Desert Trip 2022: Day 1
Friday, November 4th, 2022: 2022 Trips, Mojave Desert, Regions, Road Trips.
On Wednesday morning, only needing to buy gas – filling my cans at Arizona prices then topping up at California prices in the desert oasis – I finally headed west across the desert. The highway has been closed to through traffic for most of the past decade, due to bridges washed out in past flash floods, never to be repaired. We can drive around these washouts, but it’s been great to discourage visits from strangers.
The sand-and-gravel road past the ghost town was graded for a gas pipeline test several years ago, and remains fast to the test site, midway up the fan to the pass. But beyond there, a zillion minor ruts forced me below 20 mph average, and past the airstrip, my speed dropped to between 5 and 15 mph as usual.
I was shocked to see how dry everything is – perhaps drier than I’ve ever seen before. The creosote bushes on the alluvial fan have dropped almost all their leaves, with remaining leaves brown and dead, except for a few shallow drainages where highly localized storms caused a little runoff this year. I think we all hoped this year’s wet monsoon would bring rain to these mountains, but that simply didn’t pan out.
Nevertheless, visitation has really dropped off. The rancher has stopped visiting our gulch, and the only recent tracks on our side road were from a single fat tire dirt bike.
Entering the mountains and dropping into the lower gulch, there was little recent erosion, lots of new growth, and no established vehicle tread, so as occasionally in the past, I had to find my way up the big wash as if I’d never been there before. Our improvised gate was still up – the dirt bike had simply gone around where anti-government vandals had cut our fence – and everything else around camp looked as it had three and a half years ago.
It was great to be home, but I was still under a cloud of stress from back pain, feeling like such an idiot for letting it happen. It would hang over me for the next couple of days, always threatening to paralyze me if I made the wrong move in this challenging terrain.
Stopping for lunch in the pass on the way in, I reached camp around 1 pm and immediately prepared for a hike up the gulch. I had no destination in mind and would decide enroute.
My first stop was at the hidden cache of our shade structure, which remained untouched and sheltered. That cheered me up, along with the health of the riparian vegetation.
Invasive tamarisk had regrown significantly in the mid-gulch, but native vegetation still looked good outside the one historical tamarisk patch. New growth and erosion meant that anything but bike travel up the gulch would now be quite destructive, so it was great to see no one had been here to try.
The day was almost perfectly calm in the wash, and when I reached the outlet of the old road up to the mine, which I hadn’t visited in decades, I decided to head up there. The lower part of the road remains in good repair, and as I climbed, I encountered some nice gusts that kept me from overheating. But the road gains 500′ in elevation, becomes quite steep, and crosses a drainage where it’s been eroded beyond driveability, sometime since the early 90s.
Exploring beyond the ledge where the stamp mill was located and the mules corralled, I discovered a well-built mule trail into a side canyon that I couldn’t remember. I followed it a few hundred feet higher in elevation until it was blocked by a giant cholla next to a cliff a dozen feet high. I vowed to return when I had more time, because this trail seemed like a practical route to the crest, not much farther above.
From there, I climbed over a low shoulder and dropped down to the “swimming pool”, a huge concrete water tank I’ve always fantasized about filling with drainage from inside the mine. And at that point, what had so far been an exhilarating hike turned somber.
A mature bighorn ram had fallen in the tank, which is 12-15′ deep, with no way up the nearly sheer walls. This tank is obviously a trap for wildlife, but the only way I could imagine an adult bighorn falling in, is if it was in flight, perhaps from a lion, bounding up the slope from below, and for some reason unfamiliar with this spot and its hazard.
The fall would surely have broken bones, and with luck, caused a concussion that might’ve made the death by dehydration/starvation a little easier.
It was hard to get that tragic image out of my mind on the way back to camp. Despite the breeze up above, the climb had made me sweaty and I was anxious for a shower – I’d filled my new solar shower before leaving camp. But now I remembered that the sun drops below the peak behind camp early, especially this time of year, resulting in an immediate temperature drop. It was getting windier, and I’d be shivering despite the warmth of the water.
Having failed to bring firewood or charcoal, I gathered dead catclaw on my way back to camp, and after arriving, showered quickly, then started preparations for dinner. That’s when I discovered I’d also forgotten newspaper, which I usually carry in my vehicle for tinder. Not a huge problem – this year’s dried-out annual vegetation is always available – but in a pinch I used blank pages from my notebook.
Living and sleeping indoors, it’s sadly easy to forget the night sky even exists. We’ve often complained about the encroachment of skylighting from distant cities, illuminating our horizon out here, but that first night was a revelation to me, after three years of no camping.
The moon was nowhere to be seen, but Jupiter was rising in the east, and without the moon, it easily dominated the sky. My familiar constellations were back, and I took my binoculars to bed, taking care not to trigger more back pain as I wriggled into my warm-weather bag. My new sleeping pad was, frankly, even more comfortable than the old one. I would almost say it’s more comfortable than my mattress at home.
I’m enjoying this series, Max!
The yellow flowered shrub is an Ericameria, probably nauseosa if in or near the wash. If that’s correct, the older genus name is Chrysothamnus, which may be more familiar. Common name ranbitbrush.
About 2 months ago I took a Mojave fall plants ID class at the Granite Mtns research station. Jim Andre says hello!
Thanks, Ken – rabbitbrush, of course. I feel like I’ve forgotten so much in just a few years. Envy you the plants class – Steichen is studying botany now and would also benefit. And thanks for the greeting from Jim!
Oh thank you, Max! This is your Scanlon Gulch! I am sitting and reading this with Jean (Morrison) and we are so enjoying the descriptions and pictures. I was last there in the spring of 2012 when I took Boston University students to places in the Mojave i thought I would never see again. We had mishaps. More flat tires than spares topped the list. 🙂