Hike Mohave Wash Peaks of Northern Chemehuevi Mountains Chemehuevi Mountains Wilderness Area BLM, CA

I’d spotted this trio of little craggy, remote peaks across the Colorado River from an outing within the Needles, noting that approaching them would likely be an adventure all on its own, let alone finding a route to each of their summits. Mohave Wash, a winding drainage within the Chemehuevi Mountains, seemed like it would allow easiest access to the peaks. I met up with Whiley, Ben, and Matt for a week of Mojave Desert peakbagging, and this was our first day. Despite these peaks’ obscurity, my friends were excited to escape winter and play in the sun.

We parked at a massive Route 66 sign on the fringe of a small plot of land occupied by CA Natural Gas and started up our first choice road, only to realize it was gated with “No Trespassing” signs. Instead, we took a second road just south, which had only a gate but no signs. A bit unnerved, we hesitated, but noticed a guy sitting in his car within the complex. I figured I’d inquire before we just hopped the gate. I explained that we thought this was public land and were trying to get into Mohave Wash. He responded casually, “It is public land, but we’re supposed to tell people not to go in there. If you go, just stay away from any fences, or it’ll trigger a motion sensor, and I’ll have to check it out.” Though not explicitly stated, this seemed like permission to us.

We followed the road as it paralleled the Colorado River, but to avoid fences closer to the water, we opted for the foothills instead. A series of burro trails wove in and out of drainages before depositing us on the beach. The trails were wide enough to keep the hike more pleasant than anticipated, but the dips were an annoying start to the day. Plus, for the first mile, we could hear vehicles on I-40 and see various human-made structures along the river, a humorously ugly start to my out-of-town friends’ desert trip. Once we reached the beach, it was easy walking on sand for a while, and the dark spires of the Needles across the river were as inspiring as ever.

From satellite imagery, I had noted that the mouth of Mohave Wash appeared choked with thick brush. Rather than hike all the way to it initially, we decided to leave the beach early to avoid this brush. We used a slope to access a drainage that led us up to the northern rim of Mohave Wash, about half a mile from the Colorado River, at a spot where the cliffs would allow us to drop down safely.

Mohave Wash would serve as our highway for accessing the three peaks, with Peak 1442 first on the agenda. We had hoped a traverse of all three would work, but the terrain was very rugged, and unforeseen cliffs blocked us multiple times. I removed the many, many route-finding failures from my attached map, leaving only the attempts that ultimately led to the summits.

Peak 1442 was the easiest of the three but was still guarded by cliffs on most sides except from the northeast. Class 2 scrambling brought us to the base of the peak, where we wrapped left around Class 3/4 cliffs and found a Class 2+ slope to the high point.

Back in Mohave Wash, we headed south to a drainage on the south side of our second summit, Peak 1564. Well, we actually first tried via the fun northeast ridge but were stopped by a Class 5 headwall. Then we tried various sketchy chutes on the west face, but nothing worked, so I’d say it’s easiest just to return to the wash.

Taking a drainage east on the south side of Peak 1564 seemed promising, but a massive cliff blocked easy access. Fortunately, a ramp led us to the ridge crest, where we also attempted to reach the peak but were stopped by a deep notch. Instead, we dropped back south above the massive and wrapped around in a drainage amongst the complex terrain, ascending again via a final wide slope to regain the ridgeline, this time closer to the summit and well past the notch.

You could probably reach this final wide slope from a different point rather than doing our cliff-avoidance route, but I’d be surprised if it were any easier. Sticking directly along the ridge crest of Peak 1564 yielded a Class 3 ascent on loose rock, which could be avoided on its right. Past this section was a short but avoidable knife-edge above a window, then the summit. This peak was a tough route-finding maze on tedious terrain, and we all loved it.

We backtracked down the wide approach slope, then headed south through lumpy terrain toward our last summit, Peak 1455. This was another craggy nubbin that required time and thought. We wrapped fully around the peak, and after poking around on various unlikely options, we found the best weakness on the southeast face. Here, a Class 3 scramble led to a wide ramp. The ramp itself led nowhere, but solid rock continued up the face to an exposed ledge. I’d call it Class 4 due to the exposure and required care, but the moves themselves were not difficult and were on solid rock. Initially, I rejected the idea of crawling across the ledge, but after watching Matt scramble up first, I worked up the courage to go for it. Past the ledge, the terrain became mostly a steep slickrock slope with a couple of Class 2/3 moves. We found a surprisingly large summit cairn.

I took my sweet-ass time crossing the ledge on the way back and was feeling safe, but a close-call rockfall reminded me I should be wearing a helmet and had me spooked. To get back to Mohave Wash, we descended via a drainage to the northwest of Peak 1455. It was way too hot, and we were all dangerously low on water with still four miles to go, a perfect preview of the next few days, where we repeatedly proved that learning from our mistakes was simply not our thing.