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  • Trail Report: Red Rock Canyon

    Thursday - Dixie & I arrived at Richardo Camp, set up & then took off for a short run up to the "Bowl" in the Dove Springs area. Lots of steep trails up & down the hills that motorcycles & quads have made. More fun in the sand near the bottom.
    Friday - We did a short run east of 14 up Iron Canyon, also viewing the scenic cliffs. Near the end of a sand wash there was a knarlie steep hill that we decided not to do as we were by ourselves. Maybe at a later date. Back to camp to welcome Roger & Leanne and Christian, who came later.
    Saturday - Off to explore Sage Canyon (where I often went to camp with my Dad as a kid) We looked at the matates in a huge flat rock nearby. We counted 9 matates. There are large old cottonwood trees near our old campfire pit. A nearby stream had many tadpoles. We then drove all the way to the end of the canyon, up a steep hill into huge boulders. There were about 20 or so motorcyclers also exploring the area. We headed back down & over to Horse Canyon. On the way we stopped by an old rock cabin near a mine & Leanne & Christian hiked over for a look. Dixie & I walked around & saw a chuckawalla lizard on a rock. We also saw a small plant that looks like a Morel mushroom without the top. Dixie says its a "scaley stemmed sand plant" and very rare. Horse Cyn has a large stone water tank full of good tasteing running water. We ate our lunches plus watermellon and off again. At the end of Horse Cyn is a road to the top.(PCT is nearby) We then drove 4 1/2 mi to a cabin high in the mountains. We could see Mt Baldy on one side and Lake Isabella on the other. The road had many challenges. It was getting late so we were off to base camp. Down the Mt, down the cyn, followed the aquaduct to #103 & back to camp. 70 mile day !!
    Sunday-Off to see Schmidt's Tunnel. Christian led us east of #14 over & thru some beautiful hills & valleys. We stopped at Cudahy Camp for lunch after comming down a scary steep hill. After lunch we then stopped at an old ranch where Roger, Leanne and Christian walked around looking at all the old relics. There were many spectators at Schmidt's tunnel. We all hiked thru to the other side. (about 1/4 mile) Schmidt spent 32 years carving his tunnel. We took Messquite Cyn down to Red Rock Randsburg Rd. Yummy steak dinner to top it off.
    Monday-Dixie & I showed Christian the short trip thru Iron Cyn & the area at the end of the sand wash where we had turned around. Christian said "Not this time". He did some jeep posing for the camera & we went back to camp and left for home. Great trip. Good friends. Fine weather !!!
    Pictures to follow.

  • #2
    Red Rock Cyn Pictures


    Christian posing


    Schmidt's Info


    On the way


    Christian on the way




    Leanne & Dixie looking it over






    Near the cabin in the mountains


    Stocked & ready




    Cabin above Horse Cyn
















    Scaley stemmed sand plant

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    • #3
      LeAnne & I had a great time. My Jeep ran perfect! Nothing Broke Yaaaa!

      At the top of horse canyon is an OHV trail adopted by The Gear Grinders. The name of the trail is the McIver Trail and it leads to the McIver Cabin. We had a great time running it. It is rated easy, but it's a beautiful area and worth the trip.
      SBCO Fire Dept. CERT volunteer
      MJR moderator
      MJR Adopt-a-Trail Crew member
      Jeep Patrol Leader
      Reforestation Supervisor
      Licensed Ham - n6ujm
      Eagle Scout

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      • #4
        Looks like a great time Mary! Courtney and I cannot wait to get together again with you and Dixie and go back out.
        :cactus::cactus:+:beer:=:poop:...:hide:

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        • #5
          Mary,

          Thanks for the nice post. Looks like a fun trip. Must be an easy run if both Roger and Christian made it OK! LOL Good times when you are with good friends.

          Mitch

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          • #6
            I took a long time to write my own report of this trip and as I was cutting and pasting the image tags into the post, I accidentally closed the tab with the report in it.

            I usually cut and paste the report into notepad before grabbing the image tags for just this reason.

            I'm not sure if and when I'll have time to write another report, so here is the link to the slideshow which includes comments on the photos for a sort of mini report:

            http://s916.photobucket.com/albums/a...view=slideshow

            Mitch, this was an easy run with a couple of steep parts. One was steep enough for both Roger and I to notice that we were sliding down the hill in low gear with no brakes being applied.

            At the bottom of that hill you could hear the rear end of my Scrambler scraping as we climbed up the other side of the gully. It was loud enough to hear it throughout the valley, but no real carnage was done to my Jeep.

