AdventureTaco - turbodb's build and adventures

You were so close to the so-called "Phallus Camp" in the New York Mountains - very much like that Easter Island rock but a bit more "dickish.". Did you stop in to satisfy your juvenile need to laugh at dick jokes? Well...I still have that bit of juvenile humor in me ;-)

 

Can you recommend a good book for reading about the history of the Mojave Preserve that includes stuff about the ghost towns and mines? I remember you mentioning one before but I can't find it for the life of me. I love your trip reports! The Mojave Road is on my bucket list for 2020 and I know I'm gonna spend at least a month or two doing research and planning

 

Thank you! (about the trip report)

I do have some tips and tricks for the Exped. Actually, I've got a full post coming up in a week or so. OK to wait for that, or do you have an immediate trip coming up?

Didn't even know about it - but there are tons of granite hoo-doos in the area, so I can imagine that there would be one, hahahaha.

I think I mention one (the same one) in just about every post of this trip report so far .

 

Fantastic. Next trip isn't until the end of February, so I'll wait til you put out the post. Thanks for responding.

 

Is it the Hiking the Mojave Desert book? I thought it was a different one, the "hiking" part threw me off! Thank you

 

Mojave Redemption #6 - Blue Rocks and a Dozen Cabins

We had mostly clear skies and a it of breeze when we awoke in the morning. Our spot on the alluvial fan had worked out great, though not quite as remote as it appeared - the Morning Star Mine Road below us was significantly busier than we'd expected.

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The sun out, nothing about the morning seemed out of the ordinary as we got breakfast underway and broke down the tent. It was only when we went to latch the swing-outs closed that we discovered something was amiss.

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The u-bolt on the latch had broken, and no longer secured the swing-outs. we were lucky to have caught it before the entire latch failed, and as soon as we did, I knew we'd found the source of a rattling I'd heard since lunch time the previous day. At the time, I'd thought it was either the shovel, our water Jerry can, or the skid plate. I'd checked the bolts of the skid, and rearranged the bed in order to address the issue, and ultimately chalked the continued rattle up to things simply bouncing in the bed.

After a bit of thought, I realized that I could solve the problem - temporarily - by through-bolting the swing-outs together. This was only possible since I'd drilled a hole to do exactly this when at home - the latch for the swing-outs resulting in the truck being a bit too long to allow the garage door to close. (Yes, it's that close!) So I fished an M8 bolt and the requisite washers out of the OSK, and secured the swing-outs. It'd be inconvenient every time we needed to get into the bed, but it'd allow us to complete the trip.

More on this to follow in the trips Rig Review (which I'll post in a few days - sign up here if you don't want to miss it).

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Our first stop for the morning was just a few more miles up the road we'd camped on, at the New Trail Mine. Really the access point to several mines, we climbed the rest of way to the base of the Ivanpah Mountains and started our exploration with the investigation of a couple cabins and work shed at the old mine camp.

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These cabins were in reasonably good condition, and after poking around a bit and doing our best to untangle the flag hanging from the shed, we pushed forward. This camp sits at the base of New Trail Canyon, and our goal for the morning was to tackle a 3-mile loop hike to the top - in the snow the entire time - exploring several old mines along the way.

Almost immediately @mrs.turbodb found this amazing blue and green rock. Green copper patina we are familiar with, but neither of us had ever seen anything like the blue before in our lives!

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The earliest mine here was the Bullion Mine - worked initially in the 1860's it produced silver-lead combo so valuable that the ore itself was shipped halfway around the world - to Wales - for processing. Its tunnels were worked for many decades - even as late as 1917 - continuing to produce lead-copper-silver ore the entire time. Up a couple of adjoining side canyons, our first stop was a large shaft at the end of a steep access road. It provided splendid views back down the canyon, but no real chance for exploration - a thick metal grate placed securely across our way.

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It was at this point that we made a navigational error. We thought the main shaft for the Bullion Mine was further up the same - very steep and snow covered - wash that passed the tunnel we'd found, but after climbing to the top, we realized that it was actually in the adjoining canyon! You win some, you lose some!

So, we headed back down and made our way to the next side canyon and wash. Even with snow covering much of the ground, we immediately we knew we were in the right place - concrete foundations, a large yellow metallic tipple, the remains of an old rusty trailer and loading dock, and a cableway leading to the mine shaft we thought we were climbing to, all there for our viewing pleasure. It all seemed very close to the bottom of the wash from our perspective - an indication that water flow through this area must have been reasonably low for a very long time.

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This trailer is the converted bed of a pickup - little has changed in the last 150 years!​

From the Bullion Mine, the hike up the New Trail Canyon wash really picked up. The wash itself transforms here from a wide sandy stroll, to a steep, rocky climb. Not that it bothered us - quite the contrary, it provided tons of visual interest and fun scrambles up old dry falls.

