the little lava rocks are notoriously sharp. I brought along a shovel and some wood planks for potential traction devices but didn’t need them. The Reserve people probably don’t patrol these roads more than once every few days. Self-sufficiency is much more a requirement here than it might be up in the U.S.

Darkness came around 6:30 p.m., but the skies were clear and we had a half-moon that lit up the countryside fairly well. We sat around for a little while longer, but the temperatures fell fairly drastically—into the high 30s by early morning—so we both decided to call it a day and get some sleep, me in the bed of my truck and Scott out in the open on an open spot of lava gravel. It was utterly silent; the group nearby us evidently having turned in early as well. Aside from waking up a few times during the night for imagined noises, I slept well and woke for good right about 6 a.m., still dark and very cold. Scott heard me rustling and he got up too. There was no hurry, so we waited for the sun to breach the eastern horizon and warm things up a little more. At 7:30 we set out for the summit of Pinacate Peak.

We crossed through the camping area of the other group and said our hellos and holas. They were just getting up and getting ready themselves. The trailhead is a sign blocking the road, which worms its way up about 20-something feet of lava to gain a slightly higher plateau of lava. The road, as we would learn, runs very nearly to the summit itself, but is only open for walking. The road, as we would also learn (and is described here later on) is not the ideal route to the top if you stick just to the road only, but is useful in conjunction with some well-planned cross-country short cuts. Pinacate Peak itself is hidden from view from this vantage, with its slightly lower eastern sub-summit, Carnegie Peak, dominating the view for now. We walked the road for maybe a half-mile as it angled more north than west, then at some point when it felt right, we struck out cross-country generally west, aiming for the far ridges north of Carnegie/Pinacate, with a beautiful conical fumarole off to the north of the peaks serving as a nice point of reference.

Any cross-country route up to the summit will involve crossing lava fields, which is technically easy but a chore due to the sharp and broken nature of the cooled lava. It’s interesting from a geological point of view, of course – some fields are obviously newer than others. Some sections have much vegetation growing up through various cracks and islands of native terrain, while other sections look like it cooled just last week – nothing on it, like a moonscape. We generally had good luck with our route. Brush was moderate, with much cholla to avoid, along with ocotillo, barrel, saguaro and organ-pipe cacti for variety. Creosote bush was everywhere, too. A small storm had passed through the southwest about two days previous, and it was evident the Pinacates got a little moisture, since the creosote gave off its unique pungent rubbery odor. It was actually kind of nice. In about an hour we had gained fairly high on the north slopes of Carnegie—Pinacate still invisible—and now we were through with the lava fields, which was nice. We traversed through a section of low brush and grass then re-met with the road. The road barged steeply up a ridge to gain a saddle immediately northwest of Carnegie Peak, with the slightly asymmetric profile of Pinacate Peak coming into view for the first time today. We took a well-deserved break here.

From the saddle the road continues a little bit more, descending a few feet into a small basin ringed by Carnegie and Pinacate Peaks, as well as a number of smaller hills. The road ends – or simply peters out in the brush – still about three-quarters of a mile and 600 vertical feet below Pinacate, which now stands grandly above. Why was there a road up to here in the first place? I guessed an old mine but there was no sign of such up here. I honestly have no idea. But it did help, saving us the hassle of ascending the steep grades of loose lava rubble, rocks and small kibble, where each two steps up is negated by back-sliding one step down.

The final portion to the summit follows a fairly obvious footpath that continues from the end of the road (white stakes are placed at intervals along the road, but end at the end of the road as well). The footpath enters into a drainage, staying on the slopes to the south, with an impressive rock formation on the other side. We made good time up the path, but where it steepened more, we were now battling the dreaded walk up/slide back effect of hiking up loose lava rubble. So we left the path for some solid rocks (and brush) for the 100 or so feet where this was a problem. When the slope moderated slightly, we got back onto the path and took it all the way to the top, arriving about 11:15 a.m., slightly less than three and a half hours for the ascent.

The top itself is just a little hump of bare soil and rock. A clump of rocks to the side holds a register inside a strong box which is bolted to the rock. To the south sits a small antenna structure. But we had made it! I was very excited to gain the top and the views were absolutely stunning. In all directions the slopes of Volcan Santa Clara gave away gently for miles, merging into the deserts below, dotted by dozens of cones, craters and fumaroles. The amazing Crater Elegante, the largest of the so-called maar volcanoes (formed by magma meeting underground water pockets, which explode and leave a crater behind), was visible to the north. It’s about six-tenths of a mile across, 800 feet deep and is very nearly perfectly circular. It is a beautiful landform and a testament to the incredible geology of the region. West and south were the sand dunes of the Altar Desert. The Gulf of California was visible to the southwest, with the buildings of Rocky Point also visible. The farthest views west were slightly occluded by haze, but sticking above it all was the top of Pico del Diablo, the 10,000-foot summit and highpoint of the Baja peninsula. Looking north we had more cones and lava fields, and way north we could see peaks in the Cabeza Prieta and Organ Pipe Monuments in Arizona, including Mount Ajo. The eastern views were of Carnegie Peak up close, the Sierra Cucapas farther off, and miles and miles of open, flat, stark desert as far as the eye could see. We stayed up here for about 40 minutes, having lunch. The weather was nice, maybe in the 60s, and not too cool as there was essentially no breeze for the moment. Well, all good things must eventually come to a close, and we started off the summit right about noon.

