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Mojave Road

hikerdmb

Posts: 423

1/17/2012

hikerdmb

Posts: 423

This is not a ABDSP trip but I thought some of you might like to see it. The Mojave Road goes from the Colorado River to just north of Barstow along the Mojave River. This was one of the original wagon routes across the desert. It goes from spring to spring as it makes its way across what is now the Mojave National Preserve. The road is nice for most of its length although it can be hard to follow with all the side roads along the way.

We went a couple of years ago and did the eastern section and the middle section. This trip we did the central part and the western part. We left late Saturday afternoon from north county and headed out through Joshua Tree and 20 Palms toward Amboy. We reached our camp at about 9:00 PM near Cadiz. Slept under the stars that night. It got down to 34 degrees but there was no wind at all. Sunday morning we continued east along the old Route 66 and headed north toward Fenner, the only gas along that stretch of I-40. Topped the tank at $4.89 a gallon to be sure to have enough to get through about 150 miles off road before we hit the I-15 freeway at Afton Road.

Our first detour was into the New York Mountains just north of the Mojave Road. We had spotted these mountains on our first trip on the road a few years ago and really wanted to explore them a bit this trip. We went up into Caruther's Canyon and it was spectacular. Lots of great rock formations and Pinyon Pine trees.

Here is the view into the upper reaches of Caruther's Canyon.

This balance rock is also in Caruther's Canyon.

After exploring to the end of the road in this canyon we head back toward the Mojave Road and continued to the west. We visited Rock Spring, the location of the army that kept the road safe in the old days. There were no ruins there from the army but there were lots of petroglyphs near the spring.

Next stop west was the Government Holes. There are a couple of storage tanks here and an old windmill. This time the windmill was actually hooked up and pumping water.

We spent our second night just off the Mojave Road with a great view of the Kelso Valley and the Providence Mountains.

Again I slept under the stars this night and it got down to 36 degrees with a little wind. But it was a beautiful night with a great campfire to keep us warm. We headed out early in the morning to cover the last third of the Mojave Road. We rounded 17 Mile Point and headed toward the Soda Dry Lake. This part of the road is about 7 miles as it goes across the dry lake. Here we are getting ready to start across the lake bed.

When you get almost across the lake there is a pile of rocks. It is customary to put a rock onto the pile that you picked up along the road. There are a lot of rocks in the pile and some of them are quite large.

From here the road goes through some deep sand and then enters Afton Canyon and crosses the Mojave River a couple of times. When we finally reached I-15 we aired up the tires and headed south with all the Vegas traffic. Made it a long drive home but it was well worth it. We have been twice and will definitely go back again.

You can see a few more pics from the trip from this address.
https://picasaweb.google.com/hikerdmb/MojaveRoad?authuser=0&feat=directlink

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Mojave Road