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As we progressed, we - and especially @mrs.turbodb - were stopping frequently to admire the plethora of minerals that were present along the way. Clearly, this area was rich in copper, though its concentration here is surely increased by the dozens of tailings piles along the sides of the wash. When we stumbled upon these two large blue and green specimens, there was no way we were going to pass by without a photo.

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Eventually we reached the head of the wash - still several hundred feet below a large tailings pile from the Revenue Copper Mine - and made a final push up the side of the canyon to reach its diggings.

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The views from the top were splendiferous, and - I imagine - reasonably uncommon due to the recent weather. It'd been quite a climb to get to where we were, but it had definitely been worth it - and we still had the return trip to go!

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Before heading down, we took several minutes to climb around and look at the various mine shafts here - there were three of them, all uncovered given the relative difficulty of reaching them, and all of them were taking on water as the snow around them melted - the sound of it cascading down the walls seeming to go on forever. If exploring lost mines is your thing, walking up to the Revenue Copper Mine is high on my list of "worth it."

The climb now behind us, we headed back - but not the way we'd come. Instead of hiking down the wash in New Trail Canyon, we made our way down the old New Trail Mine Road. This would afford us the amazing valley views nearly the entire way, in addition to taking us by several more workings of the New Trail Mine, including a relatively intact headframe and a door into the mountainside that was inaccessible - due to erosion below it - and thus all-the-more intriguing!

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Looking down on the tailings and headframe of the New Trail Mine.​

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Old headframe at the New Trail Mine.​

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Though you can't see it here, a 50-foot hole blocks the way to this little door, and whatever secrets it holds!​

The New Trail Mine Road eventually intersects the wash again, and we'd strategically parked the Tacoma at that intersection before heading off up the canyon. Back at the truck, and several miles of hiking behind us, we started talking about lunch. It was still a bit early, and @mrs.turbodb and I both had something we wanted to do first - she wanted to look at another of New Trail Mine's shafts, where the material (magnesite) apparently looked like cauliflower, and I wanted to check out a nearby wash where we would apparently find old fossilized sea ripples.

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So that's exactly what we did - both were on the road back out, so we climbed into the truck and had a quick snack to hold us over for the next half hour or so. And that half hour was a huge success.

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A magnesite (magnesium mine) shaft on the New Trail Mine claim.​

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A chunk of magnesite that looks a little like cauliflower.​

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Fossilized sea ripples, from oceans long ago.​

With that, we headed back down the alluvial fan we'd started up the prior evening, the views across the valley as majestic as ever. To make them last a little longer, we decided there was no better place than here to stop in the middle of the road, plop down our chairs, and enjoy lunch. So we did.

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From New Trail Canyon, our next destination was fewer than 5 miles as the crow flies, but our route took us nearly 30 miles - such are the road systems through a wilderness area. It was - as always - no bother to us, and as we made our final turn into *********** on ****************, we were definitely looking forward to what lay ahead.

Note: As you've already noticed, some of the names and locations in this next section are redacted in order to keep them a little more special. They are all accessible to the public, but at the request of - and out of respect for - the custodians, specifics are withheld. If you recognize or discover the locations of these places, please do your part keep them special.

Then - less than a quarter mile up the road - we were stopped in our tracks, literally. There, in front of us was something we were only slightly surprised to see - a rental RV, stuck in the soft sand.

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Turns out the occupants were two couples from Germany, out exploring the American west. They were having a great time, but the snow a few days earlier had thrown a wrench in their plans. Unsure where to go, they'd eventually found this road and the mines to which it led, and decided it'd be fun to check out. However, when their front tires sunk into the sand just beyond the first wash, they'd quickly realized that they weren't in the right vehicle for this outing. They tried to turn around in the wash, and well - that didn't go so well.

Luckily for them, they'd only been stuck for ten minutes when we pulled up, and offered to help. This help was - as you can imagine - extremely graciously accepted, and we got to work assessing the situation.

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In the end, there were really two options - either a tow strap or a winch would likely do the job, and I figured a winch was a little more controlled, and it turned out for me - slightly more accessible, so I pulled out the controller and various rigging bits and got everything set up for a pull.

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Those RVs are heavy beasts, but with the winch sucking juice out of both batteries, and light feathering of the gas in the RV, the Germans were unstuck and on their way less than 10 minutes after we arrived. In all, a huge success!

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Gear stowed, we were on our way once again - climbing in elevation as we made our way into ***********. Before long, the road got rockier and we reached the snow line. Chuckling to ourselves about how out of place the RV would have been here, we eventually reached the first stop on our loop - the ************** Mine. The most extensive mine in this area, miners here worked a 356-foot deep shaft for copper over the course of many generations - evidenced by the construction and detritus left along the road.

