Dec. 27th, 2022

canyonwalker: Walking through the desert together (2010) (through the desert)
5 Days in the Desert travelog #11
Kelso, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 11:30am

It's Christmas! And if you're like us and don't celebrate Christmas you find something else fun to do instead. For us that's going hiking. Especially somewhere warm. How about a desert? We're in the Mojave Desert of California this Christmas. Our Christmas morning hike is at Kelso Dunes.

The Kelso Dunes are a field of sand dunes that reach a height of about 650 feet above the surrounding terrain. Yes, that's tall for sand dunes. They're not quite the tallest in North America, though. The Great Sand Dunes in Colorado reach 750 feet tall. But at 650' these are still darn tall. It's obvious from the trailhead 1.5 miles from the peak, that's a lot of sand.

Hiking Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve (Dec 2022)

Rather than start with a shot of the dunes from the base of the trail I'll jump into the middle of the trek. Photographs from the base don't do justice to the awesomess of the spectacle. Instead here's a shot (above) from about 3/4 mile in, where we both said, "Wow! What a great view." The mountains in the distance are the Providence Mountains.

At this point we'd ascended maybe 150 feet, about 1/4 of the elevation to the top. Up to here the climb had been fairly gentle. Past this point it got a bit steeper.

Now it makes sense to show a picture of the tallest dune.

Hiking Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve (Dec 2022)

The picture above shows the highest point of the dunes.

As we were trekking up this middle part of the route we weren't sure how far we'd go. There isn't really a trail, per se. There's just the footprints of people who climbed on previous days plus our (considerable) ability to read terrain. We were picking what looked like the most passable route to the top but we weren't sure if it would get too steep or dangerous. And yes, it did get steeper.

Hiking Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve (Dec 2022)

"Let's at least get to that saddle point," we agreed. It's a spot between the two highest ridges in the dunes. The pic above shows the lower of those two ridges. Again in the background are the Providence Mountains.

Hawk snapped this pic of me admiring the view in the pic above:

Hiking Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve (Dec 2022)

From here we made a decision about whether to press onward. I decided to go at least a little farther, 100 meters or so, as the trail looked easily passable. Hawk was hurting from an unrelated injury exacerbated by plodding through loose sand and thought it'd be better to wait for me.

Hiking Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve (Dec 2022)

Now here's a view across the lower expanse of the dune field. It was heartening to see how far we'd already come. The trailhead is at the end of that little sandy spur about 1/3 of the way in and down from the upper-right corner of the frame.

We'd come so far... but the summit still beckoned!

To be continued....

Updatevideo from the summit in my next blog!


canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
5 Days in the Desert travelog #12
Kelso, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 12pm

In my previous blog about hiking Kelso Dunes I expressed our doubt about whether we'd make it all the way to the top. Well, we pushed through. Hawk ultimately did stop a bit short of the top but I went all the way. The top of the tallest dune is 650 feet above the base. Here are a few videos I created, narrating about the dunes, as I started walking the ridge back down.


In these videos (which I narrated live while hiking sand ridges) I mention the tallest dune is 600 feet high. It's actually 650 feet tall. Kelso Dunes are among the tallest sand dunes in North America.




canyonwalker: Walking through the desert together (2010) (through the desert)
5 Days in the Desert travelog #13
Kelso, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 2pm

In the middle of the Mojave National Preserve, in the middle of the desert, is a beautiful train station. It was built in 1924 in a Spanish Revival style. ...So it looks like a certain building memorialized in a classic, classic rock song. Trains still pass by on the active rails, but the station hasn't seen a passenger in probably more than 50 years.

Kelso Depot, Mojave National Preserve, California (Dec 2022)

A big depot was built out here back in the 1920s as part of the infrastructure for steam locomotives. The Cima Grade to the east has a rise of 2.2% over 19 miles. That's too steep for steam locomotives pulling a full train to ascend. The depot was built as a base of operations for "helper engines", locomotives that would join the train to help pull it up the grade.

Servicing these helper engines required significant staff: not just pilots but also boiler-makers, mechanics, hostlers, and water tenders. Oh, and there was a water pipeline several miles long to bring lots of water down from springs up in the Providence Mountains. And once you have hundreds of workers in all these various trades housed in the middle of nowhere you also need cooks, housekeepers, plumbers, carpenters, accountants, constables, etc. Plus there was a mine nearby.

The depot saw its heyday during WWII. Not only was the mine running at peak operation to support the war effort and trains busy moving cargo east and west, but passenger trains carrying draftees to ports on the West Coast for deployment to the Pacific theater passed through.

Not long after WWII the depot shut down. ...Not because trains stopped running on the tracks, but because diesel engines replaced steam engines. A diesel locomotive individually isn't as powerful as a steam locomotive (that's what I learned when I visited the California State Railroad Museum, anyway) but diesel engines are much easier to synchronize to run in tandem. Watch any train passing through this area nowadays and you'll see they usually have 3 or even 4 engines.

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