Trail Report: Bradshaw Trail (Gold Road to La Paz)

[nwoods]

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.

It's an awesome journey.

My full write up is here:
http://blog.nextstepdesigns.com/?p=81

Photos are here:
http://nwoods.smugmug.com/gallery/73...70882851_erVMU

Couple of teasers:

[Mitch]

Nathan,

Nice report and photo's. Looks like a fun trip. I'd love to have an finned bomb like that for the front yard!

Mitch

[FishPOET]

Great trip report and fabulous photos. We ran Bradshaw once the same direction as you group. If we ever run the Bradshaw again we'll make the long drive East on pavement and start at Wiley's Well. The drive home Sunday night from Needles is rough!

[OU812]

Nice writup. I would love to run that trail. Was that a 2 day trip or three day?

[bruce p]

Nathan-

Those are great pictures, sure makes me want to head out there! Hold it, I went on that trip, didn't I? Did I leave all my red wine in the desert?

Joe, being the history junky type, wanted to go on into Az the next day and actually find La Paz, which we did ... and it's not worth it. There were some cool mines on the last part of the trail before Blythe, though.

Bruce

[nwoods]

Nice write up. I would love to run that trail. Was that a 2 day trip or three day?

The actual trail is 78 miles if you run straight through. You can whip through it in a day, but you could also spend a month out there exploring. We did it in two days, and only scratched the surface, and covered about 130 miles off pavement.

A lot of the actual trail is graded road, and you can do an easy 40mph average speed, or faster if you like to drive Baja rally style. However, at one point one of our groups' radar detector went off! We saw about 12 Border Patrol trucks on the far east end of the trail near Wiley's Well.

[OU812]

I think I am going to buy a Spot tracker. Every backpacing trip I go on I think about it. Reading your writup convinced me.