Spanish Needle 7841′, North Spanish Needle 7671′ and Lamont Benchmark 7620′
Sierra Nevada
Total Time: 8:55
Distance: 12.5 miles
Elevation Gain: 5050′
Crux: Class 3
Trailhead: Chimney Peak Road- no services
Spanish Needle was the last SPS peak I had remaining in the southeastern part of the range. The window to climb it was somewhat small, it being either too hot or potentially too icy the majority of the year. In fact I had turned back on an attempt February 2013 after seeing the north ridge coated in ice from the summit of Sawtooth, with a class 3 friction crux that would be very sketchy with verglas. But in late October, I figured I had the sweet spot for conditions, not too hot and the first winter storm not being cold enough for any real snow at that elevation. I left home very early driving through the Central Valley, over the Sierras through Lake Isabella and entering the Chimney Peak Wilderness shortly after sunrise. There are several ways to approach Spanish Needle, but the shortest is through the unnamed valley between Lamont Peak and Lamont Benchmark/ Point northwest of the summit. An old 4WD road heads up most of the valley, with a little bit of cross country travel at the end to reach the Pacific Crest Trail. I found the unmarked turn off onto the 4WD road, finding it deeply rutted but not too rocky. I made it maybe a quarter mile down before the road crossed the active flowing Chimney Creek, running directly in the water for about 50′ before crossing to the other side.
This section was extremely muddy and it hardly seemed worth the risk of getting my car stuck, so I pulled off into the bushes and jumped across the creek to start the hike. The road was actually in great shape past the creek, and my car would have easily made it another three quarters of a mile at least to a more overgrown section that enters a meadow.
To the south was the granite fin near the summit of Lamont Peak (which I had climbed the same day I decided not to try Spanish Needle) with Lamont Benchmark to the north. After about 30 minutes of hiking, I walked directly into a hunters camp near the end of the road, then nearly tripped over their freshly cleaned deer carcass just past camp.
A huge tree blocked the road beyond their camp, and the road had quickly been reclaimed by wilderness. It didn’t take long for me to lose it entirely. I tried to follow the drainage as best I could, but eventually gave up and cut directly upslope through manzanita and thicket to the PCT. It was the brushiest bit of the day, and I can’t say I’d recommend that line, but it got the job done. From the PCT, Spanish Needle rose directly to the south, the shorter northern summit blocking most of the jagged ridgeline leading to the high point.
Turning south on the PCT, I quickly reached a broad saddle and took my first break of the day, suddenly having a nice view into Owens Valley and Indian Wells to the southeast. From here I had two options to get to the summit of Spanish Needle. The first was to go up and over the shorter North Needle, following the ridgeline over multiple false summits and a lot of loose class 4 to the top. Or, I could traverse across the fractured east slopes and scramble up to the ridgeline once I was past most of the false summits. I had heard the ridgeline was pretty rotten, so I opted for the traverse, and picked up a use trail at the southern end of the saddle across the slopes. It was initially unclear if I would be better off cheating high or low, so I started off high. But after coming across several cliff bands in the upper reaches of the deep gullies cutting across the east face, I dropped down and found a decent cairned use trail that I was able to follow for some time.
I ultimately lost the use trail when it crossed a huge boulder field, and I cut directly upslope to the ridgeline to scramble the remaining distance. Although I thought I was at the main notch north of Spanish Needle, I quickly found that there were two more major false summits to negotiate, one requiring a descending traverse back off the ridgeline to the east to work around. But once I was past the false summit I found the scrambling surprisingly good, mostly solid granite compared to the chossy rock on the slopes below.
I scrambled up some steep third class and topped out on the last false summit on the ridgeline just above a final notch. This was considered the crux of the route, with options of a third class friction slab to the left, or a steep third-fourth class chimney to the right. I thought I might climb up one and downclimb the other, and headed for the friction slab first. There were some hidden hand and footholds behind a massive pine tree that brought me up to the slab, which actually was pretty easy with plenty of depressions along a seam near the top.
This put me on the other side of a fin of rock which I was able to scramble past to the summit rocks, requiring a small hop across a gap to reach the true high point. The views from the summit were actually quite good despite the lower elevation, with Owens Peak to the south, Domelands Wilderness to the west, Mineral King to the northwest, Olancha Peak and Mount Whitney area to the north, and Owens Valley to the east. The summit register was quite old with the first ascent in 1964 and the register placed shortly thereafter. My entry was on the final page of the original register, under scoring how infrequently this mountain had been climbed over the intervening 60ish years.
After a short lunch I scrambled back of the summit. I had intended to downclimb the chimney instead of the friction slab, but found a rappel station at the top, suggesting it was more like class 4-5 then class 3-4.
So I went back to the friction slab, reversing course and scrambling back down the ridgeline to the first major notch. I dropped onto the east slopes and picked up the use trail pretty quickly, making my way back to the PCT a little before 1 PM. Although I hadn’t intended on tagging the North Needle, from the saddle it looked tantalizing close. I figured it would take me only about 15 minutes to add on the bonus summit, so I started up the steep slopes, taking 15 minutes to top out…. on a false summit. There were two notches separating me from the high point of the North Needle, and the scrambling to get there was actually the toughest of the day by far.
It took another 10 minutes to actually reach the summit and I signed into the register, this one seeing far less summits than the main Spanish Needle, about one person every 2-3 years. Most entries indicated that they traversed over directly from the main needle along the ridge, with the consensus being that the rock was loose, exposed and scary. Happy to have swung around to the north side, I scrambled back off the summit to the PCT. The North Needle had taken me about twice as long as I had hoped, but I figured I still had enough time to visit Lamont Point/ Benchmark to the northwest. In all likelihood, I probably would not be up this way again, and I still had plenty of daylight to reach it. So I continued north along the PCT, more or less maintaining the same elevation until I reached the saddle just below Lamont point.
There were a suprising number of campsites at the saddle, the flat ground presumably a reasonable stopping point between Walker Pass to south and Kennedy Meadows to the north for PCT thru hikers. After a short break, I cut through the campsites cross country up slope, using game trails where possible. Initially I kept left of some of the higher granite outcroppings, but needed to scramble over and through them to the north side to easier ground. A little more scrambling brought me up to the summit, this one requiring a similar hop across a gap to the high point. I thought this peak might see more ascents being so close to the PCT, but the register was overall pretty sparse.
After a few summit photos, I needed to plan my descent. My car was parked to the southwest, which from the summit was pure cliffs. The slopes to the north were pretty reasonable, but would put me in the wrong valley. The south looked a bit cliff-y as well, but much more broken with some potential lines. I decided to give this a try, and dropped off the summit, working a bit to the east first before dropping directly down slope.
It wasn’t too hard to find class 3 weaknesses through the upper cliff bands, and this quickly gave way to sandier class 2 slopes lower down. I started to traverse to the west, not only to put me closer to my car, but to also avoid the hunter’s camp directly below. It was shortly after 4 PM when I reached the 4WD road in the valley below, hitting it about a mile from where I had parked.
The sun was starting to dip behind Lamont Peak as I reached my car, and headed back out to Route 178. I was lucky to catch the Onyx General Store before it closed for a drink and snack before continuing west to the Central Valley and back home.
