Hike Kettle Benchmark and Eastern Turtle Mountains Turtle Mountains Wilderness Area BLM, CA

This loop traverses a handful of peaks within the Mopah Range, a small section of the greater Turtle Mountains dominated by the iconic Mopah Point and Umpah Peak. The highest point on this route is Kettle Benchmark, which loomed over us for the entire hike as we navigated smaller summits that gradually gained elevation throughout the day.

We began at a bend in the Heritage Trail, a dirt road requiring moderate clearance. From there, we followed a major drainage heading generally south, hiking up and over a couple of broad lumps that offered excellent views of Mopah and Umpah. The terrain was overall quite tame, aside from large black boulders sporadically dotting the slope. These became more numerous as we ascended Peak 2273, but there was no scrambling required and this peak wasn’t noteworthy except that it was our first significant lump for the outing.

Continuing south, we descended the steeper terrain of Peak 2273 and side-hilled around its southern portion before making our way to the east slope of Peak 2140. This slope offered multiple ascent options to reach the ridgeline above. We chose a route with more scrambling, though nothing exceeded Class 2 unless you went looking for it. The southern ridge crest featured interesting slanted slabs of rock that would have forced us into more serious scrambling, but a wrap-around led to a gully and a short Class 3 section to the summit.

Most faces of Peak 2273 were well-guarded by cliffs, but rather than backtracking, we explored potential descent routes. After a couple of attempts, we located a Class 3 option just south of the summit and took it down to the saddle with Peak 2498. We didn’t have high hopes for our next objective since Bob Burd had already done the hard work of route-finding and determined that the easiest way up was Class 5. Still, since we were already here, we figured it was worth checking out. It’s an impressive, unique, and colorful feature after all.

Peak 2498 is completely surrounded by hardpan volcanic tuff, with a significant cliff band preventing direct access from the west. We made our way above this cliff band and hiked along a wide ledge above it, then picked our way up the tuff until we reached the ridgeline. There are two possible summits here, both seemingly impossible, with the southern point being the taller of the two. A ramp led us up to a short Class 4 chimney move and then to the base of the crux: solid, darker-colored rock rising above the crumbly nonsense we had just climbed. The rock was good, but the moves were too exposed, so we backed off. Climbing up might have been feasible, but getting back down would have been too sketchy. Maybe another time!

We dropped east down steeper tuff to regain the desert floor, then entered a wash and continued north toward Peak 2688. Direct access wasn’t possible from here due to a massive rock feature blocking the way. Rather than side-hilling to the right on what looked like ridiculously annoying terrain, we opted to gain elevation and wrap around to the left instead. Peak 2688 had looked intimidating from the east, but from this direction, we only had to navigate a Class 2 slope with some loose boulders to reach its rocky south ridge leading to the summit.

Our final peak, Kettle Benchmark, was the tallest. This mesa-like summit is surrounded by a sea of cliff bands and loose-looking rock ribs. The most reasonable route seemed to be from the north. Reaching it from Peak 2688 was a bit of a slog since the ground became progressively more brushy and rocky.

An initial Class 2 slope led us to a spur ridge, which in turn brought us to the base of the summit cliff band. Here, we found cairns and a faint social trail that followed a wide bench and mostly hugged the base of the cliff. Just below the summit, we located a Class 2 break in the cliff, our access point to the peak. The view from the top, looking back at our previous summits, was nice.

After backtracking from Kettle Benchmark, we took a different northern slope down into the major wash we had hiked in at the start of the day. I quickly realized it was the same wash I had used to exit our previous Mopah/Umpah loop, and just like last time, it felt very long.