Hike Polaris Mountain and Hoodoo Peak Loop Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, AZ

Jan 29, 2022 — Polaris Mountain is a peak deep in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. There's apparently a mining trail on the south side of Polaris Mountain that leads halfway up the peak, but we wanted to loop in a few more peaks and using this trail wouldn't have been convenient for our plan. This hike had consistently really colorful views and interesting rock formations below. The loop ended up being less contrived than I thought it might be, and made for a nice day out in this remote area. I'll note that we also attempted Peak 2820 and Peak 3540 (a couple of awesome-looking peaks to the west and southwest of our loop), but failed both because they were likely Class 5. I reference them in my trip report, so I thought it useful to mention them now.

Drive along King Road if coming from the west and take a left here (33.17939, -114.02172), now heading north. The road is almost all excellent graded dirt. Turn left here (33.26841, -113.98293) onto a much less good road where high clearance is required. This side road leads to the base of Polaris Mountain.

From the road, we dropped east into a wash and headed north until we spotted the most straightforward-looking slope we could use to access Polaris Mountain. It was steep with some light scrambling. We reached a flatter section about halfway up before a short spurt of Class 2 scree sliding took us up to a bunch of steep, cactusy Class 2. The last few hundred feet of the climb were a bit obnoxious due to the steepness and ever-present cholla, but we got to the summit mostly unscathed.

The ridgeline headed north, dropping steeply on more Class 2 off Polaris Mountain. It was a bit slow-moving due to the poor quality of the terrain. There are two humps that separated Polaris Mountain from our next real objective, Peak 3639. These two humps can be bypassed, but we decided to go for them. The first was previously coined Polaris Pinnacle, a short Class 4 endeavor on its southwest side. It's not tall enough to even be a peak and I didn't want to risk the danger to get this insignificant pinnacle. Next was another hump we called Constellation Point, a pleasant Class 3 jaunt on its south side, followed by a steep Class 2 descent on its north side.

Peak 3639 was next. It has a formidable cliff that wraps around all but the peak's north face. We wasted a bit of time scouting around the southern and eastern faces before eventually making it around to the north side. I removed this jitter from my map. To get up the north side, we wrapped around the base of the cliffs until a somewhat brushy Class 2 slope took us to a fun Class 3 chute, and then ultimately a Class 2 short ridge scramble to the summit. The views back toward Polaris Mountain were delightful from here.

We backtracked and headed northwest, taking the southeastern ridge leading to Hoodoo Peak next. This ridge went at Class 2, and was overall quite nice. The spine had mostly solid rock and the views became progressively more lovely. At the summit we could see Squaw Peak, Old Smokey, and Signal Peak to the north. Onward along the ridgeline we went, now heading west. There were a couple of easy humps along this really pretty ridgeline, and soon we made it to a substantial cliff. We could clearly see our next peak, Peak 3480, just to the west, but there was a big wash and lots of vertical loss and regain separating us from our objective. We decided that while we could descend on horribly steep and loose terrain, we'd prefer to just follow the ridgeline north and circle back to get up to Peak 3480 from its northern side instead. While a bit longer, this ended up being a really scenic choice and we were happy with the decision. Along the way, we side-hilled around a large hump using a poor animal trail that might have been better if we had just gone up and over. We navigated colorful gullies (Class 2) and were soon at the northern base of Peak 3480. Class 2 brought us to its summit, where we got the most impressive views of the day. Stunning hoodoos to the east, Squaw Peak to the north, and the jagged Peak 3540 to the west were all stunning.

We backtracked off Peak 3480 and entered a west-draining wash using an animal trail. Eventually the animal trail was more work than just dropping into the watercourse and boulder-hopping. This led to a major wash that continued south and eventually back to the car. Though this is a bit of a lie. I mapped out what the recommended route should be to complete the loop, but Matt and I had our minds set on going for Peak 2820 and Peak 3540, and so we did. We circled both peaks in their entirety and had no luck in finding a route up either. We believe the only way would be as technical rock climbs. I've included some photos of these at the end of the trip report for reference.