It has been a custom to exercise on Thanksgiving and come home just as the turkey is coming out of the oven in my home for many a moon. I had eyed the PVR route from Juniper Hills for a while and had some good beta from the Elwood TRs. This time I had a partner in my son Ari, who was very excited to get reception on the entire ridge and was able to keep up with the football games in real time. The route to the parking lot is pretty straightforward with the only difficulty, the obscure turn on to Alimony Road (dirt). The parking spot is quite obvious as it is the first big turnout on the road right below an obvious saddle to the left. High clearance vehicles would be helpful as there are some nice ruts in the road.
The route leads to the saddle in front of you, either go straight up or there is a trail that zigzags up to the right. Motorcycles have used this section of trail which seems to mainly have been created as an old road/firebreak. From there a left turn up an equally steep loose ridge gets you onto the main subsidiary ridge. There are two ridges that shear off of PVR at its western end, one to the north and the one you're on to the west. Since PVR is primarily a W/E ridge you're probably on the true ridge so to speak. This old road has for the most part an excellent use trail through this section. After a contour around a drainage, you climb again a little less steeply to the north ridge connector. At this point you get your first view of the top of PVR and the remainder of your route. From here the hike is very moderate and delightful for the middle section. The environment is desert in nature with very little growth and occasional juniper trees looking forlornly over the Antelope Valley.
After a little more then an hour a triangular sign announced View BM, Pk. 6,586. To our surprise a register had been placed here in 2012 by Pete Doggett. The peak unsurprisingly doesn't get many visitors with the last sign in almost a year ago. From View you continue to climb at a mellow pace up to Pt. 7,025 where things start to change dramatically. You drop 300 feet to a saddle where the old road ends. This is the crux of the hike and the most xcountry section. You begin a couple of climbs including one up a narrow ridge. The growth transforms at this point to traditional San Gabes miserable brush. After the first two initial climbs you hit a wider ridge that is ducked through the brush in most places to minimize the pain. After this point you're on your own to get over the final section, a climb up Pk. 7,515. The best route we found was to stay to the north side of the ridge. It gets quite steep but you can hug the brush and make it up sandy slopes. Trial and error in this section allowed for the most scrapes and we found it much easier on the way back. Just before hitting the top of 7,515 we had less steep slopes and contoured around back to the east ridge. As a note on the way back we did find the "old trail" bypass that Elwood mentioned in his report from the saddle below 7,515. We took it around 3/4 of the peak but the last section is now a complete wash-out and would not be safe to cross.
Dropping down to the saddle from 7,515, all the brush had disappeared and now you were hiking in true forest with a delightful park like feel. A couple of bumps along the ridge and we were at the Pallett BM where a well hid canister was found. The hike up had taken just a little over three hours. We lounged on top for a bit with perfect weather and even a bit of a breeze. From there the hike back was relatively easy other then the unpleasant climbs up from the saddles. The hike stats were 6 hours 20 minutes, about 13 miles and 4,200 feet elevation gain.
