adventurebuddies
Adventurer
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After a few days of heavy rain, the skies cleared in time for us to head out to the much-anticipated Mojave Road. Jon (jdholder) and Ken (fj viz) met at my house and we caravanned out to Barstow where we met up with Yubert and Justin (rigwelderstaco) and drove to Needles. Gas was over-priced by almost a buck a gallon in Needles which was a bummer but we gassed up headed up the road about 15 miles to the trailhead. We aired down and started out at about 2pm, excited to hit the trail and enjoying the perfect desert winter temps.
The trail passes casually through typical Colorado Desert Creosote as it works its way gradually up slope toward Piute Spring. The original Mojave Trail is now gated to protect the fragile ecosystem that surrounds this spring so we parked at the turn-around and explored a bit. The US army built small forts at about a days’ ride apart to protect postal carries from Indian attacks back before there was a train to the west coast, but all that remains of the Piute Springs fort are a few low stone walls and a crumbling corral. Standing in the remains of the fort and looking east toward where we started, I was trying to imagine what it must have been like to travel from Fort Mojave on the Colorado River all day on horseback, suffering in the heat and cold, just to reach this little stone structure in a small valley with a trickle of water running through. We had traveled that same distance in less than two hours and now walked around, checked out some ancient petroglyphs, and moved on along the trail.
The route now swung a little south as it bypassed Piute Gorge and Spring and gained several hundred feet of elevation over a rocky shelf road before cresting at the edge of the stunning Landfair Valley. We encountered our first puddles and everyone took the chance to get their truck dirty as we detoured north off the main route toward Piute Gorge where we found an incredible campsite right at the edge of the deep and rugged gorge. We all lamented the fact that the trail no longer passes through the gorge as it would have been so cool to follow the wash between the steep, mutli-hued walls before reaching the challenging climb out of the gorge and onto the flat Landfair Valley plain where we now stood.
Shifting desert air masses on the edge of the high and low deserts gave us steady, localized winds around 20 mph, but we kept a raging fire and stayed toasty and warm. Jon’s young son, Declan was a true man amongst men as he sat out there in shorts getting hopped up on roasted marshmallows and Dr Pepper.
Heidi and I had our first windy night in the Maggiolina Grand Tour which kept the truck rocking a fair amount as winds gusted to 35 mph throughout the night. We also tried out our new dual zone, 12v heated mattress pad. After preheating the sheets, I turned my side off because it wasn’t cold enough with temps in the mid-40s, but Heidi fell asleep with her side still on high and woke up a few hours later suffering in the heat. At least we know it works.
Everyone slept great that night – Jon and Declan in their Overland RTT, Ken and Justin in tents, and Yubert in a nifty new tent-cot. We lounged around camp all morning, enjoying the great vista over Piute Gorge and the views across the vast plain of the Landfair Valley where the New York Mountains were visible off in the distance. We left around 10am and about halfway across the valley, we made a detour a few miles to the north following some GPS coordinates I had obtained for Eagle Well, an ancient Indian watering hole. We parked the trucks along a small trail and walked about five hundred yards across the desert toward the coordinates and found ourselves at the jumbled boulders that make up the base of a small mountain range. Amazingly, there is a rocky cleft in the sand at the base of the boulders that’s about four feet square with vertical sides that drop 15 feet to a pool of fresh water. Here we were, in the middle of the desert, and there’s a water-filled hole which was the difference between life and death for so many ancient travelers. The boulder hill behind the well was covered in the most amazing and intricate petroglyphs I’ve ever seen. There were so many it was impossible to even take them all in and we tried to infer their meaning as we explored around. We discovered a campsite nearby and a wash that appeared to be vehicle accessible - so for future visits, this would make a fantastic, wind-sheltered campsite.