The hike down went very fast since walking down the loose lava rubble, so laborious and tedious going up, is wonderfully fast going down, since it holds solid but also slides along with you on each step. We were back to the end of the road in less than a half-hour, and we continued on the road down the slopes to roughly where we met it on the way up. So far, making excellent time – it was here we met the group from Mexico City on their way up to the top. Curious, we decided to follow the road out instead of cut across the lava fields. Well, the road eventually does lead out back to the trailhead, but it takes so long to do so that we grew very weary of it and concluded, even before we were done hiking it, that we had made a bad decision. The road wends way far to the north to avoid the heftiest of the lava flows, hence the extra distance. It took damn forever! The Sierra Club DPS map shows the road to be 5.6 miles from the trailhead to the saddle near Carnegie Peak. Add about an extra 1.5 miles from said saddle to Pinacate Peak summit, and that’s pushing 7 miles of one-way distance if one follows the road entirely. We finally egressed back to my truck around 2:30 p.m., an overall hike of about 7 hours. We figured our up-hill route covered maybe 4 miles one way with about 2,600 feet of gain, downhill pushing 7 miles and adding about another 200 feet conservatively of gain due to the ups and downs it takes. Our conclusion: cut across cross-country and deal with the lava fields, and re-meet the road higher up, where it is actually useful. Take the road entirely only if it is your life’s goal to never walk on chunky lava. The lava fields aren’t too bad, really. Just kind of tedious, but quick.

Back at the truck we changed into drier clothing and started the drive out back to the highway and up to the border. The drive out took about an hour again to the Biosphere buildings, then another 40 minutes to Sonoyta. Of concern to me at this point was what kind of wait I’d have at the border, but I got lucky: there was no wait! I drove right up, we showed them our passports, answered a few questions, surrendered an apple and an orange, let them paw through the junk in my truck’s bed, and once they were satisfied, let us go on. Usually the wait here can be long, especially on a holiday weekend. I pulled into a parking lot near the little general store to send a text to my wife, and in that time the line of cars coming up into the USA had grown to about 5 or so, in an instant, so I timed it good, it seemed.

We stopped for grub in Gila Bend and were back to my home in Chandler by 8 p.m., a successful trip on every front. The hike and climb had gone well, much to our satisfaction, but also, we had no trouble at all with any other aspect of the trip, considering the logistics of driving into a different nation. Getting through Sonoyta was straightforward, and the dirt roads in the Biosphere were not as bad as I had feared. My thanks again to Scott for being a willing and enthusiastic companion for the hike. This was an especially sweet peak for me, having desired it for years and having also overcome my own hesitance of actually entering into Mexico proper, not just sticking close to the border like I’d done in the past.

I close with a few random points of discussion and links:

• How often is the peak climbed? More than I would have expected at first, but then again, it seems to be gaining in popularity. The summit register already had about a dozen groups (and maybe 20+ actual people total) signed in for 2009. Most groups were from Mexico, the rest being us Yanks, of course. It’s pretty obvious, then, that while Pinacate Peak may never be over-run with people, it is known to hikers in Mexico, who do take the effort to come all this way to hike it. Bear in mind the Pinacate Biosphere is not close to any of the big Mexican cities. Mexicali, Nogales and Hermosillo are closest but still a few hours away by road. It’s not a peak known to most Americans, but slowly it seems to be gaining notice. Most Americans who hike it probably know about it due to its inclusion on the Sierra Club’s Desert Peak Section list, or geography nerds like me.

• The season for climbing this peak would be winter, naturally, but even more strictly so given this region is among the hottest in the world in summer, and the volcanic rock radiates the heat very well, making even a moderately warm day—e.g. in the high 70s—uncomfortably warm. The air tends to be dry and still, and the terrain is unforgiving. The log book showed no signatures after late March from 2008, before resuming for the winter.

• Despite improvements made on the access roads, this is a very remote, harsh and demanding place, and I would strongly suggest to go in prepared with a good strong vehicle with strong tires, lots of supplies, shovel, traction items in case you get stuck in sand, and the wherewithal to stay put for a couple days if something unfortunate should happen. Although the road seemed passable to a high clearance 2-wheel drive vehicle, I would still err on the side of caution here. A little moisture could make some of these roads impassable. Four-wheel drive is probably a really good idea, if you catch my drift.

• Keep in mind this is Mexico, so leave the gun at home, have all your paperwork in order and keep it with you on the hike as well. You should have no problem at all.

• I felt absolutely and totally safe being where we were (at Cono Rojo) bearing in mind the troubles this region of Mexico and the USA have been experiencing. Actually, in retrospect I’ve taken bigger chances on the American side, probably with an over-developed sense of trust that nothing will go wrong.

• One of the USA border guys looked at my shovel and saw it had dirt on it. Mexican dirt, he asked. No, good old American dirt I replied (I never needed to use it on this trip). I guess if it was Mexican dirt I’d have to have washed it off before re-entering the USA, for whatever reason. So, make sure your shovel is clean. Just one less hassle to deal with.

• This guy has some excellent websites with photos detailing his trips to the sand dunes of the Altar Desert. You will also learn what a “Mog” is.

• Altar Desert
• Altar Desert II
• Altar Desert Confluence Hunt
• Pinacate