Pincushion Ridge Lp - 10/4/25

Spring Mountains as viewed from the ascent to Pincushion Ridge

The ascent Trail

The ascent Trail (La Madre Peak beyond)

The hike is within the boundaries of Red Rock
Canyon NCA and La Madre Wilderness.

Even though the weather is getting cooler, Susan and I don't want to give up our explorations in the Spring Mountains. There was at least one more area on the agenda leading out from the first trailhead on the left side of Kyle Canyon Road going up the mountain. We'll call it Trailhead 1. A couple of years ago, a friend and I noticed a trail across Kyle Canyon Road from the Twilight area. We could see it climbing up a trailing ridge of an intermediary desert ridge below the La Madre mountain range. About a year later, the park service put large boulders around a trailhead we had never used before. A year after that, they erected an info sign there. Finally, we found the time during the right weather to actually explore this new offering.

Harris Springs Wash

Descending to Harris Springs Wash (Pincushion Ridge scree descent top middle R)

Harris Springs Road used for a small section of this Hike

OHV trailhead Parking

Trailhead 1 is located about 8 miles up Kyle Canyon Road from I-11 on the left side. Susan and I pulled in there and read the sign that told a bit about the Carpenter One wildfire of 2013. The ridge that we were going to hike was not on the map as a "trail." However, the ascent trail was there and another viewpoint was given. We left the parking lot and veered to the right to turn left onto a rough dirt road. The road led us toward the ridges to the south and southeast. We were most interested in the long ridge about halfway out to the really high La Madre range. Our ridge peaked out at 5530'. The monster La Madre range peaked out at around 8120'. La Madre Peak created a great backdrop to our tame, beautiful in its own way, Pincushion Ridge.

If you see this, take the left fork!

Trail crossing ridges before reaching ascent Trail

Starting the Ascent

"Slow and steady."

We followed the road until it dropped steeply down to the Harris Springs Wash. Here, we turned right and tried to find a trail going up the wash. A trail ... any trail. The red line on my GPS was closer to the ridge which was still one wash over. We just followed the wash up until we found a burro trail climbing out of the wash to the left. The burro trail junctioned with a trail on the embankment where we turned right. This is when we noticed a large trailhead parking lot down to our right. Off road vehicles were already arriving for a day of fun. We continued along our trail above the large Harris Springs Wash. Soon, we came to a fork as seen three photos above. Our route took the left fork. Although we crossed other burro trails, our official trail continued without turns over various arroyos and trailing ridges. Eventually, we found ourselves climbing. Yes, this was it! The ascent trail that we had spied from afar a couple of years ago. We began our climb without hesitation. Our speed was slow and steady. We barely got out of breath even though it was a 1000' climb over the course of just 1.15 miles. The views were incredible so we stopped often just to take it all in. The trail was very rocky so I decided it must not be a bike trail after all.

Ascent Trail 

Our group Shot!

Ascent trail junction with Pincushion Ridge

Ridge summit on ascent Trail

As we climbed, we wondered what might be the origins of the trail. After passing about 3 flattish places, we came to the left ridge junction. We continued up to the summit junction just to get the view. The trail continues to the right at the top but we returned down to the left ridge junction for our loop route. In this direction, the only trail of sorts was a broken burro trail that balanced the ridge all the way down to the end. We started down the ridge not knowing any of this. But, it soon became apparent that we were not the first to explore here. Someone had built a cairn on one of the small peaks along the way. We found much evidence of burro. Hey! If the burros can do it, so can we! Hmm.

Pincushion Ridge

Cairn on intermediary peak of Pincushion Ridge

Limestone pieces from a long ago Seabed

Picking our way down the gentle Ridge

The ridge was made up of desert plants, limestone rock outcrops and broken pieces of Limestone. The one unusual plant that we saw many of was the pincushion cactus plant. These were popping up all the way down on the ridge summit. For lack of a better name, we decided to name the ridge, Pincushion. Every section of the ridge was different in appearance except for the ever presence of the limestone and desert plants. The views changed a little since the ridge curved down like a snake. The back side of the ridge was just as different and beautiful as the wide open view of the Spring Mountains on the front side. Finally, we came to the end.  The big question was, "How do we get down off the ridge?" Again, if the burros can do it ....

Following burro trails toward the Sheep Mountains

Side of the Ridge

The end of the ridge is in sight.

Starting down the scree Descent

As we turned the corner of the last small peak, we saw that the slope was not dangerously steep. There was a lot of scree to catch our steps. And, we could still make out a burro route. Slowly, we made our way down to the wash below. All that was left was to try to retrace our steps back to the car. Not always as easy as it sounds but we made it back up the steep road/hill and then we were good. There was terrible wind during this outing and we were anxious to get back in the car but, I must say, the views were incomparable to any I've ever seen in the Spring Mountains. Fantastic day!

Stats: 5.5 miles; 1440' gain; 5 hours.

A few interesting Anomalies

Creosote or Goldenleaf

Hiking back up road to Trailhead