Hike Black Butte Chuckwalla Mountains Wilderness BLM, CA

Apr 11, 2020 — The main dirt road south of the Chuckwalla Mountains (Bradshaw Trail) is in good shape, except for the first few miles coming in from the west, where low clearance may have some difficulty. The turn-off coordinates to get to Black Butte are located here (33.50027, -115.38017), and this road is far less good. Fortunately, I met up with a new friend Lorenzo, and he had a car that could make it to the trailhead. My Subaru likely would have forced me to add another couple miles round trip to this hike. Lorenzo is a modest and friendly badass willing to have brutally long days, so I'm looking forward to more adventures.

We chose to park a bit before the wilderness boundary and walked the road for about 0.5 mile. This was fine since the hike was really short to begin with. We entered the wilderness area and dropped into the wash paralleling the road to the east once the road seemed to be leading in the wrong direction. We headed up the Class 2/2+ boulder-hoppy drainage leading northeast up to the Black Butte ridge slopes. There were some pleasant spots for scrambling, and one notable Class 3 dryfall that can be bypassed easily. The drainage transformed from rocky boulder-hopping to a dirt slope. A short walk up the slope led to a short summit ridge, and then to the summit. It was a sort of unmemorable peak, mostly due to its brevity. I'm sure the views were fairly nice, but fog blocked our ability to see anything.