NextStepDesigns

On a beautiful weekend in mid-March 2009, my 7 year old daughter Megan and I (along with a small group from MJR) took our Land Rover LR3 on the famous Old Mojave Road. Using Dennis Casebier’s wonderful and educational trail guide, we set out on our grand adventure. Unlike most modern trail books, this one purposefully does not use GPS coordinates. Instead, this book navigates you through history, referencing key landmarks and a system of rock cairns along the trail to lead the way. I love it!

We started on Friday morning at the bank of the Colorado River, where we grabbed a souvenir rock from the waterline that will be used later in the trip. From there, we headed west towards Picture Canyon. In modern times, the trail goes around Picture Canyon, but we had a chance to walk down it from the top, and it looks like it would be a lot of fun in the right rock buggy. BLM has closed it however, for reasons unknown…probably to preserve the petroglyphs found there (thus the “pictures” in Picture Canyon), but who really knows? From there, we made our way to the Nevada/California state line, in a lush green desert and granite boulder environment. We crossed US Highway 95, and continued west to Fort Piute, where we found quite a few well preserved ancient Indian petroglyphs just a short walking distance from the ruins of the old Army fort. From there, we went westward through ever changing desert environments, with clear distinctions between one zone and the next. Along the way, we stopped at the Old Bus, the Railroad monument, the Penny Can, Camp Rock Springs, and Government Hole(s), which is a still-functioning well. Nearby, is an excellent campsite called Mid Hills. A fire went through this area in 2000, and 9 years later things haven’t improved much, though you can no longer smell the burn. The front part of Mid Hills campsite is rather stark and burnt out, but the back end is fantastic, with green Juniper Pines all around, and clean vault restrooms and potable water.

The next day we made our way down to Hole-In-The-Rock, and enjoyed the unique rock formations and of course, climbing the rings! From there, we continued west towards Marl Springs and enjoyed the view of Kelso Dunes in the distance. We paid our visit at the mailbox (and frog garden?), then explored the fascinating Lava Tubes near the “recently” volcanically active area of cinder cones and lava flows. The Lava Tubes were a highlight of the trip. The short crawl on your hands and knees through the pitch black cavern is well worth it. I recommend getting there in mid-afternoon for the best sunbeam action. After the Lava Tubes, we enjoyed a fun trek through the soft sands of Willow Wash, and made our camp at the base of Little Cow Hole Mtn, forever known now as Raspberry Flats (you had to be there!).

Sunday we immediately headed out across Soda Lake to Traveler’s Monument, where we contributed our rock from the Colorado River. After crossing Soda Lake without incident, we entered the dry and wonderfully sandy wash of the Mojave River. As we neared Afton Canyon, we encountered a small rivelet of water that was fun to play in, and then made it through the deeper river crossing and stopped for lunch at the nearby campsite. At this point, most people rejoin the 15 highway, but we opted to continue west between the banks of the Mojave River, following the old route of the Mojave Road. This was miles and miles of flat, wide, sand dunes, and excellent fun! The trail ended a few miles east of Yermo, where we aired up and parted ways, with a few of us stopping at Peggy Sue’s for milkshakes before driving back to Los Angeles. A total of 170 miles of off pavement driving, following a 150 year old wagon trail. I love California!

Photos: 96 images on SmugMug

The first weekend of February 2009, six hardy adventurers and their friends and family set out on the historic Bradshaw Trail.  The trail was created in 1862 by William Bradshaw following an old Chumash Indian route through the southern desertland of the Chuckwalla Mountains.  The Bradshaw Trail was established as a “shortcut” for miners and prospectors from Los Angles who were racing to La Paz, Arizona upon the discovery of gold.  Around 1877, the gold in La Paz panned out, and the trail fell into disuse, but for reasons unknown, the BLM maintains it to this day and it is in excellent shape.

The members of Expedition Portal came from far and wide, braving the local rains and threatening forecast, and met at the truck stop in Mecca, CA along the northern shoreline of the Salton Sea.  The trail started out a bit damp and under heavy clouds as we followed along Coachella Canal, but we enjoyed the unique vistas and experience of driving along the aquaduct.  We all felt a bit like Hugh Hauser.  We soon reached the actual trailhead, and started heading east.  A few miles into the trail, we came across a few motorcyclists standing a short distance off the trail.  As I rolled up, I asked my typical, “Everything okay?” and got a very non-typical, “No.  A rider took a bad fall.  We think he’s hurt pretty bad.”