Continuing along the Mojave Road we stopped briefly at the shot-up shell of an old bus before reaching an old stone cabin that must have been a vestige of the days when hopeful pioneers tried to tame this harsh environment. Now there’s nothing much left of those settlement attempts and only the unrelenting wind and extreme temperatures of the high desert remain. We drove a small trail that took us northwest toward the New York Mountains and out of the Landfair Valley. As the trail slowly gained elevation, the first Juniper trees became visible until the Joshua Tree forest gave way to a Juniper forest and then Pinyons and Oaks as we entered Caruther’s Canyon and climbed further into the mountains.
Caruther’s Canyon was amazing with steep, eroded granite walls dotted with junipers and Pinyons surrounding us as the sandy trail became increasingly more difficult with rocks and boulders and we slowed to a crawl to make the accent up the trail. I scouted ahead to a point in the trail where there was a steep boulder-strewn incline and made the decision not to take the group any further as Jon was towing a trailer and Ken’s stock FJ Cruiser might have been challenged by the size of the rocks. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful campsite surrounded by oak and pine trees, sitting in the sun to keep warm as the cool mountain winds lightly swirled about in the canyon.
We back-tracked out of Caruther’s Canyon and back to the main trail and continued west through Joshua Tree forest until we exited the Landfair Valley. The vegetation changed again to drier high desert shrub as we lost elevation. We stopped off to visit the fully-intact and locked cabin at Rock Spring before attempting to locate the Barnett mine. By now it was late in the day and darkness was coming fast to we slowly drove by the ruins at Government Holes and proceeded along the wide and graded Cedar Canyon Road. The road/trail traveled through a valley at this point and we attempted to find a place to camp, but were unable to find anything. We passed the turnoff for the Mid Hills Campground and ahead of us we could see the incredible desert vista of the vast, featureless plain that descended ahead toward Kelso Wash and then rose gently on the other side. We reached the bottom of the plain and realized that we would have to drive many miles along the slowest portion of the trail to find the next suitable campsite. The wind was blowing hard and the plain offered no protection and we all decided together that we don’t want to stay in a public campground as it would defeat the spirit of our little expedition. After consulting a topo map, we decided to gamble and head to a place that seemed to be nearby called Live Oak Spring. The logic was that there must be a place to camp at a spring. We followed a narrow, rocky track in the direction of the spring and found ourselves in a stunning recess in the Mid Hills, surrounded on three side by Juniper-covered, boulder-strewn hills. We stopped a great campsite and quickly set up camp in the twilight before getting a fire going and warming up. Actually, everyone set up camp quickly except for me. Somehow I had lost the crank for the Maggiolina – probably left it in the slot and it rattled out – so I had to laboriously crank it open with burning forearms using a flathead screwdriver. I was quite cranky after that (Get it? Crank-y) but everyone broke out their chosen beer for beer appreciation night, the wind wasn’t too bad, and the scenery was incredible, so who could complain?
Overnight the wind kicked up to a fierce, swirling rage and we were buffeted throughout the night by heavy gusts which continued through the morning. We packed up in the morning and moved on because it was too cold and windy to really enjoy camp, though the morning light revealed just how pretty our little canyon was. We headed back to the main road/trail and enjoyed views south to the Kelso Dunes before crossing the Kelso-Cima Road at which point the graded road became an undulating mess of whoops that forced us to drive at just a view miles per hour. Mile after mile, we crept along, up and down, up and down, up and down. Anytime we were tempted to gain a little speed we were rewarded with a suspension-compressing dip followed by a gear-launching hump that humbled us back into walking speed.
After what seemed like forever, but was probably longer, we reached Marl Spring where John discovered a melted mess of fried wiring and scorched chain along his trailer tongue. The constant undulation had flipped the safety chain up onto the tongue where it chaffed through the wiring to his trailer batteries. Sparks flew, emotions ran high. We explored around the spring which was a sort of small cave or recess in the side of a hill filled with water while John fixed his wiring.
