Early in the morning of March 19 I met Eric Kassan and Rich Hensley in Wilcox, AZ. They had driven down from Las Vegas the previous evening. We planned to climb Dos Cabezas Peaks, but we were stopped by locked gates. So we climbed Swisshelm Mountain further south.

We drove to nearby Dos Cabezas and tried to get access to Dos Cabezas Peaks via the Mascot Mine Road. Eric had repeatedly phoned the landowner to request permission to use the road. But the owner never returned Eric’s calls. We hoped that perhaps the gate was open anyway. But we found it was locked with the same phone numbers posted that Eric had repeatedly called. We attempted another, longer, access road but found it also gated and locked. So we switched our attention to Swisshelm Mountain further south.

Swisshelm Mountain has 2025 feet of prominence, the 69th most prominent peak in Arizona. We first attempted to get access to it from the east which would have provided us an easier ascent. We spoke to the landowner near the start of his private road, but he refused us entry. So we drove to the west side of the mountain near Elfrida. From there we successfully gained access to the western slopes of Swisshelm Mountain.