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An old dugout at the ************** Mine.​

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Housing or a mine office for later generations of miners.​

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"Of course you want to sit on the 'dozer." -@mrs.turbodb as she rolls her eyes​

Not much further up the road, an old school bus had seen better days. Judging by the wood stove and insulation I found inside, this was likely used as living quarters at one time. Now, the roof could use a little patching, and maybe some new windows.

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From the ************** Mine, the road winds up and down through the ******* Mountains beautifully forrested foothills, made all the more striking with the addition of snow. Just above 5000', we were in a transition zone between high desert and mountains with large Joshua Trees and junipers intermingled across the landscape.

As mines such as the ************** Mine were exhausted, would-be prospectors sometimes moved in to make claims on nearby ground - not so much to mine, but to enjoy free rent on government land - a quiet place to build a cabin and settle down for a while. *********** is just such a place. Hundreds of claims were filed within its small boundary and the road bypasses four of these camps, giving us the opportunity to visit these humble homes of reasonably modern desert hermits.

We first came to **********, where several structures were tied into a couple of RV trailers. It was unclear to me which came first, but the entire group were in state of major disrepair. Holes in the roofs, broken windows, and missing doors meant that both rodents and the weather could have a field day - and they were!

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This camp likely started with the trailer and grew into a more permanent residence.​

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Inside one of the trailers was the most "refined" portion of this camp.​

From **********, our next stop was the aptly named **********. Clearly, this camp was several steps above the first - its residents either better to-do, or simply more caring in their approach to their construction. A large white house was clearly abandoned for decades, but appeared to have been recently cleaned - perhaps the beginning of a restoration project. Nearby, old workshops, cabins, and unused mine equipment had seen better days, though it was clear from their contents that those days weren't all that long in the past.

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The white house; clearly cared for in its heyday, and possibly undergoing restoration.​

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A nice place to have a workshop if you can get it!​

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A retort with a view.​

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Another cabin nearby to the white house, nestled into the crevices of the ******* Mountains.​

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This building is trashed, but with copper piping and a reasonably modern stove, someone may have lived here just a couple decades earlier.​

Continuing along the loop, and without seeing anyone to this point, we were surprised as we pulled up to the next cabin that I'd marked on the map - there were other people here - a full-size Ford F-250 and a Jeep Rubicon were parked out front.

This was **** Cabin, and was the residence of Robert R. ****, who first staked claims here in 1928. He and his descendants continued to live in or visit the cabin for many years, and photos of the cabin over that time attest to its general stability through the generations. Today it turns out that the cabin has been adopted and restored by a gentleman named Dave who just happened to be there with a couple of buddies when we pulled in!

How. Lucky. Were. We?

Three things happened as we pulled in - first, of course, were greetings and the normal "where are you from, and where have you been?" types of questions that go along with any sort of meeting like this out in the wild. Then, it turned out that Dave recognized our license plate cover, and related that he'd recently read our 2018 trip to the Mojave Preserve! (so cool) Lastly - and by far most importantly - Dave gave us a tour of this splendid little cabin that he's put so much work into restoring. As he did, he related the history he's gathered and showed us the improvements he's made - restoring the cabin from a derilick building like the ones we'd seen earlier to one that is now rodent-proof and downright cozy.

We exchanged contact info, and Dave took our picture before sending us on our way to the final cabin in the loop. Dave - if you're reading this, thank you so much for opening your small bit of history to us!

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The last cabin we stopped at, ******* Cabin was - without a doubt - the most extensively restored of the bunch. It was surprising really, to have two restored cabins so close together, but with the beauty of ***********, I can totally understand why people would choose this location.

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Four times the size of the **** Cabin, the interior was well-kept and extraordinarily clean for being in the middle of nowhere. As it was getting on in the afternoon, and feeling a bit like we were intruding on someones residence while they just happened to be "out of the house," our exploration here was quick relative to the prior camps, capped off with a few words added to the guest book.

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I'd be remiss as well if I didn't mention the views. From ******* Cabin, the entirety of *********** opened up to the north, the long rays of the afternoon perhaps the inspiration for the name of this beautiful valley!

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With that, our exploration of *********** was complete - for now. In the future, this will be a great place to come spend more time, perhaps to hike to the crest of the ridge, looking down in all directions as the preserve stretches out in front of us. For now though, as we headed west, the sun low on the horizon, we had one more place to go. If we could make it before sundown.

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Sensitive that we only had a few minutes, I pressed the skinny pedal as the truck skipped over the bumpy road. A left turn here, and a right turn there, and before long the miles separating us from the Evening Star Mine fell away. With mere seconds to spare, we caught the mine's headframe - the best in the preserve - in the longest rays of the day - just as the evening star set below the horizon.

