Mojave National Preserve: Turkey Trek 2.0

Hi TW,

Just wanted to post a quick recap of a trip over the Thanksgiving weekend with a couple of buddies. We were going to tow my friend's CJ-5 out there, but he still has some stuff to sort out on it before it's ready. So we all jammed into Phoebe, my '12 OR. She is all stock except for a set of +1 BFG KO2s (265/75/16) which I am very impressed with (though maybe not the hit in mileage). We roamed around the Providence mountains, checking out abandoned mines and ancient petroglyphs. It got EXTREMELY cold at night, below freezing (any water left outside froze, along with with water in the cooler).We didn't do anything too technical, which will be my policy for one-rig excursions. But we had a blast.

Here's a map of our route and sites, which we traveled counter-clockwise. Blue is improved road, green is 4x4 out, red is 4x4 back, and orange is on foot.

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=z40dXxeru-WY.kxMfGttq9nwE











More photos in the album here: And finally, a time-lapse I shot with my phone and a little magnetic tripod:


Let me know if you have any tips on this area! We only explored one corner of it. It was beautiful, and I can't wait to see what else is out there.

 

Awesome man! The Preserve is one of my go to hunt spots! There are some fun trails out there

 

Very cool! Are any of the trails marked? Did you use GPS to find route?

 

Only the main and improved roads were marked with signs (Hidden Hills Rd, Essex, Ranch Rd, Wild Horse Rd, Macedonia Cyn). Everything else was "Hey there's a trail!".

We used a combination of things to figure out our route. First, Google maps (earth view) to plan some basic routes and points of interest (you can see all sorts of stuff show up on the earth view, really easy to see mine tailings). Second, a big printed map of the MNP that we took with us (most important). This includes all of the improved roads (graded dirt) and some of the mine trails (4x4), though there were a few not on the printed map. Some of the 4x4 trails were worse than others, and we had to turn around if they got too washed out or overgrown. Third, I cached the area on my phone in Maps, but ended up not looking at it very much. Finally, I used My Maps on Google to recreate our route https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=z40dXxeru-WY.kxMfGttq9nwE. We really just took a slow, exploratory route to look for cool stuff. Our route changed based on what looked interesting.

Out of everything, I really recommend the Bonanza King Mine and nearby Providence town. There's a nice sign for turning off from Ranch Rd, and the trail is decently technical. We tried a few other routes but had to turn around due to washout, so I recommend Ranch Rd to the fork. Lots of ruins still left up there, and a mine adit so large that I could pull the truck inside for that cool photo. There was also a huge vertical shaft mine that was at least several hundred feet deep. We kept dropping rocks into it and they fell for about 30 seconds (boom... boom... BOOM... boom...).

 

Thanks for the info! You inspired me to keep maps/more pictures of my trips and share them(I take pictures of the BLM trail markers when able) most of my adventures are off the 15 north of Barstow and north up the 395 and mostly all on unmarked trails, its some of the best wheeling camping trips. I have not ventured out to the Mojave Preserve yet but sounds like a great trip for the new year. Thanks again for sharing

 

For sure man! I love traveling up the 395 too. Mostly to go boarding in Mammoth, but I want to do more trails up that way as well. We may do Mazourka Canyon soon.

Here's our Turkey Trek last year, went into the Panamint Mountains and popped out in Olancha. Super fun trip as well.

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