Pinto Mountain is one of the prominent mountains toward the less-traveled south end of Joshua Tree National Park. Manny, Wes, and I tackled this one together. What stands out is the long 4-mile+ hike across the open desert to get to the peak. It felt excessively long today for all of us. There was much complaining along the way about how we might never reach the mountain.
When we finally reached the peak, the hike was a moderate hike up a drainage that eventually led to the summit. As always, the views were amazing. I chose a loop route on this hike, so we took a different way back to the car. I’m glad I had a GPS on this one since this descent route took us across a maze of different drainages and skipped a number of drainages that seemed like obvious decent routes. The route seemed long and confusing, but eventually, we made it back to the open desert and our car.
I often gauge a hike by how many recovery days I need; for this one, I didn’t need any. I think I’m ready for the more challenging peaks this season.
Elevation Profile
