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Maybe I should have titled this one "Lost in the Desert!" :confused2
My buddy Walter recently got a Jeep Rubicon and I wanted to take him out exploring. We were going to go on Saturday, but wound up changing the plan to Sunday. It was a gorgeous day! (I'll apologize up front for not snapping any pics.)
The plan was to follow the directions that Charles Wells has in his book "Guide to Southern California and Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" for Wall St. Canyon Overlook. We started on Calico Rd. and expected to come out on Fort Irwin Rd.
I'm still getting used to using my GPS, but had already input all of the waypoints for Calico that are listed in the book. I also printed a map with those waypoints on it from Garmin's MapSource software.
Between the description in the book and looking at the GPS and paper map I had with me, I managed to easily get us through the western half of Mule Canyon Rd. and up Tin Can Alley into Hidden Valley.
In Hidden Valley, we wandered to the right when I should have wandered to the left, but that was a short fun detour and gave me a chance to play with the GPS a bit to get us back on track.
Once back on track, I managed to make the correct turns by the north end of Odessa Canyon (thanks to the waypoints) and took us down a cool rocky hill into the Bismark Mine.
We had lunch at the Bismark Mine and proceeded to crawl in and out of every hole in the ground we could find at the main part of that site. It was a very cool mine! It was a mountain that had been mined first using conventional tunnels and then later strip mined, which created a cross section of the tunnels. It was like looking at one of those ant farms that many of us had as kids.
Now we come to the point where things got tricky. We couldn't really figure out which trail to take from Bismark Mine to the Wall St. Canyon Overlook and then on to the old Stone Cabin.
We tried a few different routes and wound up backing up or turning around because they were dead ends. We did that for about an hour.
Walter had some of those little hand held walkie-talkies and I decided to leave Walter with the Jeeps and go out on foot with my GPS looking for the way to the Overlook. My thought was that I could cover more ground without the Jeep and go through areas that the Jeeps couldn't in my quest for the right route. Every once in a while I'd climb up a hill to establish communications and let Walter know that I was still trying to figure it out.
The confusing part was that I don't have the most detailed version of the topo software in my Garmin 60CSx. Each line shows an elevation change of 150 feet, so there were all sorts of hills and canyons that I couldn't see on my map.
After wandering up and down canyons at a pretty brisk pace for about an hour and a half I thought I had found the right road. So, I followed that road back to the Bismark Mine and figured we'd take the Jeeps on a search for the Wall St. Overlook or the Stone Cabin.
We followed various trails for about an hour and a half and kept getting turned in the direction of Calico Mountain (I think that's the one with all the communications equipment on it.)
At about a half hour before sunset, we decided to rush back to Bismark Mine and go back out the way we came in.
This worked out and we got back to Calico Rd. in about an hour from Bismark Mine.
It was quite an adventure and we had a lot of fun, but Walter had made plans that evening that he was unable to keep. Luckily, he had cell reception and was able to let people know that we were out "lost in the desert" and that he'd be unable to make it back when he had originally planned.
I need to get someone who knows the last part of that route help me find it. I still want to see the Wall Street Overlook, the Stone Cabin, the St. Louis Mine and the Silver Bow mine.
Next time, I'll take pictures!
Christian
My buddy Walter recently got a Jeep Rubicon and I wanted to take him out exploring. We were going to go on Saturday, but wound up changing the plan to Sunday. It was a gorgeous day! (I'll apologize up front for not snapping any pics.)
The plan was to follow the directions that Charles Wells has in his book "Guide to Southern California and Backroads & 4-Wheel Drive Trails" for Wall St. Canyon Overlook. We started on Calico Rd. and expected to come out on Fort Irwin Rd.
I'm still getting used to using my GPS, but had already input all of the waypoints for Calico that are listed in the book. I also printed a map with those waypoints on it from Garmin's MapSource software.
Between the description in the book and looking at the GPS and paper map I had with me, I managed to easily get us through the western half of Mule Canyon Rd. and up Tin Can Alley into Hidden Valley.
In Hidden Valley, we wandered to the right when I should have wandered to the left, but that was a short fun detour and gave me a chance to play with the GPS a bit to get us back on track.
Once back on track, I managed to make the correct turns by the north end of Odessa Canyon (thanks to the waypoints) and took us down a cool rocky hill into the Bismark Mine.
We had lunch at the Bismark Mine and proceeded to crawl in and out of every hole in the ground we could find at the main part of that site. It was a very cool mine! It was a mountain that had been mined first using conventional tunnels and then later strip mined, which created a cross section of the tunnels. It was like looking at one of those ant farms that many of us had as kids.
Now we come to the point where things got tricky. We couldn't really figure out which trail to take from Bismark Mine to the Wall St. Canyon Overlook and then on to the old Stone Cabin.
We tried a few different routes and wound up backing up or turning around because they were dead ends. We did that for about an hour.
Walter had some of those little hand held walkie-talkies and I decided to leave Walter with the Jeeps and go out on foot with my GPS looking for the way to the Overlook. My thought was that I could cover more ground without the Jeep and go through areas that the Jeeps couldn't in my quest for the right route. Every once in a while I'd climb up a hill to establish communications and let Walter know that I was still trying to figure it out.
The confusing part was that I don't have the most detailed version of the topo software in my Garmin 60CSx. Each line shows an elevation change of 150 feet, so there were all sorts of hills and canyons that I couldn't see on my map.
After wandering up and down canyons at a pretty brisk pace for about an hour and a half I thought I had found the right road. So, I followed that road back to the Bismark Mine and figured we'd take the Jeeps on a search for the Wall St. Overlook or the Stone Cabin.
We followed various trails for about an hour and a half and kept getting turned in the direction of Calico Mountain (I think that's the one with all the communications equipment on it.)
At about a half hour before sunset, we decided to rush back to Bismark Mine and go back out the way we came in.
This worked out and we got back to Calico Rd. in about an hour from Bismark Mine.
It was quite an adventure and we had a lot of fun, but Walter had made plans that evening that he was unable to keep. Luckily, he had cell reception and was able to let people know that we were out "lost in the desert" and that he'd be unable to make it back when he had originally planned.
I need to get someone who knows the last part of that route help me find it. I still want to see the Wall Street Overlook, the Stone Cabin, the St. Louis Mine and the Silver Bow mine.
Next time, I'll take pictures!
Christian
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