Mojave National Preserve, CA

[Ruckus]

Last weekend was labor day weekend here and we had planned a 3 day trip to take on the Mojave Road which runs the length of the Mojave National Preserve.

This "road" was first trodden by the native americans who used it to get from the Colorado River all the way to the pacific coast. It was a very popular trail due to the fact that there are several watering holes along the journey. Soon after the first pioneers also discovered the wonders of this trail and built forts along it to protect the pioneering people from the frequent attacks by the natives.

You can read more, much more, about this trail here
http://www.desertusa.com/mag99/nov/stories/mojavetrail.html

So friday afternoon took a while to come round, Nate and I had the entire day off to pack and get ready but in reality i think i'd packed and was ready about 2 weeks previous, we were all a little excited. A quick phone call to the Ranger station in Baker to get the latest road conditions told us that we'd be in for a fun ride and that the trail is usually quiet during Labor day weekend. We waited for the other 2 in our group to finish work and by 5:30 we were ready for kick-off.

We had a couple of hours of road driving before we reached our intended entrance into the trail, light was failing us fast and we got to Fort Piute at 8ish, set up camp drank a few beers.

Heres myself, Dave and Nate looking happy we actually managed to find somewhere in the dark, thank god for GPS!

I drank way too much beer and hit the hay earlier than everyone else, I could hear dave playing away on his guitar before I fell asleep looking at the stars. We don’t get to see stars in Vegas cos of all that crappy neon that lights up our surrounding sky. I was awoken at several times during the night with the howls of coyotes mooching around the desert near us. I got up early and did what I always do first thing in the morning, make a nice cuppa.

I look rough, but I have my cuppa!

After breakfast we explored the Fort in the daylight.

Fort Piute looking back at camp

I don’t remember what time we packed up and left, it was probably around 7:30/8 am, on the way to hit the main trail out from camp there was a huge vulture sitting looking at us, we didn’t manage to get a picture but trust me, it was an awesome sight.

We got back onto the Mojave Road and headed for our next sight seeing spot, The Magic School Bus, yes a school bus!

When I had called down to the ranger station earlier they said they’ve had plenty of rain and some of the roads would be washed out, they weren’t kidding.

We met several washes like this one, here we are walking our way through it before we attempt to drive.

We drove through canyons that were slightly washed out in places too, one small slide and down you go,

Its not all bad, sometimes you get some decent information about the roads, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a road sign in the middle of the desert like this one, and I’ve spent a lot of time in the desert.

We carried along the Mojave Road looking for interesting stuff, we stumbled across what must be the opening to an old mine, there was no mine around this area and looked like it had been picked up and dumped there by someone.

Interesting none-the-less, it didn’t seem as interesting as our planned lunch stop at the magic bus, we knew we were close and then out of the corner of my eye I spotted the big yellow bus sitting on our left. We were very lucky with the weather today and the reports of 110f proved to be false, we had really nice cloud cover and having lunch at the bus proved a good idea as we weren’t needing and shelter from the sun.

We searched around the bus for a while, I found some interesting mountain lion prints in the surrounding areas but the cat was moving fast as you could tell by the forming of the prints, he was probably running after one of the many jack rabbits we saw dotted around. Back on the trail.
We carried on for a few more miles enjoying the scenery and watching all the hawks flying around until we stumbled across this building.

It had a sign posted on it saying it was an FAA radar installation and if we touched it we’d probably end up in prison, hence the lack of bullet holes in it from everyone else thinking the same. I reckon the place was more to do with all those aliens that fly about here partying at Area 51 but no one else seemed to believe me!

We drove around it and got back on our trail looking for our next intended stop, the Penny Can. The penny can is featured in any trip report of this trail and of course we had to hit that up too, so we drove down a tiny off road which the GPS promised the can would be on, we kept our eyes peeled for this can and didn’t really expect to see it hanging over the middle of the road, but hey its another one to cross off the list of “founds” versus the more common “not found” list we have.

Its lucky if you put a penny in.

After all the morning washes we’d found we had a pretty easy ride so far, this was about to change as we drove down the side of a mountain and the roads got a bit technical again.

Believe me when I say this looks more daunting than it does on the picture, the road was very narrow and full of ruts, taking the correct line down and not slipping was important

Camp Rock Springs was our next destination and as the name suggests we’d find a natural spring there, you don’t see that everyday here either. After driving through more treacherous terrain we arrived with plenty of exploring time. We hiked a good mile up into the mountains to find the Rock House

At this time we heard our first sign of anyone else in the area with large caliber rifle sounds coming from the distance, we let off 1 round into the air just to let them know we were there and it stopped, thank god. We never saw the guy though which was probably a good thing.

A well maintained house that had a sign on it saying “Come On In” but all the doors were locked which was a shame, it did look a bit dirty inside with rat droppings on the ground so I wasn’t really bothered anyways.

Part 2...............

 

[Ruckus]

We’d wanted to hit this spot as we’d seen pictures of Pioneers and natives in the book we had bought to accompany our journey. When I get the pictures scanned in we have this picture in an exact same position as two pictures in the book, one dated about a hundred years ago and one taken in the late 70’s (I believe).

I’ll add the other two when I get them.

A little off to the right of that picture was the spring itself which turned out to be a really nice waterfall.

We danced in the water and wet our hair, how refreshing, but we need to get out of here and see the other spots before it got dark again.

Next intended stop was Government Holes, this was the site of the last known gun-fight of the West, where the two participants actually drove to the site and both got shot and died there. It consisted of a water container a small well and a windmill pump, we had planned on camping here but the windmill made an awful racket and we’d probably not sleep with that going all night long.

Don’t drink that!!

We drove around to find a good spot to camp, you cant just camp anywhere in the preserve you have to find a spot already created with a fire ring, they’re a bit paranoid about fires, in fact they’d had a brush fire in the area in June and you could still see the charred evidence left behind but I was glad to see so much wildlife had survived, right as a coyote jumped out in front of our truck.

We drove past the memorial and found a nice spot down the road.

We set camp and had a nice cheesy dog with bbq beans dinner.

Again all night we heard the unsettling sound of Coyotes and we used the night vision to see if we could get their eyes to reflect and get some bearing on where they were, they probably got a good whiff of your cheesy dogs, coyotes are cheesy dog fiends you know!

Again I woke up earlier, feeling much better then I did the previous morning, we decided to skip breakfast and decided we’d try to get home for noon, by now we were all very tired and full of sand, besides all our ice was melting and the rest of the 200 beers we'd taken with us we're getting warm.

We headed out of camp and then I heard Nate scream down the CB something about a rattlesnake so I jumped out of the truck and ran towards where he’d stopped, this was a decent sized snake and looked like he’d eaten within the last 4 hours so we kept our distance, he was a very mad little guy and was doing his best to get away from us, the rattle was the loudest rattle on a snake I’ve heard.

By now we were heading out of the preserve and towards civilization  We headed towards the rail tracks that were to take us to our crossing point on the freeway.

Down by the tracks we found 3 desert tortoises mooching around.

Then a big train came our way, Dave and I stayed on the trail and Nate moved onto the trail that ran parallel but lower.

We had a little bit of pavement to hit before crossing back into Nevada and familiar territory, we know this area very well and knew the paths that took us all the way back to vegas in the dirt so we didn’t have to mess about with the traffic.

Ahh back in the dirt with all the Scooby Doo warnings!

Pesky Kids!!

The rest of the trip was pretty much uneventful as we readied ourselves for civilization again, we made it back to Vegas at 1pm, by 2 pm I was asleep on the couch.

All in all this was one of the best trails I’ve ever been on, the scenery, the wildlife, the absolute seclusion and the fact that when you look up you can just imagine seeing the mountain tops covered in native Americans on horseback. I for one don’t know how those pioneers got their horse and coaches down this stretch of road it was bad enough in four wheel drive, my hat off to those guys.

If you’re ever in Southern Cal and looking for some fun, I highly recommend this trail, we’re definitely going back as there is still more for us to see, Soda Lake was impassable so we’re going back to conquer that and start from the Baker end of the trail.

Home, safe and sound.

This is my first ever actual trip report, so i hope you enjoyed it, yeah not much bushcraft on this trip but i hope some of you find it interesting anyways.

Thanks!

 

[RovingArcher]

Nice pictorial. I'm surprised the rattler was out in the open. When I was in Arizona, they struck from holes in the ground. Probably a good thing they locked that building up. Don't think you want to mess with the Hantavirus, which is a serious possibility in some desert areas. Looks like you all had a great time.

 

[Ruckus]

yeah you dont offen see them out and about like that, but it was still quite early in the day.