Hike South Palen and Middle Palen Loop Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area, CA

Dec 02, 2023 — This group of peaks within the Palen Mountains reaches South Palen and Middle Palen, plus a couple of unnamed peaks, forming a loop in a particularly remote section of the Mojave Desert. Hiking these takes a true desert peak lover, the specific and special kind of crazy Tyler and I share deeply. About a year ago, we hiked Palen Mountain and glanced toward this group of peaks, shaking our heads and chuckling at the silly idea of ever going for them. Welp, here we were doing just that. And honestly this ended up being a really nice outing despite some tedious elements, the first of which was the drive. Exit I-10 here (33.60901, -114.98909) onto what is labeled Pale Dunes Road, a dirt road which parallels I-10 for a while. On our trip we passed through previously-cut orange construction safety fencing blocking a wash, likely put in place after the flooding this year. Other vehicles drove through incredibly deep sand to bypass this, likely from before the fencing had been cut. I can't say if the fencing was intended to prevent access for some reason or if it was temporary placement. Driving through this to stay on the road, I was able to get my Crossover SUV all the way to a bad wash here (33.70081, -115.11005). We continued in Tyler's Tacoma to the trailhead, and we were happy the road improved signficantly for the last couple of miles. The road forms a corridor of BLM through the Palen/McCoy Wilderness Area, fortunately allowing us to cut off miles of desert walking. We made it all the way to the official wilderness boundary. This outing was completed years ago by Bob Burd, so we used what he had done and made some variations as we went.

From the parking area, we dropped into a rocky wash and followed it briefly until it made more sense to instead hike on the tame packed desert floor, then ascended north toward the base of Peak 3442 and South Palen. Choosing different Class 2 options to scamper up a steep wash bank to reach the trailing ridge, we started along the straightforward ridge where we would be spending the majority of our day. The terrain was nice for the most part along the ridge to Peak 3442, typical rocky stuff with some occasional Class 2/2+ scrambling over a small obstacle. We noted it might have been more efficient to follow the wash below for a longer time before joining the ridge early like we had since that would avoid some undulations, but we were having a nice time with the higher-up views.

At the summit of Peak 3442, we could trace the rest of our loop route. South Palen was next, situated just north of us and separated by a deep saddle. The descent was steep, but overall tame, and there was even an animal trail that wrapped to the left around a ridgeline lump toward the saddle. Our ascent to South Palen was more of the same, though with a bit more scrambly Class 2 than we'd had so far today. We both dropped our heads and slogged up, feeling very good and enjoying the exercise.

Middle Palen was next, and we thought it would be best reached by sticking to the crest as long as possible. Bob had dropped down into a random wash, but we were enjoying the views. Plus, there was some Class 2/3 along the way we chose that added some fun. The ridgeline arced to the east and descended more steeply and loose talus slowed us down at times. A significant drainage separated our ridge from the one we wanted to use to ascend to Middle Palen. So, we dropped in and out of this drainage and located a nice animal trail along the ridge to the base of Middle Palen.

The Class 2 ascent to Middle Palen was steep, but not loose enough to be annoying. There was enough solid rock that we could scramble merrily. The ridge leads to a sub-peak of Middle Palen, but it made the most sense to ascend this additional minor obstacle because avoiding it would result in horrible side-hilling instead. Plus, the crest offered some really nice Class 2+ to enjoy anyway. Due to some small eroded cliffies, the terrain is a little tricky getting from the sub-peak to Middle Palen, positioned just to the north. You can keep it Class 2 if you spend some time looking, and we managed to do so on our way back. The last few hundred feet to Middle Palen were quite enjoyable, some light route-finding on good Class 2/3 rock.

We headed back over the sub-peak and descended on a typical desert ridgeline to the saddle with our final summit, Peak 3009. Often an animal trail helped us bypass little humps along the way, but it would probably have been just as easy to stick to the crest. At the saddle we inspected a precarious-looking headwall ahead. As we neared, it seemed low-angle enough to just be Class 3, maybe 3+. A series of thin ledges with big holds brought us up this lightly exposed, super-cool scramble section. There might be another way around that's easier, but it would involve scrambling along a slope covered in garbage rock. Past this crux of the day, the hike continues Class 2 to the summit of Peak 3009.

Our final hurdle was to descend from Peak 3009. We thought it might make most sense to backtrack and use a lower saddle to escape the steep slopes of Peak 3009, but Bob had taken a drainage to the peak's west that we decided to repeat. Slowly picking our way down the narrowing drainage on easily-dislodged boulders, we reached a significant dryfall we could avoid on the right. Farther down we came upon another one, where we opted to take a more difficult bypass on the left that required some route-finding. You can easily turn this into loose Class 4 if not choosing carefully, but at least one Class 3 option exsists.

The drainage opened up into a major wash. We were expecting this wash to be sandy and runnable, but it was certainly not. The car was southwest of us, directly across the desert where we would have to fight against the natural flow of the desert drainages, going against the grain. To limit our suffering of additional ups and downs through arroyos, our plan was to follow the major wash for a mile or so until we could more easily hike against the grain, avoiding a large area of lumpy nonsense. This worked fine overall, but even after we left the wash we learned the desert continued to be very rocky, black boulders strewn about and forcing us to pay attention to where we were walking rather than mindlessly stroll through the desert. Additionally, we still had to dip in and out of numerous gullies and drainages, each varying in depth and width. It wasn't all that bad, but we were both hoping for a nice jaunt through the sunset and were faced with tedium instead. As is natural, we started singing to pass the time. Had we stayed a little farther south it might have made the last mile or so easier, but we were just moving quickly to hoof it back and weren't thinking too much about how best to avoid the additional desert lumps. Despite the last leg, we really enjoyed this loop.