Back on the trail with calm winds and again at a higher elevation surrounded by Joshua Trees, we stopped to sign the Visitor’s Book under a wind-battered American Flag. The view from this point out toward the perfectly symmetrical cinder cones to our west was spectacular. We detoured northeast up the Cima Dome Trail a few miles where we stopped to explore a very cool lava tube. The sandy trail gave way to crushed lava rock and we walked a few hundred yards to a hole in the ground with a BLM ladder that descended into the lava tube. After ducking under a low point in the tube made up of razor sharp lava spears, we found ourselves in a cavernous space with two small opening to the sky above. An incredible shaft of light penetrated the darkness of the cave like a laser making for some great photo opportunities. We hung out for a while before heading back where John aired up and headed out to civilization while the rest of us continued on.
By now we were hungry and saw the Brannigan Mine labeled on the map and thought that might make an interested lunch stop. With no information about it, we followed a washed out track toward the mine, proceeded through a mangled gate, and wound up a rocky trail until we came around a bend that revealed two structures and a bunch of mine workings. There were piles of old mining supplies and of course the inevitable, huge bottles of cheap liquor scattered about. The mine shaft itself was really cool. It was open and shored up with old timber and the original ore cart tracks were still in place. We could see into it about 50 yards before a bend in the shaft left us guessing what was ahead. We all chose not to enter though because the shoring lumber looked ancient so we finished lunch and moved on.
From the mine we began the long decent that marks the drainage toward Soda Lake and when we got to the edge, there was clearly standing water all about so we chose not to cross. The detour up to Baker was a real bummer as we were forced into civilization with all the Vegas traffic, honking, and angry drivers. Feeling suffocated by the chaos, we got on the 15 and drove one exit south to Zzyzx where we joined the Arrowhead Trail which parallels the freeway before crossing under and following a wash toward the other side of Soda Lake. Unfortunately, the bridge clearance to get under the freeway was only seven feet and there was no way I could fit under to we had to continue on an obnoxious trail in fading daylight, right next to the freeway. Retrospectively, we would have been better off just staying on the freeway to Rasor Rd because by the time we got there, it was dark. We stopped briefly before starting down Rasor Rd to wipe off our mud splattered headlights and proceeded down toward the other side of Soda Lake. We pressed on in the dark and reached The Granites, a cool jumble of low granite formations where we set up camp.
The temperature was perfect, the fire raging, the stars brilliant and the wind non-existent so we had a fantastic night lounging around until late when we hit the sack. By morning there was still no wind so we relaxed for a while and enjoyed the views across the lake before heading out. We attempted to reach Zzyzx Spring but the road was gated, so headed west down the rocky Shaw Pass and through the Rasor OHV area where the deep sand was still wet and posed no problems for us. Just before the start of Afton Canyon we stopped off at some cool mine working where we drove on the old rail bed before entering the wash again.
Afton Canyon is truly incredible with steep, multi-hued sides rising up from the perfectly flat, sandy river wash. There were rivulets of water here and there but for the most part our passage was dry. The canyon walls show the most incredible erosion patterns and we stopped several times to take in the views. The first Mojave River crossing was quite shallow and we parked the trucks on the other side near the railroad tracks to hike down the riverbed to The Caves. These small caverns in the cliffs along the river were shelters for early travelers and we hung out in the cool air for a bit before heading back to the trucks.
The second Mojave River crossing was about 28 inches deep and we drove back and forth through a couple of times just for the fun of it. Just beyond the Afton Canyon BLM campground, the trail passes through a wildlife viewing area where we found ourselves all of a sudden in a short, but deep mud bog. No one got stuck, but we were now bespattered with foul smelling muck as we proceeded into the wide, mostly dry Mojave River wash. A brief stop off at the Triangle Intaglios confused us because we thought we were looking for rock patterns. Turns out the Intaglios are triangular areas cleared of rocks which we did notice but no one took any pictures. Oh well.
We headed off the trail and aired up before everyone said their goodbyes and headed home. Yubert and Heidi and I grabbed lunch at Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner just north of Barstow and headed home. We traveled a total of 215 miles including side trips and had a fantastic trip.
After a few days of heavy rain, the skies cleared in time for us to head out to the much-anticipated Mojave Road. Jon (jdholder) and Ken (fj viz) met at my house and we caravanned out to Barstow where we met up with Yubert and Justin (rigwelderstaco) and drove to Needles. Gas was over-priced by almost a buck a gallon in Needles which was a bummer but we gassed up headed up the road about 15 miles to the trailhead. We aired down and started out at about 2pm, excited to hit the trail and enjoying the perfect desert winter temps.
The trail passes casually through typical Colorado Desert Creosote as it works its way gradually up slope toward Piute Spring. The original Mojave Trail is now gated to protect the fragile ecosystem that surrounds this spring so we parked at the turn-around and explored a bit. The US army built small forts at about a days’ ride apart to protect postal carries from Indian attacks back before there was a train to the west coast, but all that remains of the Piute Springs fort are a few low stone walls and a crumbling corral. Standing in the remains of the fort and looking east toward where we started, I was trying to imagine what it must have been like to travel from Fort Mojave on the Colorado River all day on horseback, suffering in the heat and cold, just to reach this little stone structure in a small valley with a trickle of water running through. We had traveled that same distance in less than two hours and now walked around, checked out some ancient petroglyphs, and moved on along the trail.
The route now swung a little south as it bypassed Piute Gorge and Spring and gained several hundred feet of elevation over a rocky shelf road before cresting at the edge of the stunning Landfair Valley. We encountered our first puddles and everyone took the chance to get their truck dirty as we detoured north off the main route toward Piute Gorge where we found an incredible campsite right at the edge of the deep and rugged gorge. We all lamented the fact that the trail no longer passes through the gorge as it would have been so cool to follow the wash between the steep, mutli-hued walls before reaching the challenging climb out of the gorge and onto the flat Landfair Valley plain where we now stood.
Shifting desert air masses on the edge of the high and low deserts gave us steady, localized winds around 20 mph, but we kept a raging fire and stayed toasty and warm. Jon’s young son, Declan was a true man amongst men as he sat out there in shorts getting hopped up on roasted marshmallows and Dr Pepper.
Heidi and I had our first windy night in the Maggiolina Grand Tour which kept the truck rocking a fair amount as winds gusted to 35 mph throughout the night. We also tried out our new dual zone, 12v heated mattress pad. After preheating the sheets, I turned my side off because it wasn’t cold enough with temps in the mid-40s, but Heidi fell asleep with her side still on high and woke up a few hours later suffering in the heat. At least we know it works.
Everyone slept great that night – Jon and Declan in their Overland RTT, Ken and Justin in tents, and Yubert in a nifty new tent-cot. We lounged around camp all morning, enjoying the great vista over Piute Gorge and the views across the vast plain of the Landfair Valley where the New York Mountains were visible off in the distance. We left around 10am and about halfway across the valley, we made a detour a few miles to the north following some GPS coordinates I had obtained for Eagle Well, an ancient Indian watering hole. We parked the trucks along a small trail and walked about five hundred yards across the desert toward the coordinates and found ourselves at the jumbled boulders that make up the base of a small mountain range. Amazingly, there is a rocky cleft in the sand at the base of the boulders that’s about four feet square with vertical sides that drop 15 feet to a pool of fresh water. Here we were, in the middle of the desert, and there’s a water-filled hole which was the difference between life and death for so many ancient travelers. The boulder hill behind the well was covered in the most amazing and intricate petroglyphs I’ve ever seen. There were so many it was impossible to even take them all in and we tried to infer their meaning as we explored around. We discovered a campsite nearby and a wash that appeared to be vehicle accessible - so for future visits, this would make a fantastic, wind-sheltered campsite.
Continuing along the Mojave Road we stopped briefly at the shot-up shell of an old bus before reaching an old stone cabin that must have been a vestige of the days when hopeful pioneers tried to tame this harsh environment. Now there’s nothing much left of those settlement attempts and only the unrelenting wind and extreme temperatures of the high desert remain. We drove a small trail that took us northwest toward the New York Mountains and out of the Landfair Valley. As the trail slowly gained elevation, the first Juniper trees became visible until the Joshua Tree forest gave way to a Juniper forest and then Pinyons and Oaks as we entered Caruther’s Canyon and climbed further into the mountains.
Caruther’s Canyon was amazing with steep, eroded granite walls dotted with junipers and Pinyons surrounding us as the sandy trail became increasingly more difficult with rocks and boulders and we slowed to a crawl to make the accent up the trail. I scouted ahead to a point in the trail where there was a steep boulder-strewn incline and made the decision not to take the group any further as Jon was towing a trailer and Ken’s stock FJ Cruiser might have been challenged by the size of the rocks. We stopped for lunch at a beautiful campsite surrounded by oak and pine trees, sitting in the sun to keep warm as the cool mountain winds lightly swirled about in the canyon.
We back-tracked out of Caruther’s Canyon and back to the main trail and continued west through Joshua Tree forest until we exited the Landfair Valley. The vegetation changed again to drier high desert shrub as we lost elevation. We stopped off to visit the fully-intact and locked cabin at Rock Spring before attempting to locate the Barnett mine. By now it was late in the day and darkness was coming fast to we slowly drove by the ruins at Government Holes and proceeded along the wide and graded Cedar Canyon Road. The road/trail traveled through a valley at this point and we attempted to find a place to camp, but were unable to find anything. We passed the turnoff for the Mid Hills Campground and ahead of us we could see the incredible desert vista of the vast, featureless plain that descended ahead toward Kelso Wash and then rose gently on the other side. We reached the bottom of the plain and realized that we would have to drive many miles along the slowest portion of the trail to find the next suitable campsite. The wind was blowing hard and the plain offered no protection and we all decided together that we don’t want to stay in a public campground as it would defeat the spirit of our little expedition. After consulting a topo map, we decided to gamble and head to a place that seemed to be nearby called Live Oak Spring. The logic was that there must be a place to camp at a spring. We followed a narrow, rocky track in the direction of the spring and found ourselves in a stunning recess in the Mid Hills, surrounded on three side by Juniper-covered, boulder-strewn hills. We stopped a great campsite and quickly set up camp in the twilight before getting a fire going and warming up. Actually, everyone set up camp quickly except for me. Somehow I had lost the crank for the Maggiolina – probably left it in the slot and it rattled out – so I had to laboriously crank it open with burning forearms using a flathead screwdriver. I was quite cranky after that (Get it? Crank-y) but everyone broke out their chosen beer for beer appreciation night, the wind wasn’t too bad, and the scenery was incredible, so who could complain?
Overnight the wind kicked up to a fierce, swirling rage and we were buffeted throughout the night by heavy gusts which continued through the morning. We packed up in the morning and moved on because it was too cold and windy to really enjoy camp, though the morning light revealed just how pretty our little canyon was. We headed back to the main road/trail and enjoyed views south to the Kelso Dunes before crossing the Kelso-Cima Road at which point the graded road became an undulating mess of whoops that forced us to drive at just a view miles per hour. Mile after mile, we crept along, up and down, up and down, up and down. Anytime we were tempted to gain a little speed we were rewarded with a suspension-compressing dip followed by a gear-launching hump that humbled us back into walking speed.
After what seemed like forever, but was probably longer, we reached Marl Spring where John discovered a melted mess of fried wiring and scorched chain along his trailer tongue. The constant undulation had flipped the safety chain up onto the tongue where it chaffed through the wiring to his trailer batteries. Sparks flew, emotions ran high. We explored around the spring which was a sort of small cave or recess in the side of a hill filled with water while John fixed his wiring.