We jumped out and I went through my memory trying hard to recall all that I learned in my recent Wilderness First Aid class.  Two the riders in particular, Jake and Henry, were really on top of things and in control. Henry appeared to have had the same training and was able to answer knowledgeably and clearly to my questions and quickly satisfied me that he knew what he was doing.  We contributed ice and stabilizing collars from our kits, and after a short conference, we all agreed that the fallen rider was going to need to ride a backboard out.  Fortunately, the fallen rider was equipped with his own SPOT tracker, which was called into action.  About 90 minutes later, a Sheriff’s plane started circling the area, acting as a radio relay to an incoming helicopter, two fire trucks, a 4wd police truck and an ambulance, which all arrived about the same time (under 2 hours).  Jake was able to get cell connection and was in contact with the fallen rider’s wife, and was doing an awesome job relaying critical info to the rescue team and to the wife.  Henry maintained involvement with the patient until he was secured onboard the helio and flown out.  I was really impressed with their actions.  I didn’t find out until a little later that weren’t even with the group of riders that had the injured rider.  Way cool. And everyone involved was convinced that they needed a SPOT tracker for their own kit.

After the helio left, we resumed our eastward trek and quickly reached the iconic Trestle bridge, where we stopped for photos and lunch.  Then we made our way towards Red Canyon.  There are two canyons labeled as Red Canyon.  The westernmost canyon is incredibly beautiful, but does not go through.  It is only a few miles long before the canyon closes up and becomes intraversable.  We then moved east and found the proper Red Canyon rim route,  and drove northward 4 or 5 miles of breathtaking scenery.  It looked like nothing else I could have expected in the desert.  It was red and green with rolling hills and powerfully reminded me of Utah.  Simply stunning area.

We returned to the Bradshaw Trail, and continued east, following the border of a military Bomb Testing range.  After a miles and miles of caution signs, we found a lone bomb laying on the side of the trail.  Shortly thereafter, we found a pile of them.  Apparently dummy test rounds filled with concrete, air dropped a bit shy of the target is our guess.  The kids thought that was super cool.  “Dad, I can’t wait to tell the kids at school that I jumped up and down on a bunch of bombs!”

We then came across a side trail named Dupont Road, that looked like it headed into the nearby Chuckwalla Moutains and might offer shelter from any wind or storms.  We found a great little camp site in a sandy wash that showed no recent evidence of flow despite the puddles of water we had been traversing all day long.  We made this our campsite, had a nice dinner and campfire, and made a manly effort to stay awake the longest.  I think by 8pm we were all in our tents!

Despite threatening clouds all around us, it rained only a little bit that night and nothing came of it.  We were greeted by a spectacular sunrise, and an amazingly vibrant desert landscape.  Though we had no decent maps of Dupont Road, we elected to adventure on and see where it led.  What a beautiful trail!  Ultimately, we determined that the trail would take us north and away from the Bradshaw trail, so we backtracked up out of the wash onto the plains of Bradshaw Trail.  We then discovered that John’s leaf spring on his trailer had broken, so we came up with an organic solution that proved to be remarkably effective, allowing him to continue on with the rest of the group.

We made great time from Dupont Road towards Wiley’s Well campground.  The scenery along the Bradshaw Trail is spectacular, and the road itself is amazing.  It was recently graded and in fantastic shape.  It was one of the more pleasurable drives I’ve ever experienced.

At Wiley’s we turned south and headed for the Hauser Geode Beds, where we met one of the desert’s colorful treasures, Mr. Kim Jensen, and explored his collection of geodes and other rare rocks and minerals while enjoying his many tales and colorful personality.

Evening was drawing near, and most of us needed to work the next day, so we said our goodbyes and headed north towards the 10 freeway, and then the long drive home.  All told, it was about 130 miles off pavement in beautiful country with great weather and wonderful companions.

Thanks ExPo!

Photos:  69 images on SmugMug

Saturday’s run to Nightmare Gulch in Red Rock Canyon was terrific event.  We had a huge turnout for this challenging run, 15 trucks total.  Most of the participants were members that I had met on the past few Cleghorn “New Member Orientation” runs and other recent events.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Our new members are really great, passionate people and I look forward to watching them help shape the future of the club.

Here is a link to the photos (41 images on SmugMug)

I knew it was going to be a great day as soon as we got out of LA.  It rained solid from Orange County to Valencia, but as we passed through Lancaster, the clouds disappeared, the sun came out, and Mojave unfolded before us in beautiful color and amazing clarity.  I have never seen Mojave look more beautiful.

