Palm Mesa (SDC #13, 4660′) • map • directions

Pike (SDC #12, 5571′)

Cody (SDC #15, 5587′)

I pulled up to the entrance of the Los Coyotes Indian Reservation Saturday morning, paid the entrance fee, and continued off pavement and onto well groomed dirt roads. I was familiar with the route to San Ignacio after hiking Squaretop the previous weekend. I felt a little uneasy as I  passed a sign stating that this part of the reservation was off limits to the public, but I’d shown the girl at the kiosk where I intended to go and she said it’d be fine.  I stopped briefly at the San Ignacio cemetery, located between a few scattered houses in various states of disrepair. Here I enlisted the use of my GPS to locate a trail shown on the topo map.  I’d heard that this trail didn’t exist anymore and after not being able to find it, I backed up and parked just a few hundred feet east of the cemetery at a small turnout, my starting point for the day’s adventure.

I tossed on my small pack and started on foot at 9:45am, leaving the road and crossing under a large tree then heading up a small hill where the old trail would have been. I found leftovers from the old trail here and followed it down into a small wash. I was able to follow the trail for five or ten minutes though the benefit over cross-country wasn’t much. Soon it disappeared and I took aim for the saddle between Pike and Cody, two benchmarks that I’d hope to get to after Palm Mesa.  After dropping 40-50 feet into a second wash and back up the other side then repeating that little exercise again, I sought a better route. I noticed a larger wash coming down from the gap between Pike and Cody so I crossed over one more small wash and into the larger one, which did indeed take me to the saddle between the two peaks.

Once I reached the saddle I again stumbled upon the old trail, this time more of a benefit than before. I followed it across the lower slopes of Pike, staying a few hundred feet above the wash, and fixed my eyes on Palm Mesa about two miles out. I was slowly losing elevation on my way to the uppermost reaches of Borrego Palm Canyon, stopping just once to take a photo of some deer in the valley below. Eventually the trail vanished for good and I continued around Pike’s eastern slopes looking for a way to drop in to Borrego Palm. I had a spot in mind that looked good on the topo and  when I reached a 10-foot wide notch looking down into the North Fork, the route appeared to be feasible. I bypassed a 20 foot tall dryfall across steep slopes on its right side and dropped into the sandy bottom. It was good going with few obstacles for the first half mile, then traversed to my left on hardpack to bypass a pair of dryfalls. An eighth mile or so from the base of Palm Mesa’s west ridge, I bypassed a final dryfall on its right side and continued to an intersection with another wash feeding the North Fork of Borrego Palm Canyon. Here it was flat, sandy, and as wide as a road. 

I’d lost almost 1500 feet from the saddle between Pike and Cody, and from here I’d start up Palm Mesa’s west ridge.  The ridge gained 800 feet in a half mile, a consistent but comfortable grade on solid ground with little vegetation in the way. It took just under half an hour and I was signing the register at 12:15pm. The views from Palm Mesa were outstanding.  The register had been placed in 1981 and had been visited by Don Raether just the day before. I’d met Don the previous weekend on Squaretop’s summit, how crazy.  After downing a quick snack I retraced my steps off the summit, without pause until I was back on the eastern slopes of Pike BM.

Hiking Pike and Cody after Palm Mesa would make for the longest hike I’d done after time off from an injury last year, and I hadn’t mentally committed to it up until this point.  The east side of Pike looked straightforward and I was feeling good though, and it was just oh so much more efficient and fun this way. I covered the 900 feet up Pike’s east side in earnest, scrambling through light brush and rock near the top.  I looked around the highest rock outcropping for the register with no luck, then checked another, eventually coming back to the first place I looked, where I found it deep within a crack between two rocks. I signed in then hiked towards the high point of the mountain, P5600, just a short distance away (the Pike benchmark issn’t the actual highpoint of the mountain). I signed in to the register there also and started down the southern slopes towards the saddle between Pike and Cody, beginning the descent at 2:45pm. I scrambled down a short but steep section of boulders, continuing on to sandy slopes, quite welcomed for an easy descent. From between the two peaks, Cody was brushier than Pike was but not enough to slow things down too much. I reached the Cody Benchmark just 30 minutes after leaving P5600.

Cody’s register and benchmark were easier to find than Pike’s, the register being obvious and the benchmark being partially buried about ten feet to the north. I signed in to the small booklet and admired the views looking east one last time for the day. After dropping down just west of Cody’s summit, I climbed over a short rocky section on the ridge then contoured towards the highest point of the saddle between Pike and Cody. Ecstatic about the biggest hike I’ve had since my injury last year, I was loudly humming a random song that popped into my head, something I hadn’t heard for quite some time, the original Japanese version of Sukiyaki.

Looking for an alternate to avoid crossing the many washes that I’d crossed on my way in, I followed the main wash east and then south all the way out to the road. It may have been faster to return the way I’d come but I didn’t mind the lazier return and change in scenery. I passed an open building tucked back into the trees and some old industrial equipment lying around, my curiosity about its history that would never be satisfied. I followed the road uphill back towards San Ignacio and my truck, returning at 4:15pm, satisfied with the day’s adventure. I said goodbye to the Los Coyotes Reservation for the last time, at least regarding the SDC peak list. I’ll return for Hot Spring Mountain another time…