Dry Mountain has inspired me as a destination ever since I first caught sight of it from Round Valley. Fast forward 7 months later and our 16 mile round-trip hike began on Racetrack Road:
We began hiking around these small hills and then southwest towards the low point in the ridge:
Looking up at the eastern peak, which is not Dry Mountain:
Daria standing by one of the many amazing Joshua trees. We literally were hiking through a forest of them:
A shot taken early on in the hike as were trying to get around the small hills:
There was a great display of wildflowers during our hike. Here is a picture of Desert Prince's Plume (Stanleya pinnata):
The next four pictures show you a sampling of other blooms:
Steve continuing to head up towards the base of the ridge:
Looking through some Joshua trees up at the eastern peak:
Looking back down the north-south wall and Joshua tree forest that we hiked through:
Getting closer to the base of the ridge now:
More Joshua trees and flowers in the next two pictures:
Entering the canyon that is at the base of the ridge. We walked through this canyon and circled around to the back side:
Looking further up the canyon as we began our ascent of the ridge:
Steve catching a break on the early part of the ridge climb:
Looking up at the ridge line we were now following:
In this picture, you can see our fellow hikers heading up the ridge. They hiked at a bit of a faster pace than Daria and I did:
In the next two pictures, follow the ridge back down with your eyes into the canyon to the right. This is our route:
The views started to get really good. Here we are looking at the Virginia Dry Lakes:
As we continued climbing, The Racetrack came into view:
View looking down towards the north-south wall and the route we hiked in on earlier:
Looking straight across at Tin Mountain, a future challenge that awaits:
Following the ridge up was fairly easy, it was just slow going due to the steepness and amount of water we were all carrying:
Another view of Steve with The Racetrack off in the distance:
Continuing to make progress up the ridge line as it gets hotter outside:
At the top of this little bump by the shade tree is where Daria stopped for the day. We estimated that we would be gone for about 3 hours, but it turned out to be almost 6 hours:
Looking up at the eastern peak. We would not taking the side trip to the summit on this day:
Nice shade tree where Daria could relax and wait for us, all the while enjoying some spectacular views:
This was the first view we had of another mountain off in the distance which was not connected to our ridge line. But this was not Dry Mountain:
A few minutes later, we had our first view of the real Dry Mountain. It is extremely hard just to get to this point and finally have a view of Dry Mountain:
Our fellow hikers ahead of me as they are making their way up to the saddle:
View of Steve with Dry Mountain after finally reaching the saddle:
From the saddle, we headed northwest towards another ridge which we could follow down to the base of Dry Mountain:
Looking down into the valley of pinyon pines. We would have to drop 700 feet in elevation into this valley, before climbing up another 1,200 feet to reach the summit of Dry Mountain. Not a pleasant thought for any of us at the time:
The next five pictures all show you various rare views of Dry Mountain as we headed down the ridge towards the valley of pinyon pines. The pictures can help you visualize the route we took to the summit:
A shady tree which I took refuge under. The heat had become a serious factor at this point and shade was extremely precious:
At this point, Patrick took refuge under some shade and enjoyed some nice relaxation, while I continued:
The next five pictures show you the terrain as we climbed up towards the summit. Included also is another view of The Racetrack, which once again could be seen. The climb was very steep but not dangerous in any way:
The summit register box was also in place. We signed in and found that Dry Mountain was a fairly popular summit, with the most recent hiker signing in two weeks ago. We also noticed that there is a great need for a new summit register notebook, as the entries were full in the current book:
Two pictures of the geological survey markers on the summit:
View to the southwest off into Saline Valley. Salt Lake is lit up to the left and the Saline Valley Sand Dunes are to the right:
Looking directly to the west across the Inyo Mountains to the Sierras:
View to the northwest into Eureka Valley. The edge of the Eureka Sand Dunes are visible here:
Zooming out a little bit to show more of Eureka Valley:
Looking to the north, there were some smaller summits blocking a good view:
In this picture taken looking east, you can see the eastern summit (which we skipped during our hike), and in the back right that's Tin Mountain:
To the southeast, this is the view of The Racetrack from the summit of Dry Mountain:
Zooming in a little bit on The Racetrack and Ubehebe Peak (to the right of it):
In this final view looking south, Round Valley is visible in the middle left of the picture. Someday I would like to backpack from Round Valley to Dry Mountain:
Picture of Steve on Dry Mountain with The Racetrack in the background:
Picture of Steve with Saline Valley, the Inyos, and the Sierras:
And one last picture of Steve with the summit register and Tin Mountain in the background:
