BajaNomad - Picacho del Diablo pinnacle route attempt 1

Picacho del Diablo pinnacle route attempt 1

LukeJobbins - 3-26-2018 at 06:18 PM

Sorry for the random order of the pictures. The second to last picture is my “if you ask me one more time if I know how to use my gps...” face. Haha

Sofia and I both had a dream and goal of climbing and or hiking the pinnacle route to Picacho del Diablo and with her schedule free and me having a week off for spring break we went for it. Didn’t really have any info about the route other than a tiny paragraph from a college student who said days and hard climbing and then a friend who had done it a long time ago said he did it in one day with zero climbing just repelling. So day one is a hard hike to blue bottle for base camp. We had way too much gear so it was way harder than normal. Looking at the route from the observatory I guessed three hours for the route the next day and Sofia thought no way. It’s way harder than it looks, so she gave us 5 hours. Hahahahaha. One long day followed by a miserable night on the side of a cliff with no gear or water or food cuddling to keep from freezing followed by half of another day we reached the first bigger peak and were greeted by a section we couldn’t repel down, could not find a reasonable way around, and for safety could not go over. Half way

We found a tiny pool of water from the rain a few days earlier and it was the best tasting liquid I’ve ever had. Full on survival mode. We opted to call it for safety reasons as we had a half day of light left and probably 6 hours more to picacho if we found the route and another 5 or six to hike back to blue bottle and we hadn’t really eaten in over 12 hours and had one fruit roll up and one protein bar for both of us.

We made the right call because we had to go down a canyon to campo noche then up the canyon to blue bottle and we hit campo noche right before dark and it started raining.

Epic adventure followed by a couple days cruising around San Pedro then a final adventure to la grulla valle that I will share in another post in a few hours.

David K - 3-26-2018 at 06:23 PM

Thank you for sharing your adventure!

Maderita - 3-26-2018 at 07:16 PM

Great fotos. Thanks for posting up!

fishbuck - 3-26-2018 at 07:37 PM

Incredible. And much more technical than I thought.
Thanks

BornFisher - 3-26-2018 at 07:37 PM

Good on ya!! Thanks so much for this post and pics!! Best of luck next attempt!!
AND---- award for best mummy bag pic ever!!!

[Edited on 3-27-2018 by BornFisher]

fishbuck - 3-26-2018 at 07:41 PM

I recognise the view from the top. I cleared it by about 500 feet when I flew to Loreto 1 time.
It was thrilling.

bajaandy - 3-26-2018 at 07:47 PM

Nice! I'd heard that it was a technical route with tricky route finding. Thanks for posting up some pics. So are you gonna try it again? What would you do differently next time? (Besides carry more water! HA!)

LukeJobbins - 3-26-2018 at 09:35 PM

Oh yeah. We were already planning the next trip on our hike down. Way more water, and probably one sleeping bag just in case.

StuckSucks - 3-27-2018 at 09:31 AM

Sorry that you had to abort the climb, but wow, what a story. Great photos! And this just means you must go back.

sapian - 3-27-2018 at 10:08 AM

Wow, I'm a newbie here but this is the best post I've seen yet on BN! For some reason I thought there would be some snow up there. Way better than seeing a bunch of boring motorcycle pictures. So cool!!

motoged - 3-27-2018 at 11:57 AM

Great pics from up there....looks like lots of slab and cracks and scrambling....

Nothing like a freezing night on a ledge

Too much gear vs too little....usual decision errs on one side or the other.

:coolup:

small bit of clarification:

To repel is (1) to ward off or drive back, (2) to cause aversion or distaste, or (3) to present an opposing force. To rappel is to descend a vertical surface, especially a cliff face, by sliding down a rope with a device that provides friction. The words are easily mixed up, and the misuse of repel in place of rappel is especially common.

Don't forget the figure 8... 4 feet from end of rope. I knew a guy who forgot while supporting a film crew in Patagonia....tragic loss of a good guy :no:

LukeJobbins - 3-27-2018 at 12:01 PM

Haha. I’d like to repel the autocorrect away from my phone before I rappel down the next cliff.

John Harper - 3-27-2018 at 12:07 PM

Quote: Originally posted by sapian

Wow, I'm a newbie here but this is the best post I've seen yet on BN! For some reason I thought there would be some snow up there. Way better than seeing a bunch of boring motorcycle pictures. So cool!!

And the trail probably doesn't smell like pee and have thousands of kooks like Mt. Whitney.

John

TMW - 3-27-2018 at 12:17 PM

Thanks for the great pictures, they tell a million words. I wish you the best on your next climb.

PaulW - 3-28-2018 at 08:40 AM

Good report.
I did some searching and found little. But here is what I found
A search only found one descent article
Here is a short blurp from Hawse a mountain guide. Probably understated difficulty?
Sounds like a pre-climb with water caches was used?

http://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/12199518...
North America, Mexico, Picacho del Diablo, Pinnacle Ridge, Baja California
• Climbs And Expeditions
• Climb Year:
• Publication Year: 1995
Picacho del Diablo, Pinnacle Ridge, Baja California. From November 9 to 11, nine Prescott (Arizona) College students and two instructors ascended the Picacho del Diablo via Pinnacle Ridge. The students were Gemma Kemp- Garcia, Geoff Gardner, Julia Körting, Greg Miller, Jonathan Morgan, Kristine Preziosi, Joni Tinker, Erik Van Sinderen and John Van Voorhies and the instructors Joe St. Onge and I. The peak is the highest in Baja California, rising to 10,154 feet. The summit extends from San Pedro Martir for two miles along Pinnacle Ridge, with a series of seven major gendarmes and scrambling sections from the saddle below the Botella Azul and the main escarpment. The climbing is exposed 5.6 or harder on superb granite. Following the crest of the ridge involves traverses, rappels and numerous down-climbs. We completed the entire ridge in 2½ days with two planned bivouacs and two water caches. We encountered rime ice and deteriorating weather on the col between the south and north summits, from which we descended to our Base Camp at Campo Noche. Access is either a two-day, rigorous hike up the Canon Diablo from the east to Campo Noche or across the top of the San Pedro Martir escarpment from the west through the national park to the Botella Azul.
Angela Hawse
=== =
Schad in his Diablo guide only mentions the climb as 5th class with no detail

mtgoat666 - 3-28-2018 at 09:37 AM

Quote: Originally posted by John Harper

Quote: Originally posted by sapian

And the trail probably doesn't smell like pee and have thousands of kooks like Mt. Whitney.

John

Yes, Mt Whitney has 100s of tourists every day,... but that is part of the experience. Good people watching, and communing with fellow hikers headaches and nausea and all. And I think it's great that the highest peak in lower 48 is accessible to just about anyone with good fitness, no special skills required.
And if it's solitude you want on high sierra peak, there are lots of other less-traveled peaks waiting for you

And re picacho del diablo, it has gotten much more popular in past few years,... in the season, hard to not run into others on the mountain

John Harper - 3-28-2018 at 10:52 AM

Quote: Originally posted by mtgoat666

Quote: Originally posted by John Harper

Quote: Originally posted by sapian

And the trail probably doesn't smell like pee and have thousands of kooks like Mt. Whitney.

John

Yes, Mt Whitney has 100s of tourists every day,... but that is part of the experience.

Maybe part of your wilderness experience, not mine. But, peak bagging is not my primary goal in the backcountry either. Gimme some secluded high country creeks, lakes, and trout. That's my happy place!

John

[Edited on 3-28-2018 by John Harper]