Driving the Mojave Road to Lava Tubes
Dec. 28th, 2022 06:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalker5 Days in the Desert travelog #14
Cima, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 4pm
This past Sunday afternoon— Christmas Day, for those still keeping track amid this prolific series of blog posts about our "5 Days in the Desert" trip— we visited the lava tubes in Mojave National Preserve. This was our third adventure of the day, after hiking the 650' tall sand dunes at Kelso Dunes in the morning and visiting historic Kelso Depot (aka 🎵 Welcome to the Depot California 🎵) after lunch. Actually it was both our third and fourth adventure of the day, as just the drive there (and back) constituted its own adventure.
Ordinarily the lava tubes would be about a 3.5 mile drive on Aiken Mine Road, a well graded dirt road off paved Kelbaker Road in Mojave National Preserve. Right now, though, a few roads in the park are closed due to washouts in the last monsoon season. Kelbaker is one of them. The next shortest way to get there is via the Mojave Road, adding 16 miles of dirt road driving.
The Mojave Road is a legendary unpaved route. It stretches 150 miles west from the Colorado River. It follows a trading route long used by natives to connect desert dwelling tribes to those in coastal areas. Spanish missionaries learned about it in 1776. American settlers began using it in 1826, and the US military used it as a wagon route from 1859 until a railroad was built across the Mojave Desert in 1883. (Hmm, seems like we were just at that railroad at Kelso Station.)
Driving the Mojave Road was easy in our 4x4 with high clearance, though we were limited to 10-15mph much of the time because of the whoop-de-doos in the soft dirt (see video). A medium clearance sedan or wagon like a Subaru could navigate this stretch of road, though it would probably need to go even slower. Once we got to Aiken Mine Road mine road the trail conditions were easier. Until the last 300 meters or so.
The trail descriptions said to park in a primitive parking area then follow the trail 300 meters over volcanic rock to a small spur trail. Well, the first 300 meters of trail were a two-track... as in, vehicle two track. But they were over fist-sized lava rock. We decided F--- it, Subarus can park in the lot while the big dogs drive all the way. We parked just steps away from the ladder down into the lava tube.
This is where the adventure switches from driving to hiking.
A steel ladder leads down about 10' into a collapsed portion of a lava tube. From that point one can scramble down rocks on either side, into the tube itself. The picture above shows the less forbidding direction.
"Enh," I thought, "I'm not sure I want to do this."
But then I considered the considerable time and effort it took to get to this spot— including over an hour driving on bouncy dirt roads just to get here. I wasn't going to let that time and effort go to waste just because I didn't want to crouch down a bit to navigate over sharp rocks and climb into the bowels of the earth!
To be continued....
Update: Into the Lava Tubes & Back!
Cima, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 4pm
This past Sunday afternoon— Christmas Day, for those still keeping track amid this prolific series of blog posts about our "5 Days in the Desert" trip— we visited the lava tubes in Mojave National Preserve. This was our third adventure of the day, after hiking the 650' tall sand dunes at Kelso Dunes in the morning and visiting historic Kelso Depot (aka 🎵 Welcome to the Depot California 🎵) after lunch. Actually it was both our third and fourth adventure of the day, as just the drive there (and back) constituted its own adventure.
Ordinarily the lava tubes would be about a 3.5 mile drive on Aiken Mine Road, a well graded dirt road off paved Kelbaker Road in Mojave National Preserve. Right now, though, a few roads in the park are closed due to washouts in the last monsoon season. Kelbaker is one of them. The next shortest way to get there is via the Mojave Road, adding 16 miles of dirt road driving.
The Mojave Road is a legendary unpaved route. It stretches 150 miles west from the Colorado River. It follows a trading route long used by natives to connect desert dwelling tribes to those in coastal areas. Spanish missionaries learned about it in 1776. American settlers began using it in 1826, and the US military used it as a wagon route from 1859 until a railroad was built across the Mojave Desert in 1883. (Hmm, seems like we were just at that railroad at Kelso Station.)
Driving the Mojave Road was easy in our 4x4 with high clearance, though we were limited to 10-15mph much of the time because of the whoop-de-doos in the soft dirt (see video). A medium clearance sedan or wagon like a Subaru could navigate this stretch of road, though it would probably need to go even slower. Once we got to Aiken Mine Road mine road the trail conditions were easier. Until the last 300 meters or so.
The trail descriptions said to park in a primitive parking area then follow the trail 300 meters over volcanic rock to a small spur trail. Well, the first 300 meters of trail were a two-track... as in, vehicle two track. But they were over fist-sized lava rock. We decided F--- it, Subarus can park in the lot while the big dogs drive all the way. We parked just steps away from the ladder down into the lava tube.
This is where the adventure switches from driving to hiking.
A steel ladder leads down about 10' into a collapsed portion of a lava tube. From that point one can scramble down rocks on either side, into the tube itself. The picture above shows the less forbidding direction.
"Enh," I thought, "I'm not sure I want to do this."
But then I considered the considerable time and effort it took to get to this spot— including over an hour driving on bouncy dirt roads just to get here. I wasn't going to let that time and effort go to waste just because I didn't want to crouch down a bit to navigate over sharp rocks and climb into the bowels of the earth!
To be continued....
Update: Into the Lava Tubes & Back!
