Crossing the Mojave at Afton Canyon
Dec. 29th, 2022 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
canyonwalker5 Days in the Desert travelog #17
Afton Canyon, CA - Mon, 26 Dec 2022, 11am
Today we decided to do another combination 4x4/hiking trek in the Mojave Desert. We drove east of Barstow to Afton Canyon and down to the Mojave River, where the Mojave Road follows the course of the river through the canyon.
There's an element of revenge travel to this particular trek. We visited here years ago, back in '03 or '04, also in the month of December. It was bitter cold when we camped at night. One, I'm glad we're "motel camping" this trip. Two, on that trip I looked at crossing the Mojave River in my Jeep Cherokee 4x4 and I chickened out. Oh, we still explored up the canyon a bit, but we were limited to how far we could walk. I've been wanting to go back... go back and cross the river.
I checked online for trail conditions. Searchable information online is kind of sparse compared to what I recall finding years ago. I think a lot of it has disappeared behind membership logins. Of course, it's hard to figure out which forums are worth joining when you can't see the quality of the discussions beforehand. Anyway, what little I did find indicated the river crossing should be managable unless it's rained recently... which it hasn't.
In addition I checked with a knowledgeable local we met in the campground near the river. He said the crossing was good and offered to help us pull back out if we got stuck. Here's a video from our crossing:
To be continued....
Afton Canyon, CA - Mon, 26 Dec 2022, 11am
Today we decided to do another combination 4x4/hiking trek in the Mojave Desert. We drove east of Barstow to Afton Canyon and down to the Mojave River, where the Mojave Road follows the course of the river through the canyon.
There's an element of revenge travel to this particular trek. We visited here years ago, back in '03 or '04, also in the month of December. It was bitter cold when we camped at night. One, I'm glad we're "motel camping" this trip. Two, on that trip I looked at crossing the Mojave River in my Jeep Cherokee 4x4 and I chickened out. Oh, we still explored up the canyon a bit, but we were limited to how far we could walk. I've been wanting to go back... go back and cross the river.
I checked online for trail conditions. Searchable information online is kind of sparse compared to what I recall finding years ago. I think a lot of it has disappeared behind membership logins. Of course, it's hard to figure out which forums are worth joining when you can't see the quality of the discussions beforehand. Anyway, what little I did find indicated the river crossing should be managable unless it's rained recently... which it hasn't.
In addition I checked with a knowledgeable local we met in the campground near the river. He said the crossing was good and offered to help us pull back out if we got stuck. Here's a video from our crossing:
To be continued....