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Mined primaily in the 1940s, the Evening Star Mine produced tin, tungsten, and a little copper. Its headframe - standing at approximately 60' tall even today - is one of the largest historical mining structures in the preserve, and was definitely the largest that we would see on this excursion. The reason for its size was that it performed double duty - both as a headframe and also a mill. Large enough to process 10-15 tons of material per hour, it was likely overbuilt for the land on which it still stands.

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The sun now below the horizon, it was time to find camp. We considered for a moment the possibility of camping here at the Evening Star Mine, but the snow on the ground, and the mountains to the east - which would result in a shady morning - quickly had us searching for lower ground as the orange horizon gleamed before us.

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We decided to head north - back towards the Clark Mountains. The mountains where we'd started our adventure. Where, on our first day in the preserve, we'd been thoroughly trounced.

In the end, we arrived in the dark, part way to our destination. In Valley Wells, I'd marked a spot that turned out to be just perfect as it afforded us both a nice flat place to camp, morning sun, and historical ruins to explore when we awoke. Sometimes, you just get lucky!

As @mrs.turbodb warmed up dinner, I looked back to the south in the direction we'd come. In the distance, I-15, traffic flowing silently through the night, the moon and stars gleaming above.

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On a trip we'd though might last less than a day, we'd eeked out nearly a week. The next day would be our last full day in the preserve, and we had no idea whether it'd be a complete bust or total success.

Like you, we'd just have to wait to find out!

 

Mojave Redemption #7 - Redemption in the Clark Mountains

When I'd marked the spot we camped in Valley Wells, I hadn't really done any research on it. I knew it was on a road that would take us to the Copper World Mine, and I'd seen what looked like some ruins during my route planning in Google Earth, but that was the extent of my research. Shoot, I didn't even know that it was called Valley Wells!

What I did know when we went to bed though was that we were well positioned for a colorful sunrise - if some clouds showed up overnight. Lucky for us, they did, stretched all across the southern horizon and above both the Clark and Ivanpah Mountains.

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I'd been up for 45 minutes or so when the sun finally peaked above the horizon at 7:05am, and I'd waited till then to start exploring the area - my curiosity piqued by the little bit of looking around I'd done during sunrise.

It turns out that Valley Wells is the site of several historically interesting remains, which @mrs.turbodb related to me from Hiking the Mojave Desert. The smelter here was constructed in 1898 to process ore from the Copper World Mine - the next place we planned to go explore!

Today, there are only foundations and a slag pile left over from the smelter that worked from 1899-1904 and 1917-1918, but they are still interesting to explore. The foundations have been vandalized as is often the case with easily accessible locations, though the artwork is eye catching.

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The slag pile on the other hand, looks mostly untouched. Having not read any details about it when we were there, we initially thought it was some sort of volcanic flow, it's surface glossy and glass-like, similar to obsidian. However, it turns out that this is actually a mixture of iron, copper, and calcium silicates that was the "waste" from the smelter. As it was poured, it cooled rapidly into what is essentially a metal-rich glass. If you visit this site, refrain from walking on the slag piles, as their glassy surfaces are very brittle, and doing so destroys them over time.

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The top surface of this slag pile has been ground off, the slag reprocessed decades later when it was discovered to contain between 2 to 10% copper - richer than the original ore from which it was created!​

While in retrospect, the slag pile seems the most interesting part of Valley Wells to me, at the time I was more intrigued by the troglodyte ruins that are visible along the banks of the wash system that weaves its way through the site.

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These dugouts were used by the miners in the Valley Wells community who noticed that the top layer of ground in this area was harder than the layers under it. They then excavated one perfectly rectangular room at a time to create dwellings, many of the rooms containing amenities such as nooks for shelves, and even chimneys. While many are in various states of erosion, they were definitely a cool thing to wonder about as we looked around.

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By 8:15am, we'd completed our exploration - for this trip anyway - of Valley Wells, and were headed east from Valley Wells to the mine from which the vast majority of its copper ore had originated - the Copper World Mine in the southern folds of the Clark Mountains.

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While not a difficult road, we still weren't sure what to expect given we'd be reaching elevations of 5500', but we were relieved to see that the hillsides seemed to be mostly free of snow - or at least deep snow. After about five miles we reached the bottom of the massive pile of tailings - nearly 200 feet tall - which was where the truck would stop and our hike would start.

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The Copper World Mine was the East Mojave's richest copper property, and it's clear with even just a cursory glance that there is a lot of copper still left at this site after it was worked from 1898-1918. To get a closer look - and and because we wanted to do a little exploring of other mining claims on the other side of the ridge - we made our way up the tailings pile as quickly as possible, which is to say slowly given the many stops to check out all the ore.

