DAY 4: (143 miles offroading)
Refreshed and all that, we start off south of the city, intending to parallel I-15 into some BLM land and then Mojave National Preserve.
http://www.nps.gov/moja/index.htm. Greg had explored some parts on dirt bike, but now he could use the truck. I had put in a bit of time in the upper elevations of Mojave, in the New York Mountains area, a few years ago when a busted wheel bearing cut that trip short. Always wanted to go back.
So out of town to the south, we tried numerous side trails to the east of Las Vegas Blvd, which parallels I-15. Most of them were gated off or signed as closed. Some saying resource preservation. At the first available trail that was open, we discovered why. This area (at least close in to Las Vegas Blvd) was *too* easy to get to. Dozens of illegal dumps and shooting areas. Cleanups seemed to be beyond the capacity of volunteers to keep up with, and the yahoos who trashed the area were no friends of the Earth. We got through this to some harder to get to areas that ended up being pristine. Yahoos are lazy asshats as well as thoughtless. Or else their pick-em-up trucks can't get through a moderate trail without blowing their cheap-ass tires.
Anyway, finally saw the kind of trail marker we enjoy seeing
Looking for Hidden Valley - an attractive looking name
In the middle of the valley, I spotted a hill to climb that was right at the limit of our rigs. Loose, sharp crumbly broken stone. Might be climbed at full throttle with a lot of wheel spin, but with huge risk to the CV joints and disconnect. So we took it slowly, accepting a bit of wheel spin. Starts out looking easy.
No pics of mine in the climb itself - was a bit of white-knuckling.
Halfway up, it turned left and continued past a saddle to another climb. Looking at it, the off camber angle was worse, and with my RTT, I didn't feel like I had anything to prove by becoming king of THAT mountain, so we just stopped at the halfway point for pics.
Greg's climb
View from the hill
Truck meet
My perpetually lucky shirt - never let me down yet. You all should know it by now: "Roads?....Where we're going we don't need ... roads."
Off-camber down the hill on the sharp, loose rock
Selfie!
Forther on, exploring a nice dirt road to a gravel pit, Greg's SES light came on and he wanted to know the code. He had his Scangauge cable plugged in, but had misplaced his Scangauge in the garage. So he held the cable out for a drive-by code reading session. It was benign, so I just cleared it for him.
The gravel pit was in use, and nothing special. Greg had to get back to town, so we split up then.
I continued on south through Jean Dry Lake, offroad to the backside of the Primm developed area for fuel, and to find the start of the next trail I picked up from the excellent Massey Trail Guide book.
Backside of Primm
Documented start of trail closed off by new water treatment catch basin. Went around.
The offroad trail to historic Nipton paralleled the RR tracks, with numerous overpasses over the many washes. This is a tall one you can drive through. As it turns out, most of them are shorter, and can thwart you if you depend on getting to the other side of the tracks.
You really can't safely cross the tracks without using bridging ladders, even if you're at the same grade level.
Got into Mojave National Preserve, went past the New York Mountains, and poked around for a bit and looked at the Hole In The Wall campground. I think it was $10 a night ($5 for my Golden Pass) but all it offered was pit toilets and nice picnic tables. Not really interested. Found the escarpment the region was named for on a back trail
Looking for a quicker way downhill back to pavement, I took the very interesting Macedonia Canyon Road.
There was a clue in the appearance of the wash, but I failed to pick up the significance at the time. The clue was that there had been significant recent rain. Rain washes things like sand DOWN the washes. The lowest spot of the wash at the end of Macedonia Canyon went UNDER the RR track and the pavement I wanted to get to was 30 feet on the FAR side of the underpass. Rats.
Not feeling up to the work of digging for 2-3 hours to clear out the wash, I decided to head north and south along the tracks, looking for a taller underpass. Struck out on that idea. You can see the attempts on the topo tracks.
Back uphill around sunset, discouraged and annoyed at the Park Service for failing to put up a sign at the TOP of the canyon.
As the sun was abruptly down as I got back near the Hole In The Wall campground, a ranger drove by. Since I was the only one out there, we stopped to talk. I expressed my annoyance at the lack of warning sign that would have been so easy to put up. He said it was only his second day back on duty there after being in another park all summer, and he's take it to the park superintendant. 30 seconds after he drove off over the rise, I heard a hissing and realized I had a sidewall puncture on the passenger's front tire. Double rats.
Whipped out the plug kit (you ALL have plug kits within easy reach?) because if you catch a slow leak quickly, you don't even have to pump it up from being fully flat. This was about a 3/8" long slice - and the location was such that the tire was toast. But would the plug hold and get me back to pavement?
Turns out after 15 minutes letting the rubber cement set up, it WAS holding pressure. At least 18 PSI. I was tired, it was two days before the new moon, that part of Mojave has NO street lights for 20-30 miles around, I had my Hilift and a bottle jack, but I have a policy of not using the Hilift alone and in the dark unless it's a screaming urgent situation that I have to change the tire before daylight. So I wussed out, which is difficult to admit, and limped to pavement at 15 MPH, and then limped on pavement at 20 MPH to get to Interstate 40 at an exit with NO services but cell coverage at least. Then I used the Android app to call AAA for a tire change, and they had to send someone from Needles, almost 50 miles away but that's what they get paid for, and I just waited on the dark and moonless road for a while and read. The guy came, turns out he was an offroader who had seen what a runaway Hilift handle could do to a skull, and he totally supported my decision to wait for a younger and stronger dude with a floor jack to change my 90 pound tire. On the road again, with any more offroading cancelled due to my no longer having a spare or a buddy truck, I drove downhill on I-40 until getting to Barstow .... a more wretched hive of scum and villainy you will never see. Chose a clean motel in a rare safe-looking part of town, and crawled into bed at 2AM.
Drove home the next day and stopped into the March AFB museum that I had been meaning to visit for the last ten years, and was never driving past when it was open and had the time for a visit. Saw the extremely rare Lockheed D21 drone that was intended to fly off the back of the M21 drone carrier, a variant of the A12 that looked very much like its successor the SR71 Blackbird that everybody can recognize instantly. I had only seen a D21 twice before out of 11 on display worldwide (Evergreen Museum in McMinnville, OR and the Air Force Museum in Dayton), and I'm an air and space museum nut. I guess I should make seeing all the surviving D21s in the world a bucket list item.
End of report. Let the questions begin!
Can't wait for all the details. I was recently out there and the mountains were calling my name too... just didn't have the truck with me.
I also forgot the Jiffy Pop.
i'm headed back west.
