With Gail having a week-off for vacation time and the season getting warmer every week it's time for one more trip to the desert before the temps hit 100-plus. We loaded up our CraigsList camper acquired a little while back for just this purpose and brought the Cherokee on a trailer along with firewood, awning and the rest of it. With the Cummins diesel, NV4500 manual and 4.10 Dana 80 locker rear the daily-driver Dodge will tow about anything and not flinch but being all stock the goings are a little slow sometimes. The Jeep's a daily-driver too of-course.
East from San Diego, around the south end of the Salton Sea then north near the AZ border, headed for the area west of tiny Palo Verde CA. See: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4566...14.7896652,11z We'll be in there in the center where it looks on the map like there's nothing at all.
Curves in the desert highways are sometimes up-and-down as well as sideways. The very occasional flash floods form the terrain and the highway follows.
The Glamis sand dunes are nearly vacant now after Easter. It's just too hot. Still there were a few hardcores out there.
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An hour-or-so beyond the dunes we met up with a small group we've camped with in the past who like to go out rock-hounding and looking over old mine sites, etc. Not hard-core four-wheeling or rock crawling but still some difficult spots and an adventure none-the-less. There is not another person between us and the mountains in the distance, or the same on either side or behind us. Our advantage for heading out this late in the year is having possibly hundreds of square miles to ourselves. Of-course that means having food, water, tools and spare parts along 'cause whatever you break you'll be dealing with yourself.
Here we ride along the ridges with cactus, bugs and lizards being pretty-much the only thing growing.
Guide books and personal knowledge of the most experienced guy in the group brought us to a number of abandoned mine sites. This one below was said to be for perlite, used in plaster and morter, insulation and ceiling tile. Hard-to-say how well that paid, having to crawl this far up in the hills to dig it out. There were odds-and-ends of old equipment around, but the entrance was blasted shut as is typical once a facility closes down. That stock '10 Jeep slid around and scraped a bit but made it through...the very-short front and rear overhangs help a bunch to make it across gullies and washes.
Poking around a bit found us a number of interesting rocks, including these geodes. Ugly little round things, yeah, but hit at 'em with a hammer...
...you never know exactly what you'll find inside. These were pretty nice with crystal-lined open areas.
I also found a good chunk of what may be petrified wood (not pictured), somebody with more knowledge than I is going to have to make that determination.
This is "the road". It must have been in better shape than this when the mine was going. Rocks, rocks, bounce, bounce, along with the occasional gully crossing. Just pick your way through slowly and maybe have some cold drinks handy.
Another mine for different material. This is a geologically-interesting area no matter what they were after, all rocks below were found within a few feet of each other. The green stuff was as I understand the pay-dirt here, there was plenty more lying around.
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I think we can still save it...what about you? Heavy items such as engines and frames were hauled out for scrap long ago, sheet metal was apparently not worth the trouble. The yellow item in front was a '50s International cab.
What-the-heck this, an old fiberglass sailboat hull covered with heavy steel tube is, would be anybody's guess. I thought perhaps some-sort military training device.
The red Jeep above is a mild build, 33" tires, a little lift and ARB air-lockers, front and rear. That gets him across most of what's out here.
Having gone down into a valley via ridges, we head back up through a canyon. This got tougher and tougher the higher we went but slow going and a little extra effort at certain obstacles did it. Figure about an hour from here to the top.
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Everywhere you go in the more open areas you see this; weird patterns across the terrain, like construction equipment did it (or maybe aliens, this is the desert after all). In this photo the light colored gravel in the foreground is flash-flood material, 50-100 feet beyond are rocks darkened with what's called "desert varnish", where clay dust blows across the land and rocks over time and then materials such as iron and manganese oxides adhere. This process may take from 50 years to thousands to occur and simply turning an undisturbed rock over causes a color change that may last for decades. Driving over it with a truck or off-road vehicle can do it, but these marks are from much heavier vehicles.
Who did it here? Answer: These guys...that's Patton's army training to go to North Africa in (yes) World-War II. This was once an important Army training area, and tracks made in the very-early 1940s, 75 years ago, still show clearly.
For more information, including contemporary photos of tanks in use compared with current photos which still show individual track marks, see the source of the above picture: http://www.deserttrainingcenter.com/9tharmored.html
Here's more, virtually every flat area near a roadway was practice ground for taking that guy Rommel out. The desert preserves, these tracks may last for centuries.
There was no having to listen to neighbor's radios, but the sound of military aircraft and ordinance going off in distant training areas still used wasn't uncommon. At one point, two V-22 Ospreys flew over low; one going straight and the other banking along the hillsides so we could see the top of his wings. No time to get out the camera for that, unfortunately, but what a sight. American military machinery is still bad-ass.