And then, as we neared the top, all the stops and bits of green we'd seen suddenly seemed like the minor leagues. Here, the entire side of the hill was green, shafts all around indicative of the riches that lay within the mountain. It was stunning.

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A geologist at heart, @mrs.turbodb insisted on a photo in this location. Understandably.​

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While the tailings of the Copper World Mine are obviously still quite evident, unlike other sites where various human debris seems to be scattered across the landscape, there were no buildings or machinery that we could find. We knew however that just on the other side of the ridge - in the next wash over - were the remains of the Copper Commander Mine, so that's where we headed next.

Not as successful as the Copper World Mine, the tailings of the Copper Commander were much smaller and split into four distinct levels leading up the side of the mountain. At the bottom, an old cabin - recently (in the last 6 years) reduced to just a roof when the walls collapsed - an ore chute, and the frame of a collapsed mine shaft dot the landscape. The wood used to build these structures may be crumbling, but judging by the nesting materials inside, they are still providing shelter to many a small animal.

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There's a nice loop hike from the Copper Commander Mine to nearby Pachalka Spring, but that's something we'll have to explore next time - for on this trip we'd planned to head back over the ridge and tailings pile that we'd climbed to get here in order to visit a third copper mine in this area - the Dewey Mine.

The Dewey was on our list because of its relatively unique tram that lowered copper ore nearly 550 feet down the mountain side to a stone loading platform at the end of a steep mountain road. This structure was an engineering marvel at the time, and though the lower half has collapsed, it's easy to see how it made material removal significantly easier for the miners.

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The mine shaft at the top of the Dewey mine is still accessible, and appears to be in reasonably good shape. It's hard to see here, but the ceilings are nearly 12' tall in the lowest areas, and the maze of tunnels here is one of the most complex in the preserve. It, along with several other shafts we'd seen on this trip left me wondering if it might be worthwhile to learn a bit more about exploring these dark wonders - something even fewer people do, and so perhaps even more special.

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With that, we bid farewell to the Copper World Mine area and headed north. Our destination was Alaska Hills - a place I'd planned for us to spend the first night of the trip, when we'd been stopped by snow on our way up to the Colosseum Mine.

To get there, we'd make a clockwise loop up Excelsior Mine Road to a power line road that heads east. All I can say is that this route was torture. I've previously named both Cottonwood Canyon Road, and then Saline Valley Road in Death Valley as the worst washboards ever. Both pale in comparison to the conditions we encountered on the power line road. Even speed wasn't our friend here, and we ultimately decided to air down even further and drive slowly.

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After an excruciating six miles that took upwards of 30 minutes, we were relieved to turn south into Alaska Hills - the uneven rockiness of the Yates Well road a welcome respite from the washboard.

Not to mention the views of the Clark Mountains rising up in front of us. Even if the amount of snow their north slopes still held was a bit... worrisome.

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Before long we arrived at the end of the road and the beginning of what we'd envisioned to be a 4 mile hike. Already at 4600' on the north slope, the snow was 4 inches or more deep as we parked the truck next to the ruins of some old rock buildings. Headed to 5500' up some reasonably steep slopes, we knew there was a good chance that we would be stumped again - just as we'd been on the first day.

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But - we were here, and after a quick lunch we set out. As in Carruthers Canyon, I led the way in my Muck boots, @mrs.turbodb following in the path I plowed. We decided that we'd take the loop I'd put together one destination at a time, starting with the Beatrice Cabin. High up on the hillside of a canyon to the southeast, there is no road that leads to this cabin, which serves as its own landmark from far below.

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The Beatrice Cabin (and mine) at 135mm (~7.5x zoom).​

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And at 250mm (~13.9x zoom).​

With snow depths reaching 12 inches or more in the shadier spots, it was quite the trek to achieve the half-mile and 500 vertical feet to the cabin - taking us nearly 45 minutes! But boy were they worth it -the cabin, its nearby silver mine shaft, and the views were worth every second of the slog.

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Getting closer, the moon setting over the Clark Mountains.​

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The Beatrice Cabin, perched high on the hillside.​

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The Beatrice Silver Mine.​

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Room with a view, from an old window in the Beatrice Cabin.​

From the Beatrice Cabin, we could see that the hike got even trickier. Strong winds had blown snow drifts more than three feet deep. That, in addition to a scramble down a steep tailings pile back into the canyon were enough to give @mrs.turbodb a bit of vertigo, and we decided it was time to turn around and head back the way we'd come. And, while we may not have been 100% successful with our initial loop, I was happy to have reached the cabin - the main reason I'd put the loop together in the first place! Plus, now we have another great reason to return. :biggrin:

Back at the truck, we now had a decision to make - we could either head back out the way we'd come - over the washboard-power-line-road-of-death, or continue south on Yates Well Road. I knew the Yates Well road would eventually - if it were passable - connect to the Colosseum Mine, and we both felt that we needed a bit of redemption in that department, so we decided to give it a shot - after all, the worst that could happen is that we'd have to turn around.

