Hike Cerbat Mountains Pinnacles (Peak 5748) Mount Tipton Wilderness Area BLM, AZ

Dec 08, 2024 — Matt and I headed over to the pinnacles within the Mount Tipton Wilderness Area near Dolan Springs, Arizona. This ridge is part of the Cerbat Mountains, which are dominated by Mount Tipton to the south. However, nature has formed a wild cluster of volcanic peaks, labeled simply as "pinnacles" on Antelope Canyon Access Trailhead map. They are visible from AZ-93, but only seem to appear if you're looking for them. We'd already summited the only other ranked peak of this gnarly-looking ridge, located on the north side and which we had dubbed Antelope Peak (aka Mount Mitten). This time we wanted to return to attempt the highest point on the southern end of the ridge, Peak 5748. Full disclosure: we did not reach the true summit, but the point marked as such on topo maps was good enough for us. The true summit block has sheer faces of poor-quality rock surrounding it and is unlikely to yield without some serious gear.

The roads leading to the trailhead appear on satellite imagery, but some don't exist at all. We spent some time trying to navigate the grid of residential roads, finally finding a reasonable way to reach the trailhead. I had no trouble in my crossover SUV. We left the pavement here (35.64780, -114.23228) and headed east. We took Ocotillo Road south until it bent, then followed Cactus Road south until it left the residential area. A vehicular corridor led through the wilderness area to the official Antelope Canyon Access trailhead. Originally, we'd planned to approach from the east, but we were unsure about access since it seemed to start on private land. Information at our trailhead informed us that we could have approached from that direction, but it would have required getting permission from a ranch landowner. Approaching from that side likely would have been a bit easier since it went through a drainage, rather than the cactus-filled slopes we ended up traversing, but our route worked out fine and avoided any red tape.

We began on an official nature trail, marked with brown stakes. I believe this trail just forms a loop back to the trailhead, so we left it and continued on a short-lived burro trail that began ascending a slope. Our ascent to the saddle above wasn’t particularly brushy or difficult, though there was some Class 2 and we did cross through a barbed wire fence shortly before reaching the saddle. Once up, we observed the many beautiful volcanic peaks in the area, some more daunting than others.

The first summit of our hike was Peak 5724, an unranked point roughly halfway along the pinnacles' crest. Reaching it was a straightforward slope hike with some short sections of Class 2/2+ scrambling. We only made the effort for this minor peak because we thought there might be a way to navigate the ridgeline to gain the summit of Peak 5748, but this didn’t work out. Despite this failure, we gained a good perspective of the pinnacles, which was a worthwhile add-on. Plus, it sated our curiosity about the complexity of the ridgeline. We continued along the ridgeline as far as we could, but we were cliffed out quickly, a mishap I removed from my attached map.

From Peak 5724 we descended a different ridge than our approach after realizing our traverse attempt was thrwarted. Unable to find a clear weakness to drop south more efficiently due to all the hoodoos and cliffs surrounding the base of the ridgeline, we headed down the ridgeline, losing most of the elevation we had gained, and then wrapped south toward Peak 5748. From below we observed that there might have only be a couple of possible options, so we were glad we didn't waste time poking around.

We side-hilled through grassy terrain with many prickly pear cacti and embedded rocks that threw Matt onto the ground a hilarious number of times. He revealed that he'd fallen off his truck while putting his tent away this morning, definitely setting the tone for his day. We dipped into a drainage, then ascended a slope to avoid the worst of the brush, making our way to a minor saddle at the base of Peak 5748.

After entering a major gully, we picked our way up the brushy slope and kept left at the first fork. This gully steepened until a short scramble brought us onto a slope above. We were deep amongst the pinnacles and very surprised we'd even made it this far. Continuing southwest, we found our way up a series of slopes, gullies, and slabs until the summit block miraculously became visible directly ahead of us, composed of three potential high points. The southernmost (left) one was where we went since it was marked as the high point on our topo map. Later, we learned the northernmost one was tallest, and likely unclimbable. From the notch on the north side of Peak 5748, a series of fun Class 3 moves led up a fortuitous chute and onto the summit.

On our way back, we decided to check out Peak 4962, a minor peak with potential for some fun route-finding. We wrapped around its north side until we located a broad weakness, and while it was brushy and dirty and mosstly unpleasant, it led us nearly to the ridgeline. A loose Class 3 chute got us up from there, and the remainder of the ridgeline was easy walking, maximum Class 2. After backtracking down Peak 4962, we ascended to the saddle where we started the day, a much less brushy section of our hike compared to the rest of the route.