Back on the trail with calm winds and again at a higher elevation surrounded by Joshua Trees, we stopped to sign the Visitor’s Book under a wind-battered American Flag. The view from this point out toward the perfectly symmetrical cinder cones to our west was spectacular. We detoured northeast up the Cima Dome Trail a few miles where we stopped to explore a very cool lava tube. The sandy trail gave way to crushed lava rock and we walked a few hundred yards to a hole in the ground with a BLM ladder that descended into the lava tube. After ducking under a low point in the tube made up of razor sharp lava spears, we found ourselves in a cavernous space with two small opening to the sky above. An incredible shaft of light penetrated the darkness of the cave like a laser making for some great photo opportunities. We hung out for a while before heading back where John aired up and headed out to civilization while the rest of us continued on.
By now we were hungry and saw the Brannigan Mine labeled on the map and thought that might make an interested lunch stop. With no information about it, we followed a washed out track toward the mine, proceeded through a mangled gate, and wound up a rocky trail until we came around a bend that revealed two structures and a bunch of mine workings. There were piles of old mining supplies and of course the inevitable, huge bottles of cheap liquor scattered about. The mine shaft itself was really cool. It was open and shored up with old timber and the original ore cart tracks were still in place. We could see into it about 50 yards before a bend in the shaft left us guessing what was ahead. We all chose not to enter though because the shoring lumber looked ancient so we finished lunch and moved on.
From the mine we began the long decent that marks the drainage toward Soda Lake and when we got to the edge, there was clearly standing water all about so we chose not to cross. The detour up to Baker was a real bummer as we were forced into civilization with all the Vegas traffic, honking, and angry drivers. Feeling suffocated by the chaos, we got on the 15 and drove one exit south to Zzyzx where we joined the Arrowhead Trail which parallels the freeway before crossing under and following a wash toward the other side of Soda Lake. Unfortunately, the bridge clearance to get under the freeway was only seven feet and there was no way I could fit under to we had to continue on an obnoxious trail in fading daylight, right next to the freeway. Retrospectively, we would have been better off just staying on the freeway to Rasor Rd because by the time we got there, it was dark. We stopped briefly before starting down Rasor Rd to wipe off our mud splattered headlights and proceeded down toward the other side of Soda Lake. We pressed on in the dark and reached The Granites, a cool jumble of low granite formations where we set up camp.
The temperature was perfect, the fire raging, the stars brilliant and the wind non-existent so we had a fantastic night lounging around until late when we hit the sack. By morning there was still no wind so we relaxed for a while and enjoyed the views across the lake before heading out. We attempted to reach Zzyzx Spring but the road was gated, so headed west down the rocky Shaw Pass and through the Rasor OHV area where the deep sand was still wet and posed no problems for us. Just before the start of Afton Canyon we stopped off at some cool mine working where we drove on the old rail bed before entering the wash again.
Afton Canyon is truly incredible with steep, multi-hued sides rising up from the perfectly flat, sandy river wash. There were rivulets of water here and there but for the most part our passage was dry. The canyon walls show the most incredible erosion patterns and we stopped several times to take in the views. The first Mojave River crossing was quite shallow and we parked the trucks on the other side near the railroad tracks to hike down the riverbed to The Caves. These small caverns in the cliffs along the river were shelters for early travelers and we hung out in the cool air for a bit before heading back to the trucks.
The second Mojave River crossing was about 28 inches deep and we drove back and forth through a couple of times just for the fun of it. Just beyond the Afton Canyon BLM campground, the trail passes through a wildlife viewing area where we found ourselves all of a sudden in a short, but deep mud bog. No one got stuck, but we were now bespattered with foul smelling muck as we proceeded into the wide, mostly dry Mojave River wash. A brief stop off at the Triangle Intaglios confused us because we thought we were looking for rock patterns. Turns out the Intaglios are triangular areas cleared of rocks which we did notice but no one took any pictures. Oh well.
We headed off the trail and aired up before everyone said their goodbyes and headed home. Yubert and Heidi and I grabbed lunch at Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner just north of Barstow and headed home. We traveled a total of 215 miles including side trips and had a fantastic trip.