Well, the worst that could happen is that we'd get stuck in the middle of nowhere and die from the cold, but that was unlikely.

With the decision made, we started south!

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There wasn't much to see as we wound our way through Alaska Hills and up a ridge on the north side of Clark Mountain. Or rather - there was a lot to see, but it was all buried under snow as we passed by, and so we'll definitely need to return to this area when we can get out and walk around to explore the mines and cabins that dot the landscape.

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With every mile we ticked off, and every hundred feet of elevation we gained, we looked at each other and smiled - our fingers mentally crossed that we might actually achieve our goal! Turning the final corner and climbing the last 50 feet, we finally made it - we'd reached 5700', one of our highest elevations of the trip - and it was astounding.

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Redemption! We reached the Colosseum Mine that had defeated us a week before!​

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From my research - and the name - I knew that the pit mine would be large, but nothing prepared us for how large it actually was. Worked for many decades, the profitable years for this mine were 1987-1993 when more than $100 million in gold was blasted out of the pit. During this time, it produced nearly 7000 oz. of gold per month, moving over 800,000 tons of material per month to accomplish the task. The operation ran 24 hours a day, and produced more than all the preserves other historic mines combined! (Hiking the Mojave Desert)

It was also - as you can imagine from the photos - cold. Already later in the afternoon, we took that as a hint to snap our photos and make a decision about how we would exit. Once again, we had the choice to return the way we'd come or try something new - the "new" being to continue south, exiting out the road we'd attempted a week earlier. Once again, we choose to push on - hoping that the snow on the south-facing hillsides above the Ivanpah Power Plant would be lessened by now.

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Sure enough, as we made our way down the mountain, the affect of the sun over the previous week became evident. As we passed the location where we previously turned around, there was very little snow left on the trail. It was a good feeling for sure - and by the time we reached the bottom of the road, we were kicking up the first and only dust of the trip - imagine that!

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With the sun nearly set, we knew we weren't going to make it too far before needing to find a place to camp, so we aired up the tires for the last time and set out west on I-15. Our destination - just past Baker - was a town named Zzyzx, it's name chosen so as to be "the last word in health." We'd arrive in the dark, but along the way we were treated to such a show in the sky that we couldn't help but to pull over on the side of the highway - passing motorists likely wondering, "What the heck is that guy doing standing on the roof of his truck?" as I snapped photos of the light show above.

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We'd start our journey home the following day, but not before checking a couple last sights off of our Mojave Preserve bucket list.

 

You totally should! Great time of year to hit that area.

 

Mojave Redemption #8 - Zzyzx, The Last Word - By Design

When we arrived at Zzyzx the previous evening, we’d expected to drive right into the town of the old Mineral Springs and Health Spa - so you can imagine our surprise when we encountered a locked gate across the road. It didn't matter all that much since it was dark and we weren't planning on exploring until the next morning anyway, so we found a campsite that was reasonably private near the base of the Soda Mountains. After our normal routine, found ourselves snoozing through our warmest night of the trip - understandable give our elevation of only 951 feet above sea level!

Morning brought another nice day and a cloudless sky meant I got a few extra minutes of sleep - only jumping out of the tent as the sun crested Cowhole Mountain to our east.

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After a quick breakfast that consumed the last of our milk and cereal (perfect timing) and the breakdown of camp, we retraced our steps to the gate we'd discovered when we arrived the night before. It turns out that while the Zzyzx Mineral Springs and Health Spa has been closed since 1974, the California State University system now manages the land in and around Zzyzx and uses it as their Desert Studies Center. Visitors must park in a nearby lot and are then welcome to walk around the small town - being respectful of its current residents, of course.

The history of the resort is an interesting one. In 1944, Los Angeles radio evangelist Curtis H. Springer decided to make the mineral springs - which had been a common stop for American Indians, Spanish explorers, and even the railroad - into a health resort. As a gimmick to be the last listing in any directory, he and is wife ended up naming it the Zzyzx as it’s "the last word in health," and the last word in the English language. The resort was a huge success, with guests frequenting the “healing waters” and Springer shipping his “medical products” all over the world. (wikipedia, Hiking the Mojave Desert)

Walking through town, the CSU system has done a great job of restoring and maintaining several of the buildings, and it looks like a fabulous place to hang out for a while studying the desert - if only I'd known it existed when I was attending!

