Teutonia Peak Trail

posted on August 1, 2010

This rewarding trail on Cima Dome, approximately three miles round-trip, gives the hiker an intimate look at the planet’s most extensive forest of Joshua trees. It is of moderate strenuousness with 700 feet in elevation gain, though almost all that is restricted to the last half-mile of trail, which angles up the northeast face of Teutonia Peak. If you turn around before the trail gets steep this is a very easy two-mile out-and-back hike that despite the avoided exertion is still quite rewarding.

You leave your vehicle at the trailhead on the west side of Cima Road in the Sunrise Rock area, eleven miles south of the Cima Rd. exit on Interstate 15, or about six miles north of the Cima Store, if you’re approaching from the south. The well-marked trail weaves through an open forest of Joshua trees interspersed with occasional Utah junipers, the latter a sure sign that we’re up above 5,000 feet. Broad outcrops of Cima Dome’s bedrock quartz monzonite speckle the landscape.

As you walk, spend a little time watching your feet. Depending on the time of day, tiny side-blotched lizards may choose exactly the last possible moment to dart across the trail in front of you. They’re far too quick for you to worry about stepping on them, so relax and enjoy their daredevil antics.

Other small animals you may see in this stretch of trail are night lizards, the smallest lizard in North America, whose preferred habitat is beneath fallen Joshua tree limbs, and night snakes, which prey on the night lizards. Despite their names, neither reptile is nocturnal. Night snakes are “rear-fangers” – they’re venomous, but that venom is delivered through fangs in the rear of the snake’s mouth, reducing the snake’s danger to humans to about nil.

Other snakes aren’t as risk-free: there are rattlesnakes here, including the notorious Mojave green, which is more venomous and less shy than other rattlers. If you see a rattler don’t panic; merely admire the animal from a respectful distance.

Birders will find black-chinned and sage sparrows, piñon jays and loggerhead shrikes, Scott’s orioles in summer, ladderbacked woodpeckers and flickers, and three species of thrasher: the Crissal, LeConte’s and Bendire’s. Golden eagles are seen frequently here, as are, of course, the ever-present common raven.

Botanical wildlife along the trail includes the Joshua trees’ cousin banana yucca, shrubs such as blackbrush and fiendishly spiny Menodora, and cacti – most prominently a few species of cholla and prickly pear, but also including a half dozen kinds of mound and small column cacti.

Half a mile from the trailhead, the trail crosses an old dirt road. The continuing trail is prominently signed on the other side. Juniper becomes somewhat more common as the trail climbs slowly to the Teutonia Mine about a mile from Cima Road. The trail weaves among a few old open pits – if you examine them, do so without entering them – and crosses another old dirt road just before it begins to climb Teutonia Peak.

The trail angles up in loose switchbacks as it climbs the wall of a broad amphitheater, providing increasingly fine views of the landscape to the northeast: Kessler Peak, Striped and Clark mountains, and the Dome’s vast expanse of Joshua tree forest between. At length, after a few steps that test your knees’ flexibility, you arrive at the trail’s summit – though not the actual summit of Teutonia Peak. To reach Teutonia’s triple summits, you’ll need some technical climbing experience. But even with the true summits still forty feet above, the top of the Teutonia Peak trail is well worth reaching all by itself.

– Chris Clarke