The next pleasant surprise was that everyone got to the staging area at Jawbone Station on time!  We left promptly at 10 after a bit of preamble and pep-talk, where we went over spotting do’s and don’ts, TreadLightly parameters, etc..  We regrouped at the Nightmare Gulch trail head, aired down, and hit the dirt at 10:30.  As soon as we got the mouth of the Canyon, we ran into a few other groups of off roaders.  Since we were such a large group, I elected to let them through.  In order for us to make room, we had Rovers stashed into every nook and cranny of that tight part of the canyon.  It was chaos, but pretty cool at the same time.

As a side note to future trip leaders, I was greatly assisted by having some of our more experienced members to the rear of the group.   Without them (Frank, Conal, Steve), I would have had a difficult time running such a large group.  Because of how long our truck line was, it was essential to be able to hand off spotting duties for the last few trucks to these veterans, while I scrambled back up to the front to get the head moving again.  Thanks guys!  You made my day much easier!

Our group was making good time and was really working together well.  I was impressed at how smoothly everyone stepped in to help each other and keep up a playful banter throughout the day.  We made it to the water crossing, which to our surprise was totally dry, but made for a great lunch spot.  We then promptly made it the Exit Hill spot about at 1:30pm.  In fact, we made it so fast, Frank Buddenbrock, who’d done this trail a dozen times or more, completely missed it, thinking we hadn’t gone far enough yet

As promised, we pressed on and continued for the far end of the full Nightmare Gulch trail.  I’m reasonably sure we are the first big group of Rovers to ever attempt it.  It did not disappoint!

The second half of Nightmare is spectacular, with tight canyons and tighter “pinch rocks” throughout.  These spots are made even more interesting by low overhangs that restrict the line you can take to make it through the pinch rocks.  And there are a couple of ledges that you have to climb up.  The largest ledge is about 24” tall, and is tilted, with the passenger side being the high side, and the lower drivers side closed in by 75 foot tall wall of rock.

I made it up, then my friend Chris, and then Tawfik made his approach as I was running back to help.  He got his rear wheels up, and I just had time to yell, Look at your Side! When his street tires slid laterally and his LR3 slid into the rock wall, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of glass breaking.

This was a tough spot.  He wasn’t stuck, but he could not move forward or backward without thrashing his sheet metal.  Because of the narrow canyon, and the tilted slab of rock he was on, there was no easy way to rig a winch, pulley, or towline to get him away from the rock wall safely.  Then the magic of traveling in a group kicked in and we had lots of help and lots of great ideas.  Scott happened to have a brand new hand winch/come-along tool that looks awesome and works great.  We put a strap on Tawfit from the front the next car up in the line to prevent him from rolling back.  Then we pulled Kep’s truck up as close as possible and then use the come-along to pull Tawfik sideways a bit as 5 or 6 guys heaved on his truck and moved it a few feet over, enough the clear the obstacle and let him drive through.

It took a bit of time, but it was an awesome experience.  The group worked together superbly, with everyone being a part of its success.  I was really impressed.  I did very little other than keep an eye on safety and communicate with Tawfik, who remained cool and in good humor throughout.  Before I could suggest it, Mark and others had a bag out and were collecting the shards of glass to leave no trash on the trail.  Awesome.

While waiting for the rest of the group to make their way over the ledge, a few of us found a cool little slot canyon carved into the canyon walls.  Not sure how far it went, but the first hundred feet or so were pretty cool!

After that, we exited the canyon without any other adventures, but enjoying the transition of the geology as we reached Opal Canyon.  There we stopped for a group photo and I pointed out a few opal stones laying about that gave this spot its name.  At that point we were essentially only at the halfway point of the trip. It was 4:30 and rapidly getting dark.  I asked the group if anyone needed to head out for home because it was promising to be a late night.  Though I should have expected it by now with this terrific group, everyone one of them said that they wanted to keep going, and the prospect of a night run sounded great.  Awesome!

We dropped down into Last Chance Canyon at Camp Cudahy, talked a bit about the local history, then headed down into the wash, which, unlike Nightmare, had flowing water and offered a bit of fun.  Not far from the rock garden, we met an older couple in an XTerra coming up the canyon, who asked if we knew the way out!  They had gone down first, saw the rocks, and turned back, but had already spent most of the day looking for the exit and were a bit anxious.  I handed them a radio and invited them to join our group, and we got them out safely.

