Sharktooth Rock

Yes, that's a hole in the rock, big enough to see some sky through it.

Looking due west toward Mt. San Gorgonio, you can make out the east-west route that heads towards the trail that goes from Quail Springs road to Willow Hole.

The close-up part of the route runs close against the boulders you see in the right-middle of this photo. Its about at this point that you climb up onto some rocks (traveling east) and first see the large open *crossroads* area.

When I first came into this area, I started from the Willow Hole Trail, and picked up the west end of this route pictured above, skirting just south of the Keys Ranch property (off limits except by tour) area. However, the Rangers blocked off this access with a fence and warning signs, as apparently people were using it to steal from Keys Ranch. Also, the old Willow Hole Parking Area was replanted, and the parking moved (making the hike to Willow Hole a mile or so longer) to alongside Quail Springs Road.

So, the best and fastest way into this area became from Wonderland Wash. The way I first learned this part of the hike, again from Jim Furness, former Sierra Club Hike Leader, was to head all the way down Wonderland Wash until it becomes really narrow, and a distinct rock formation I think of as *the crooked finger* sticks up about seven feet into the wash. This rock looks like a very gnarled, slightly bent finger, and is quite distinctive. A few yards after this point you can turn east, scramble over boulders jumbled up into a wash for a fair length of time, and then enter into the long flat route that leads to Sharktooth. However, in my own explorations, I've found that getting to the level part of the east-west route is easier cutting north-east a bit before *crooked finger*, scrambling down a non-distinct route, but with less boulder scrambling compared to the route Jim worked out, and on past the Shovel Handle.

Another neat thing about Shovel Handle is that it's told me that I've correctly picked the right route where things get a little fuzzy as far as just easily marching along eastward. The trick I've learned is, right where it looks like you might want to head a bit to the right (a route that very soon becomes boulder filled) you veer off to the left towards a rock formation more than head-high in a wall of quartz-monzonite that looks like a frowning three or four feet large mustache, perhaps only thirty feet away. Right at the mustache you turn back east again, entering a very narrow slot of a wash-route. It was only a few yard into this narrowed part of the route to the Shovel Handle, leaning up against the right-hand wall of the wash.

Last time I was there, probably winter of 2000, the handle had fallen completely loose of the shovel blade, and was laying on the sand, barely distinguishable from being an ordinary fallen tree branch. The shovel blade was still pitched in the sand, very rusted and eroded, making it all that much more difficult to spot, but definitely findable when keeping an eye out for it.

The route from there on to Shark Tooth and Crossroads Flat (I just made up that name while typing this, so don't expect to ask anyone else about how to find *Crossroads Flat*. I also made up the name Shark Tooth Rock, so ditto for that) is pretty straight forward. It helps to hang to the left, close up against the left hand rock cliffs that define the left edge of the wash-route. One hundred yards or so (be warned, my memory does strange things some times to distances) beyond Shark Tooth is one of the, to me at least, most magical feeling places in the Park, which I've named here, Crossroads Flat. From the east end of the flat is a wash-route that, to the left, takes you down to Rattlesnake Canyon, and to the right, out to Wall Street Stamp Mill. In wetter years quite a bit of water is commonly seen along this south leading route. About half way along this route to Wall Street is a chance to veer off to the right and pass into the flat that has Garrett's Arch off to one side, and the Freak Brothers and the Wonderland Wash close off the western edge.

Also, from the Crossroads area, the intrepid hiker can continue on eastwards steeply up a drain that leads to the long north-south wash that runs along the western slopes of Queen Mountain. That particular wash, and areas that branchs off of it, is the one zone of the Park that, to me, rivals the Wonderland for spectacular beauty and mystery.

Enough for now. If I get inspired later, I'll make a map, much like I did for Garrett's Arch.

Note: don't try that route from *Crossroads* down to Rattlesnake unless you know the so called Wonderland Connection, that links Willow Hole to Rattlesnake Canyon. Unless you know the exact route, technical climbing skills are needed. Many people have gotten lost along the Wonderland Connection, or injured, and in one case, a man fell into a crevasse and died, his body not found until a couple of years later.

Jay

1/31/2003

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