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An oasis on the edge of Soda Lake.​

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The main street - Blvd of Dreams and the living quarters for CSU Desert Studies.​

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The healing waters of Lake Tueandae. Now a magnet for all manner of birds and other wildlife.​

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In addition to browsing around the empty streets at this early hour, we had one other task we wanted to accomplish on this - our last morning in the preserve: Hike out to Travelers Monument in the Dry Soda Lake. While this might seem at first to be less glamorous than some of our other explorations, it was in fact quite cool to walk across the lake bed.

Reminiscent of Devils Golf Course in Death Valley, the salty crust was over a foot tall in places, and here - unlike Death Valley - walking is allowed on the lake bed. Naturally, we did our best to stick to existing trails and tire tracks anyway, but it was a special experience to be out there in the middle of it all.

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After a mile or so of hiking, we reached Travelers Monument. It was a place we'd missed the last time we'd run the Old Mojave Road since we'd routed around the muddy lake bed, and it was a fitting place to end this years amazing trip. Looking through dozens of the rocks on the pile left by previous visitors, it was an almost reverent time to see all the travelers who'd been by this very spot.

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Guess you'll just have to visit to see what this says... ​

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Our last destinations now in the books, we headed back to the truck, and out to the highway - mostly satisfied. We'd seen a ton of what the Mojave Preserve had to offer. We'd run into only a few other folks - all great - over the course of the week. And of course, we'd had a great time doing it. Perhaps predictably, my hope that we'd "see it all" was obviously unfulfilled - this place, like so many others we've visited, is full of secrets that could take a lifetime to uncover.

As a matter of fact, just as we were nearing the highway for the long trip home, we spotted a herd of Bighorn Sheep - our first experience seeing them despite having traveled through much of their range. Twice.

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Even this simple encounter was a good reminder to us that this is surely not be the end of our relationship with the Mojave National Preserve. Until next time, get out there and enjoy!

 

Thank you!!!

 

Oh for a second there I thought you were going to show the plaque.

 

Glad you both enjoyed. @theick - for a second there I did, and then was alerted that it's to be kept under wraps

 

Rig Review: Death Valley & Mojave 2019 - What worked and what didn't?
January 4, 2020

Another year of wheeling and camping is in the books. I find myself here writing a rig review as one of 2020's first posts, for the last couple of trips that we took in 2019. By and large, the truck performed well on those trips In Search of Overlooks in Death Valley and though an unexpectedly snowy trip to the Mojave Preserve. There were - as always - a couple things worth calling out - so without further ado, let's get to it!

The Windshield Has Seen Better Days
TL;DR - it's time for a new windshield.

I've had my current windshield for 20 years now. Up until about a year ago, it'd been cracked by a rock only once - and even then, it was minor and easily fixed by one of those chip repair shops. Today, the glass is pitted and glitters in the sun. It has also taken at least four hard hits and on the last trip, a combination of freezing temps and defroster use caused the windshield to expand/contract unevenly, resulting in two of the cracks creeping into and across the driver's field of view. As such, they are finally annoying and I'll have to find somewhere to replace the whole windshield. Not looking forward to that, as I've heard it often results in leaks.

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CBI Rear Bumper Swing-out Latch
TL;DR - The latch broke, and I need a new one. CBI's customer service leaves something (major IMO) to be desired. Destaco (who makes the latch) really stepped up though!

Bit of a rant here, you've been forewarned.

I was seriously surprised when the latch that secures the swing-outs closed on my CBI Outback 1.0 bumper broke in the middle of the trip. The roads in the Mojave Preserve were in such good shape that @mrs.turbodb and I commented on it to each other several times during the trip. But the latch breaking isn't what really got my goat about this experience - rather, it was CBI's handling of it that left a bad taste in my mouth.

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Let me start by saying that CBI has every right to respond the way they did - it's their company and they can run it how they choose. My bumper is over 1 year old, and perhaps things would have been different if it were newer.

At any rate, after the latch broke, I contacted CBI, and asked them if they could send me (for free) a new u-bolt - or even better, two... just so I could have one in my kit in case another one broke on the trail. And I included several photos showing the broken part and how I jerry-rigged the bumper for the remainder of the trip. The response that I got was essentially, "We have those - they are $12.99 each plus tax and shipping; give us a call to order."

Hoping they'd just missed my actual request, I reiterated it to them, adding that it'd be great in the write up of the current trip report and rig review - to be able to relate a totally awesome customer experience with CBI. Still, the response from them was, "No."

A bit frustrated at this point, I asked if they could let me know the part number of the u-bolt, since for such a small part, it might be cheaper to find it locally. The response I got was simply a photo of a number, and a note that said they could find no other information - manufacturer, etc. - about it. Two things about that are crappy - first, they clearly know who made the part because they have to order the parts themselves. Second, the only reason they would have replacement u-bolts (in stock!) is if they are known to break.

