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Nov 30, 2024 — The Big Maria Mountains are a lovely granitic range near the Colorado River and just north of Blythe CA. The Big Maria Mountains High Point is a more popular outing for desert peakbaggers, but there are many other cool peaks in the range that are worthy of a visit. I'd hiked to South Maria a few years ago via a looser route, and I figured it was a one-and-done peak with over 1,000 feet of prominence. However, from its summit, I observed too many other possibly fun-looking unnamed peaks and wanted to return someday. For today, Tyler and I formulated a loop route that would reach South Maria and its neighbors via what we figured was the most efficient way to do so. Our loop is bisected by a significant wash that separates South Maria from its northern neighboring ridge, requiring us to lose all the elevation we'd gained, only to regain it later (along with two more peaks) on our way back to the car.
We turned off Midland Road here (33.76232, -114.69358) and followed a dirt road to the trailhead, which is passable by mid-clearance vehicles. An old road leads part of the way through a major unnamed wash, then we headed into a smaller drainage that took us up to the saddle separating South Maria from our first peak, Peak 2905. We encountered some light Class 3 in this drainage, mostly due to large boulders or small dryfalls. It was a much easier gully than the one I'd used last time I reached South Maria, and I'd highly recommend taking this route instead, even if your goal is just to reach South Maria.
The ridgeline leading to Peak 2905 had some short Class 3 surprises, including anarrow section of ridgeline, and the aggressively tilted layers near the summit made the peak quite beautiful. It was a pretty quick jaunt to get over to South Maria next, with some fun Class 2/3 obstacles up its southeast ridgeline. We passed many mining claims marked by stacked cairns, and as we chomped on nice snacks while wearing fancy running shoes and looking at shaded topo maps on our phones, they reminded us of how burly the miners back in the day must have been. We were both surprised that my name was the last in the South Maria register from almost 5 years ago.
Peak 2631 was a slight hassle to reach because we were unsure how rugged the ridgeline would be directly to its south saddle. We chose to descend as a side-hilling traverse on a reasonable, but loose, slope. Looking back up, we agreed it was the right choice. The straightforward ridge from the saddle brought us quickly to Peak 2631, where we faced a significant ridge traverse to get to Peak 2685. The first half of the traverse was mostly uneventful, though not devoid of obstacles. The latter half introduced more difficulties, including multiple Class 4 moves, which Tyler took full advantage of, while I preferred to locate the Class 2 or 3 options that always seemed to exist. There was one particularly narrow and unavoidable Class 3 section along the crest that felt dangerous, and a final notch before the summit had a Class 3+ chimney we needed to drop down.
Peak 2685 ended up being the most difficult of the day by far, not only because our ascent ridge traverse introduced many obstacles, but also because getting down from it required navigating loose and steep gullies/slopes. Originally we'd decided to backtrack quite a bit, but we thought we could see a route down directly from the summit, so we gave it a go. After dropping down a hundred feet or so, we traversed a ledge and found a weakness to make further downward progress, which led us into a gully. Unfortunately, the gully later included at least three tricky downclimbs or loose wrap-arounds (Class 3/3+), so you might want to search for another descent gully instead, as many others are likely better.
We followed the major southeast-draining wash until our chosen drainage popped in on the right, where we had basically descended to the exact elevation contour of our trailhead. Now, we needed to reascend nearly all of it to reach our next peak, though you could drop another car at an access road at the mouth of the wash if you prefer to set up a shuttle. The gully ascent was a fun Class 2 boulder-hopping endeavor, but we had wildly miscalculated how much water we needed and had to take our time to avoid overheating. The drainage narrowed, and we were confronted with a split around a large outcropping. There were some Class 3 moves up dryfalls that we enjoyed quite a bit. Then we emerged onto a slope and continued to the summit of Peak 2575. The view east toward a nearly vertical face of clear rock layers was very cool, and we could see our trailhead for Tosco Benchmark below (our hike tomorrow).
A steep slope with some Class 2 dropped us west, then we traversed some hills to reach the base of our final summit, Peak 2575 (both peaks have nearly the same elevation). This was probably the most fun peak of the day, being a direct ascent south with lots of slabs and short scramble moves, and with minimally loose terrain. The sun was setting, casting shadows on the complex cliffs surrounding all the peaks we'd done earlier in the day. We dropped back off Peak 2575 and descended the drainage until stumbling on an old mining road, which we took back to the trailhead.
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