After doing some research, the most obvious route seemed to be the south ridge so that is what I decided on. Access is gained from Afton Canyon Road which is a gravel, washboard road veering south from the I-15 immediately after the first rest stop beyond Yermo. I followed Afton Canyon Road maybe a mile to a mile and one half until I crossed under some high tension transmission lines. There is a ORV route that branches east (left) here, but you don't take this one. Instead, you take the next ORV route (BLM MT9622) leading east which is maybe 50 yard further down the road.
Not having been out this was previously, I didn't know what to expect in terms of road conditions, but at least initially, this ORV route was very driveable. I have 4WD but really didn't need it. As you continue east on MT9622, the route gets continually worse (sandy) so I stopped a fair distance before I really needed to. Since I was solo, and the area is remote, I didn't fee like getting into a predicament. The Mrs. was already stressed, and I didn't need to compound that by getting stuck in the sand.
As I walked east on the ORV route, is got sandier and sandier (is the at word?) as it gradually climbed to a saddle where I was treated to impressive views to the east. Here, I tacked north (left) which was the entry point for the south ridge. Up to this point, the hike had been a sand slog. Here, it suddenly changed to a rock scramble all the way to the summit. It was mostly class 2, but you could make it more spicey if you were so inclined.
On paper, the south ridge looked pretty straight-forward. On the ground, it was less so. There was some navigation involved as the ridge broke up and became ill-defined, so I was glad to had a GPX track to follow. And even then, I got off track a couple of times.
The last climb before the final approach was quite steep and I found myself having to stop a number of times to catch my breath. Then I popped out on a flat area which was welcome before the final summit push. Cave has a false summit with a huge summit cairn on top which I could see from this point so I knew I was close. When I topped out, I could see that the high-point, which is basically a gigantic boulder, was just beyond this summit cairn. On the summit proper, I found a pristine benchmark and a register in an ammo can. The register was dated March 5, 1988 and was not full. The last entry before mine was January 25 of this year, so this peak doesn't see much action.
I spent some time refueling on the summit while enjoying the solitude and fine views of the Mojave all around. Then I backtracked the same way I came (with some minor deviations when I got a little disoriented). Before I got to the saddle, I dropped down a sandy hill to the ORV route which shaved a little distance off the return. Then is was a sandy road walk back to the car, which I thought would be less annoying on the descent, but I was wrong.
This is a nice little peak worth visiting. Maybe age is catching up to me, but I found this route to be more physically demanding than I anticipated.