At any rate, armed with the part number only, I set about researching swing-out latches on the internet. It took a while, but I eventually stumbled on Destaco - a company that makes the latches - on a Jeep forum, and I was pretty sure that the latch I had was the same as the one I saw on their site. So I sent a similar email to Destaco that I'd originally sent to CBI, along with the same photos. Within hours I had an email from Destaco saying that, "Of course we'll send you two new u-bolts - we're sorry this happened to you."

Now that's a company with some great customer service. They could have easily told me to pound sand and work with CBI, since I've never actually given them any money at all, but they didn't. They recognized that this shouldn't have happened and wanted to make it right. Kudos Destaco!

So, this is the second poor customer experience I've had with CBI - the first being when I initially installed my bumper in their parking lot and they (a) gave me a really hard time for it - as though I was somehow inconveniencing them on a snowy day when no one else was there and (b) several parts - ironically including the Destaco latch - were missing from the bumper, and if I hadn't been installing locally, I would have been totally screwed.

So, does the bumper work well and do I generally like it? Yes. But can I really recommend working with CBI? Ehh, not really. And that's too bad. But hey, there are plenty of other fabricators out there who I've had only great experiences with. Eric @RelentlessFab and Jerry @BAMF come to mind.

Overall Weight of the Tacoma
TL;DR - I've addressed the Tacoma's weight loss as much as I am going to for now.

Look, it's really hard to tell if the various bits of "cutting things off of the Tacoma" that I did for the winter weight loss regime made any difference. I mean, it definitely weighs less, but gas mileage is the same, and the truck doesn't really handle any differently. Why would it when I only removed something like 2% of the overall weight?

Still, it felt good to do what I could, and I'm happy I did it.

Oh, and @mrs.turbodb likes that the kitchen and dry food boxes weigh less now - only a few pounds less, but she can handle them on her own now, when she couldn't before. Success.

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Front ADS Coilover Spherical Bearings (maintenance)
TL;DR - Replacing the spherical bearings, misalignment spacers, and lower shock bolts is done and things are working correctly as far as I can tell.

Not much to say about this one beyond the write-up I did about the install of the new spherical bearings and related components. Tyler at ADS was great to work with - as always - through the entire process, giving me great pricing on the parts, and looking out for me when I mistakenly ordered too many misalignment spacers.

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Seemingly solved from previous Rig Reviews

1. Front ADS Coilover Spherical Bearings (maintenance) - Bearings and spacers are replaced and working great - as noted above.

Unchanged / Still an issue from previous Rig Reviews

There are some things that have been featured in Rig Reviews that are - as yet - unchanged from when I originally reviewed them. Rather than highlight those things again, I'll simply link to them here.

1. The Swing-Out Table - as expected, it was unusable on this trip.
2. The Ham Radio Antenna - continues to have the shortcoming mentioned.
3. Oil Leaking from Transfer Case - I haven't done anything about this yet, though I seem to be getting less leakage.
4. Relentless Skid Plate Attachment - continues to need the modification mentioned.

 

Sucks to hear the CBI customer service is so terrible. I'm not really in the market for a rear bumper despite the fact that I'd like to be. They were one that I would have considered, but as you mentioned...there are other fish in the sea.

Edit: kind of a shame ARB doesn't offer a rear bumper. Their customer service is AWESOME!

 

Sound like your all set, but in a pinch, you can make a functional ubolt by welding some threaded rod together.

My old swingout latch system sucked, and broke ubolts all the time, so I always had a spare.

 

I have always wanted a dual swing out bumper, and CBi was on the list. While I have not purchased any of their items, I have had email correspondence with them that left a bad taste in my mouth, so I passed them by and never looked back.

 

I've had great success the last few years running a 1/4 wave Tram antenna. It performs very well, and its extremely flexible. Maybe something you should consider.

$25 TRAM 140MHz-170MHz + 430MHz-470MHz Dual Band NMO Antenna (1181)

https://www.amazon.com/Tram-140MHz-...ocphy=9031256&hvtargid=pla-314833693568&psc=1

Flexy


About the same height as the RTT


Some of my APRS reports with the Tram Antenna while in DV

 

You all need to get one of these Bad Larry’s and put a new end on it
https://www.gundogsupply.com/the-re...-zG1aN3C5K5kg6A97YHy67Z5TxaiZfuEaApe_EALw_wcB

I’ll see my self out

 

@MonkeyProof , your roof!

 

would you believe that I spent an entire weekend taking it down to bare metal about a year and a half ago for it to come back looking like that?