            That said, there was a shelf road that would have scared you to death. It made all of us a bit nervous, but wasn't nearly as bad as Chicken Corner by Briggs Cabin in the Panamint/Death Valley area.

            It was a great weekend with great people!

            Christian
            "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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            • #7
              E Clampus Vitus

              Nice trip. We used to ride out motorcycles out there seems like every other weekend when my boys were younger. Have run many of the canyons in the Jeep also. Great place. Hope we don't lose too much in the battle going on now.

              When we got back from our Mojave Road trip a while back, I looked up E Clampus Vitus, since we see that on so many signs.

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Clampus_Vitus
              Rich

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              • #8
                Christian,

                Very nice pictures. Thanks

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by great88 View Post
                  Christian,

                  Very nice pictures. Thanks
                  Thanks!

                  Aside from that very short stretch of shelf road, I think you would have loved the rest of it.

                  There was one other shelf road up to the McIver Trail, but that was wide enough to get a Fire Truck up it. I think that might actually be why it was that wide.

                  Christian
                  "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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                  • #10
                    I went there last year with Kevin (1badfnz)and a couple others. It was a awesome place to wheel. We went in several mines, saw petroglyphs, adopt-a-cabin......tons of history out there.

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                    • #11
                      Here is a "Reader's Digest" report that I just posted to the SoCal Scramblers forum:

                      I was invited to go on a mellow wheeling and camping trip to the Red Rock Canyon State Park area over Memorial Weekend.

                      I drove out on Friday and got to Ricardo Campground at about 4:00 pm.

                      It was a great place to use as a base camp for the weekend.

                      All of the trails we went on were relatively easy and some places crossed into the low end of moderate.

                      The only place that was a little tough for my stock Scrambler was one section of the last 100 feet before connecting with Last Chance Canyon by Cudahy Camp. It was really steep downhill and then immediately climbed up the other side of a gully. I managed to do it with no serious carnage, but that tail dragging on the rock face of the downhill slope was probably heard throughout the canyon. :shock:

                      We had some great breakfasts and dinners in camp and some enjoyable on-the-trail lunches. Since we were running late on Saturday, we treated ourselves to some good Mexican food near the Arco station in Mojave.

                      We went to the following places:

                      Saturday
                      Sage Canyon Trail
                      Horse Canyon Trail
                      McIver Trail
                      McIver Cabin
                      Dove Springs OHV area

                      Sunday
                      Opal Canyon Rd.
                      Nightmare Gulch (upper portion)
                      Last Chance Canyon (upper portion)
                      Cudahy Camp
                      Bickel Camp
                      Burro Schmidt Tunnel
                      Mesquite Canyon

                      Monday
                      Iron Canyon
                      The Bowl (Dove Springs OHV area)

                      Here is the slideshow with some comments:

                      http://s916.photobucket.com/albums/a...view=slideshow

                      Here are a few pics from that slideshow:





























































                      (More images in the next post, because I can only post 30 at a time on MJR)

                      I look forward to going back and doing some more exploring of that area!

                      Christian
                      "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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                      • #12
                        More images...





























                        "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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                        • #13
                          Great pics!!!
                          :cactus::cactus:+:beer:=:poop:...:hide:

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                          • #14
                            Originally posted by flatpoint View Post
                            Great pics!!!
                            Thanks!

                            My battery died when I took that last picture. We were walking from the Burro Schmidt Camp to the Tunnel.

                            If you look carefully in that last picture you can see the Sheriff's helicopter I was trying to take a better picture of.

                            From where we were the helicopter was actually at a lower elevation, so the camera is pointing down on the helicopter.

                            Christian
                            "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid." - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

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                            • #15
                              Originally posted by great88 View Post
                              Mary,

                              Thanks for the nice post. Looks like a fun trip. Must be an easy run if both Roger and Christian made it OK! LOL Good times when you are with good friends.

                              Mitch
                              Mitch,

                              I'm not sure about your "easy trail" comment. The trail we took to Bickel Camp was listed as a "Serious 4x4 Trail" on the State Park map. There were some serious rocky and narrow shelf roads, very steep inclines with a little off-camber action. One downhill incline into Last Chance Canyon at Cudahay Camp was so steep that it was a "controlled slide" and you would have expressed concern if you had been with us. Nothing like Moteno Wash but very challenging none the less.
                              SBCO Fire Dept. CERT volunteer
                              MJR moderator
                              MJR Adopt-a-Trail Crew member
                              Jeep Patrol Leader
                              Reforestation Supervisor
                              Licensed Ham - n6ujm
                              Eagle Scout

                              Comment

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