Last Chance proved to be more difficult than anticipated.  Apparently there had been several large groups of Jeeps through it that day (over 80 rigs from one report), and it was TORN UP!  Rocks every where.  It scarcely resembled the trail I had pre-run the weekend before.  However, we made it through in good shape, though the temps started to drop and our aired down tires got a little squishy.  Frank managed to unseat the bead on one tire, but quickly changed it and we made our way on.

We ended the trip in good spirits, round about 7:30pm or so.  Everyone aired up and made for home, with some stopping in Mojave to grab some dinner before the journey back.

I had a great time, and Wow was I tired at the end of the day.  Thanks everyone!

As we do several times every year, SCLR hosted a New Member Orientation run at the scenic Cleghorn Trail.  This fall’s trail run was a lot of fun. We had 18 new members explore the scenic Cleghorn Trail, many of them venturing off road for the very first time!  Everyone did great and made it though with big smiles all around.  The weather was superb, and there were some fun action shots too!  Thanks everybody!

Photos from Cleghorn Ridge: 35 images on SmugMug

I recently led an SCLR trip up to Papoose Flats in the Inyo Mountains, just east of Big Pine, CA. We started the trip up the 395 by stopping at Fossil Falls to climb the lava flows, then we had fun driving up into the caldera of the Red Cone volcano. I love the geology of the 395 highway! We stopped in Olancha at the Roadhouse Café and had an awesome breakfast around 10am, then rolled into Big Pine right at noon and met up with the rest of the SCLR gang. We had a diverse group, from founding members, to the two newest families in the club. 10 trucks in all.

We headed up Harkness Flat, which climbs from around 6,000 feet up to 8,500 feet, and offers terrific views to the west of the Sierra Mountains. The trail is moderate, with one decently steep hill climb that posed some problems for my traction challenged friend in a 2wd Toyota Tacoma. We strapped him up and easily pulled him to the top, and the rest of the journey was uneventful. After about an hour and half of beautiful scenery on the trail, we started to drop down into Papoose Flats.

Papoose Flats is amazing. Immediately a sense of reverence is felt as you descend into the valley. It is a very special place. Everyone could feel it. Many people remarked out loud, that no matter what happened the rest of the trip, just absorbing the views and sense of the place was worth the journey.

With a large group, our camping options were limited, so after hunting around a bit, we found a good spot upslope offering dispersed camping among some trees, and a centralized fire ring. After camp was struck, and people had some food, a small group headed out to explore a trail marked on the map as “The Narrows”. We figured we’d be gone for about an hour.

We were wrong! The Narrows is a loonnngggg trail, taking use along the eastern side of the mountains, all the way back towards Death Valley Road again. It’s an interesting trail, portions of it along a sandy dry creek towards an old mining cabin and mine entrance. Here and there, trail heads were marked out as closed, due to “Cultural and Historic Significance”, assuming they led to Indian artifacts or points of interest. It annoys me to no end that this history is denied to our children now, for the sake of some future generation?

Anyway, my little group of intrepid explorers eventually found ourselves back in camp well after nightfall, with a warm campfire, clear skies, amazing stars, perfect evening temperatures and a healthy appetite!

Sunday we woke up to a significant increase of haze due to the fires to the north, and the Santa Barbara “gap” fire to the southwest. Several of our group went to explore the Narrows in the daylight, while the rest of us leisurely broke camp, cleaned up the area, and then headed down to the jumble rocks to let the kids play. The rocks were a big hit, with all the kids scrambling all over, giving the parents a proper worry for their safety.

Our group rejoined, and we headed south over Badger Flats, again pulling the Tacoma here and there, as we climbed up past ancient Bristlecones and knotty Pinyon pine trees along the rocky trail. We reached Mazourka Peak in time for a late lunch, and absorbed the views from 9,350 feet. The haze was still prevalent, but you could still see a remarkable distance. A truly beautiful spot.

We then dropped down into Mazourka Canyon, watching the temps climb from a pleasant 70 up to what felt like 100 degrees towards the bottom of the canyon. Along the way, I spotted dozens of mines dotting the canyon. This is a well worked area of the Inyos for sure. I’d like to explore the mining history in this area more thoroughly in the future.

Photos of Papoose Flats (and Fossil Falls): 44 images on SmugMug

I had the pleasure of running the Gold Mountain and John Bull trails TWICE in the past 7 days.  These trails are located on the east side of Big Bear Lake in SoCal.  The first trip was with fellow SCLR buddies Matt Norton (DiscoII) and Steve Perry (D90).  I had so much fun, I just had to go again!  The second time was just the Woods Family, and we used it as a chance for Marni to get more familar with just how amazingly well the Jeep handles the rougher trails.

