Date: January 15, 2022 • Elevation: 1,615 feet • Prominence: 565 feet • Distance: 2.2 miles • Time: 1 hour, 30 minutes • Gain: 635 feet • Conditions: High clouds, calm

Arizona • Main • PB • LoJ

This morning's first hike, Webb Mountain went very well, and much easier and faster than expected. I was down and back to my car, the time about 10:30 a.m., getting ready to drive a few more miles on Agua Caliente Road and situate myself for a hike up Yellow Medicine Hill, then a third peak if everything went to plan.

The Yellow Medicine Hills appear (to me, at least) to be a subset of the Gila Bend Mountains, and cover just a few random volcanic mounds in the immediate area. There are more hills and buttes about 5 miles west, including one called Yellow Medicine Butte, but I think those are not considered to be part of this grouping. This peak is the ostensible highpoint of this hill-range.

The drive was easy. The road is in fine shape and it wanders all over the desert plain. Yellow Medicine Hill is easily visible, a big hump of black-colored rock rising about 500 feet above the flats. The only minorly crappy part of the drive was where the road crosses train tracks. There are cattle grates to pass over, and one of the grates had a gap about a foot wide where it meets the concrete lining. I didn't see it until I was on it, and the clunk sound as I drove over it was not pleasant. Note to self: beware of this on the drive out.

Past the tracks, I didn't drive far, perhaps a mile. I wanted to hike this hill along its long northeast-trending ridge, so I pulled into the first open area I could find near the base. I found a good one, big and open. It wasn't too trashy, just a few random shotgun shells and skeet clays lying on the ground. I've seen worse.

I started walking quicky, time now a little before 11 a.m.. The weather was calm now, this morning's breezes having settled down for the time being. The sky was covered in high hazy clouds and the sun only shone through it about 10% of the time. The temperature was about 60°.

I walked briefly across the flats, then caught the toe of the ridge and started uphill. The volcanic boulders laid back nicely and were mostly solid, and I was able to step from one to the next for yards at a time. Brush was light, mostly palo verde and creosote, a few saguaro, but not much smaller cactus.

The initial slope comes to a meager cliff of heaped boulders, so I went right, then uphill some more, then topped out on a small nubbin. The remaining uphill segment was ahead, looking about the same as what I just came up. I made good time and was soon on the summit ridge, where three bumps vie for top honors, the middle one being the presumptive higherst point.

I topped out on one summit bump, the east-most of the three. The middle on was ahead, just a hundred feet or so. Looking back and forth between the two, the difference was hard to discern. The west-most bump was clearly lower. I didn't walk to it, but I took its photo.

Conditions were pleasant, and I saw no reason to hurry. I sat for about 15 minutes and relaxed. I found a register and signed into it. The "old guard", people like Bob Martin, Barb Lilley & Gord Macleod, Bob Moore, et al, had signed in way back between 1997 and 2001. Then there were a handful after that, then suddenly, nothing. Andy Martin was here last year, some one who just signed his initials was here in 2017, then 2013 before him. It seemed more popular back twenty years ago. Anyway, I signed in and figure it will be 2024 when the next person signs in.

I hiked down the same way. The downhill hike went quickly, although I usually cover the ascent and descent on these types of peaks in about the same amount of time. It's on the downhills when I tend to roll rocks, and I rolled a few. I was back to my car a little after 1 p.m.. I wasn't expecting any troubles or epics on this hike, and I wasn't disappointed. This was a fun and enjoyable peak to tag, definitely not on a lot of people's radar.

Peak 1385

• Yellow Medicine Hills • Gila Bend Mountains • Maricopa County

Elevation: 1,385 feet • Prominence: 385 feet • Distance: 3 miles • Time: 1 hour, 50 minutes • Gain: 460 feet • Conditions: Much more breezy

LoJ

This hill lies about two miles northwest of Yellow Medicine Hill. It's a mound of volcanic boulders too. It by itself isn't anything special, but it was close and would be a fine peak to finish the day with.

On Agua Caliente Road, I drove west about two miles, looking for a side road that leads to a windmill. I found a good road, but it seemed too early to be the road I wanted. Nevertheless, I followed it in and came to a hill (Hill 1019), still about a mile short of the Peak 1385. So I returned to Agua Caliente Road, drove west another mile to the correct road and got in about 50 feet. This road was in bad shape. That first road to Hill 1019 was pretty good, so I drove back to it and parked in the clearing below the hill.

I was already dressed and ready, so I was moving quickly. I came to a path lined with rocks, very neatly done. I walked this path up Hill 1019. The path meanders through the bigger rocks, but it was always super-neat, with the tread being bare except for the gravel base. This path ends in a clearing, almost 300 feet after starting. What a delight! Someone has gone through the trouble to construct this lovely path. It clearly took a long time (we're talking hundreds of rocks just to line the path), probably done over a few days. Why someone would do this is a mystery, but it was a pleasant surprise.

Once on the other side of Hill 1019, I dropped about 60 feet into a braided arroyo with moderate tamarisk and brush, then once past it, I walked to the base of Peak 1385. These rocky desert peaks always start so suddenly. In a matter of feet, I went from open gravelly plain to rocks, rocks and more rocks. For this peak, there was no cleverness involved. I just hiked upward, then kept to the ridge, up and down a few times, until the highpoint was visible. And then, I was there. The rocks seemed more abundant on this hill than on Yellow Medicine. Much bigger and more piled on top of one another. For walking, it was easy, and there was almost no scrambling.

I spent some time relaxing up top. This was my third peak for the day and I felt good about that. This little anonymous peak may not get much attention or love, but I enjoyed it, glad I hiked it, and recommend it to others. This past week was an interesting one for me, so being out of civilization for half a day was good medicine for me, reference deliberate.

For the hike down, rather than retrace the ridge route, I dropped steeply down the west slope into a drainage below. Along the way, I rolled a huge rock, not deliberately, of course. It rolled for about a foot, fell over and split in half, which I thought was kind of cool. It had been a single rock for probably a million years, then on January 15, 2022, it split into two, and I helped. When I tried to move the bigger piece, I could barely nudge it. Probably weighted 200 pounds easily, about the size of a waste-paper basket. It reminded me to step carefully at all times.

I was into the drainage quickly, and from there, an easy walk across the flats, then up Hill 1019, and back to my car. I'd been on this hike for almost 2 hours. It wasn't long, but I went slow. I exited back to Old US-80, then took the scenic route south to Gila Bend, then AZ-238 to Maricopa and on home. A lovely day, and one I am grateful for.