Hike Quail Mountain via Lang Mine Joshua Tree National Park, CA

Feb 08, 2023 — Quail Mountain is the highest point in Joshua Tree National Park and the Little San Bernardino Mountains. Despite not having the beautiful typical granitic features found elsewhere in the park, it's a nice summit with excellent panoramic views and a social trail most of the way. It seems many prefer to hike this peak from the east, but that area looked less impressive and I was more interested in taking a trail from the north where the terrain looked a bit more interesting, plus I could check out the Lang Mine.

My first objective was the Lang Mine, advertised as best reached using the Quail Springs Historic Trail. However, this is a pretty long and flat option that wraps around to the north and enters Johnny Lang Canyon at its mouth, so I was happy there was a shortcut using the Johnny Lang Connector Trail. I parked at the popular Quail Springs Trailhead and started west along the Quail Springs Historic Trail, which was at first difficult to locate since its start is pretty water-eroded. After only a short hike along the Quail Springs Historic Trail, I took a a left onto the clearly maintained Johnny Lang Connector Trail, leading south. It gradually ascended through some nice scenery before dropping down into Johnny Lang Canyon using a couple of switchbacks. A sign reading "Unmarked Trail Ahead" indicated the end of this nice trail.

Now at the end of the maintained portion of my hike, I needed to locate the Lang Mine Trail, which is unmarked on most maps and certainly not maintained by the NPS, though I didn't realize how poor it would be at the time. To reach it I had to descend Johnny Lang Canyon for a quarter mile in order to reach the Lang Mine Trail turnoff. Some easy rock-hopping through the canyon brought me down to where I thought the trail would obviousy appear, but it's actually difficult to find. I did my best to stick to the correct trail as I left Johnny Lang Canyon and ascended a slope to the south. This portion of the trail has been mostly reclaimed by the desert, but at around 4200' the trail became more clear and ascended steeply as it followed an old roadbed, cairns aiding in the next few hundred feet of vertical ascent.

At around 4500' the trail drops into a drainage. On my map you'll see I left in a small loop section. The eastern option continues along the Lang Mine Trail, my ascent. The western one was my descent later to avoid the additional elevation gain. If you prefer to skip the Lang Mine or Lang Mine Peak, just head up this drainage which is lightly brushy at times toward the head and has a bit of rock-hopping. Alternatively, assuming you want to reach Lang Mine Peak, continue across the drainage and pick up the slightly more obvious Lang Mine Trail as it switchbacks a couple of times and steeply climbs up to a NPS-covered mining site. Unfortunately there's not much to see here, so I was a little disappointed. Past the barred mine, I continued south off-trail to reach the minor Lang Mine Peak, then dropped down to its southwestern saddle, the upper junction of my little loop.

Once at the saddle separating Lang Mine Peak and Mount Minerva Hoyt, I joined the standard route. It's actually a pretty nice social trail at this point, continuing west up a somewhat steep slope. Cairns mark the route in slightly more difficult to follow spots, but overall I didn't have trouble staying on course. A brief detour to Mount Minerva Hoyt took only a few minutes, and then I continued southwest along the wide, sloped ridgeline. The social trail continued a little less obviously, mostly due to other spur trails that were confusing, but it's a straightforward hike to the summit of Quail Mountain. Along the way there's one significant dip that needs to be reascended later, the saddle of Quail Mountain and Mount Minerva Hoyt.

Quail Mountain has pretty wonderfully expansive views, Joshua Tree's high desert landscape with its scattered granite to the east, and the taller peaks of Mount San Gorgonio and San Jacinto to the west. I thought the southern summit of Quail Mountian was taller and had better views, but the northern spot had the summit register. I backtracked mostly the way I came (with the short detour through the drainage mentioned earlier) and headed on to do Little Berdoo Peak before sunset.