SCLR run (30 images on SmugMug)

Woods Family run (25 images on SmugMug) 

As we do several times every year, SCLR hosted a New Member Orientation run at the scenic Cleghorn Trail.  This spring’s trail run was a lot of fun. We had 16 new members explore the scenic Cleghorn Trail, many of them venturing off road for the very first time!  Everyone did great and made it though with big smiles all around.

Photos on SmugMug (37 images):

My family and I are headed off to explore the slot canyons and Anasazi cliff dwellings of southern Utah.
Lots of photos and full write-ups upon our return.

Wow, what an interesting day!

We had a great turnout, with somewhere around 24 trucks and about 50 people in attendance. It was a bit chilly (42 degrees, plus a north wind), so we kept the “classroom” session a brief as possible. I hope the participants who are new to off roading take the opportunity of this club and this forum to ask as many questions as the need to fill in the gaps of what I left out.

Special thanks to Scott Brady of Overland Journal and Adam Spiker from OffRoving.com for magazine donations. Each participant received a free premier issue of Overland Journal and the hot of the presses copy of Land Rover Lifestyle Magazine. Thanks guys!

After the abbreviated speech, we initially divided up into three groups and gratefully jumped into our warm trucks and hit the road. We quickly reached snow line which was all the way down to 3,000 feet, and then we took the first offshoot. Unexpectedly, the soil had turned to amazingly greasy mud! The rain had no effect on the soil as predicted, but I was completely unprepared for the effect the melting snow would have on the frozen dirt. It turned the top few inches of trail into tractionless mud that had the exact consistency of a tub of Crisco food shortening!

Many of the trucks with street tires struggled to make it up the very first offshoot, and then as the lead, I felt the next offshoot was too steep and muddy, so I tried the road instead. It was so muddy and slippery that I had great difficulty making it up, despite aggressive tires and the LR3’s traction control.

With the difficulties we had on this first section of the trail, I was very concerned about the remainder of the trail with it’s higher elevation and increased snow. We had not even gone half a mile, and we had 15 more miles to go! I made the uncomfortable decision to recommended to those with street tires that they should turn back and head home. As those 5 or 6 street tire equipped Rovers played slip and slide rounding the turn at the bottom of the first hill, a few stalwart drivers opted to see how much farther up the trail they could go.

15 drivers made it up that that next bit of muddy road, and eventually the trail conditions improved. Three of those who initially turned back changed their mind, and decided to try their luck and rejoin us. Fortunately, after so many trucks made their way up the road, the muddy area actually improved and they all made it up okay.

That meant we had 18 trucks all grouped together into one fun pack of Rovers.

The weather changed quite a bit throughout the trail. Relatively warm and sunny in areas, cold and windy in others. It even snowed a bit at one point! The trail itself was fine once we got to higher elevations. Every single off shoot proved to be drivable, and we all had a great time.

As trail leader/scout, I didn’t have the opportunity to take many photos, but I posted a few online here:
http://nwoods.smugmug.com/gallery/3971504#230831086

Thanks everyone for coming out to play with us! It was great to meet many of the wives and children that attended this event. I am very sorry about the unexpected complications with the mud for those that needed to turn back. Please come out again with us. We have several trips coming up soon, including Santa Barbara and Glamis dunes in January, and Cleghorn again in February.

SCLR had a very successful run through Nightmare Gulch last weekend. The first day we had at least 22 Land Rovers of all vintages, from a Series III to a new Supercharged Range Rover Sport. The trail was fun and incredibly scenic, as always. The last hill proved to be a good challenge for all, though all but a few made it up on their own. I’m happy to say that all the modern LR3 and RRS’s made it up on their own this time, unlike our pre-run just a few short weeks ago.

Those that opted to stay overnight experienced a fun nightrun towards Bickle Camp, where we had a fantastic Thanksgiving feast, complete with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie! Huge thanks to Trail Leader Chris for organizing that terrific potluck dinner!

The second day a much smaller group made its way south east, into the Red Rock Butte area slated for closure next year. After a few fun hill climbs and exploring the mines, we dropped down into Last Chance Canyon, had a pleasant lunch at Camp Cudehay (sp?), and worked our way through the rocks of Last Chance Canyon. It was another terrific weekend in the Red Rock Canyon state park. Thanks SCLR!

SCLR - Nightmare & Last Chance photos (58 images on SmugMug)