We spent two-and-a-half days on the trails and stayed out three nights, most of the group in tents, having the campground and all surrounding area all to ourselves fee-free courtesy the U.S. Dept. of the Interior and the BLM. A sweet way to close down the winter desert season.
-Loren
East from San Diego, around the south end of the Salton Sea then north near the AZ border, headed for the area west of tiny Palo Verde CA. See: https://www.google.com/maps/@33.4566...14.7896652,11z We'll be in there in the center where it looks on the map like there's nothing at all.
Curves in the desert highways are sometimes up-and-down as well as sideways. The very occasional flash floods form the terrain and the highway follows.
The Glamis sand dunes are nearly vacant now after Easter. It's just too hot. Still there were a few hardcores out there.
------------------------
An hour-or-so beyond the dunes we met up with a small group we've camped with in the past who like to go out rock-hounding and looking over old mine sites, etc. Not hard-core four-wheeling or rock crawling but still some difficult spots and an adventure none-the-less. There is not another person between us and the mountains in the distance, or the same on either side or behind us. Our advantage for heading out this late in the year is having possibly hundreds of square miles to ourselves. Of-course that means having food, water, tools and spare parts along 'cause whatever you break you'll be dealing with yourself.
Here we ride along the ridges with cactus, bugs and lizards being pretty-much the only thing growing.
Guide books and personal knowledge of the most experienced guy in the group brought us to a number of abandoned mine sites. This one below was said to be for perlite, used in plaster and morter, insulation and ceiling tile. Hard-to-say how well that paid, having to crawl this far up in the hills to dig it out. There were odds-and-ends of old equipment around, but the entrance was blasted shut as is typical once a facility closes down. That stock '10 Jeep slid around and scraped a bit but made it through...the very-short front and rear overhangs help a bunch to make it across gullies and washes.
Poking around a bit found us a number of interesting rocks, including these geodes. Ugly little round things, yeah, but hit at 'em with a hammer...
...you never know exactly what you'll find inside. These were pretty nice with crystal-lined open areas.
I also found a good chunk of what may be petrified wood (not pictured), somebody with more knowledge than I is going to have to make that determination.
This is "the road". It must have been in better shape than this when the mine was going. Rocks, rocks, bounce, bounce, along with the occasional gully crossing. Just pick your way through slowly and maybe have some cold drinks handy.
Another mine for different material. This is a geologically-interesting area no matter what they were after, all rocks below were found within a few feet of each other. The green stuff was as I understand the pay-dirt here, there was plenty more lying around.
--------------------------
I think we can still save it...what about you? Heavy items such as engines and frames were hauled out for scrap long ago, sheet metal was apparently not worth the trouble. The yellow item in front was a '50s International cab.
What-the-heck this, an old fiberglass sailboat hull covered with heavy steel tube is, would be anybody's guess. I thought perhaps some-sort military training device.
The red Jeep above is a mild build, 33" tires, a little lift and ARB air-lockers, front and rear. That gets him across most of what's out here.
Having gone down into a valley via ridges, we head back up through a canyon. This got tougher and tougher the higher we went but slow going and a little extra effort at certain obstacles did it. Figure about an hour from here to the top.
----------------------
Everywhere you go in the more open areas you see this; weird patterns across the terrain, like construction equipment did it (or maybe aliens, this is the desert after all). In this photo the light colored gravel in the foreground is flash-flood material, 50-100 feet beyond are rocks darkened with what's called "desert varnish", where clay dust blows across the land and rocks over time and then materials such as iron and manganese oxides adhere. This process may take from 50 years to thousands to occur and simply turning an undisturbed rock over causes a color change that may last for decades. Driving over it with a truck or off-road vehicle can do it, but these marks are from much heavier vehicles.
Who did it here? Answer: These guys...that's Patton's army training to go to North Africa in (yes) World-War II. This was once an important Army training area, and tracks made in the very-early 1940s, 75 years ago, still show clearly.
For more information, including contemporary photos of tanks in use compared with current photos which still show individual track marks, see the source of the above picture: http://www.deserttrainingcenter.com/9tharmored.html
Here's more, virtually every flat area near a roadway was practice ground for taking that guy Rommel out. The desert preserves, these tracks may last for centuries.
There was no having to listen to neighbor's radios, but the sound of military aircraft and ordinance going off in distant training areas still used wasn't uncommon. At one point, two V-22 Ospreys flew over low; one going straight and the other banking along the hillsides so we could see the top of his wings. No time to get out the camera for that, unfortunately, but what a sight. American military machinery is still bad-ass.
We spent two-and-a-half days on the trails and stayed out three nights, most of the group in tents, having the campground and all surrounding area all to ourselves fee-free courtesy the U.S. Dept. of the Interior and the BLM. A sweet way to close down the winter desert season.
-Loren
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