Matt's New Mexico (Formerly Airstream) Adventure
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Today’s hike in Lake Mead was on the Historic Railroad Trail. It was the rail line from Boulder City to Hover Dam that they built to transport the building materials to the dam site. The workers and their families lived in shanties along the water at the bottom of the canton. It was apparently brutal. The hike was nice though.
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Checked out the Mojave National Preserve’s Hole-in-the-Wall area today. The road we took in was a 20 mile dirt road that was pretty rough and covered in snow. The dirt was heavily grooved from the dozer treads that created it so at 10 mph it took us a while. So glad we made it. The Rings Loop Trail has portions that go up out of Banshee Canyon using metal rings mounted into the rock walls. Awesome hike…
A wildfire in Aug came through and decimated the entire side of this Joshua Tree forest. It didn’t cross the road. No one lives here so it didn’t get fire today hunting crews.
Our first jackrabbit sighting!
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Knockout photos @Matt you and your wife have given your children a great gift
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Negative @scooter We almost missed this one and Joshua Tree because of the very small window during which one can visit and not burst into flames. Thankfully we figured out how to see them without staying in CA. CA is open now but the campsite in DV cost the same as the RV park we found just outside the park in Nevada and this place has full hookups and free WiFi.
I’m excited to find some of the spots where Star Wars filmed. We drove through one today but it was a scenic drive and we didn’t get out to poke around. It all did feel very Str Warsy though.
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There's a 135 mile (217 km) ultramarathon, The Badwater 135, that starts there by the Furnace Creek Visitor Center and goes all the way to the Mt. Whitney trailhead, 8,300’ (2530m) above sea level. They run it in July, and down in the Death Valley portion, they have to run on the white stripes on the road because the blacktop gets so hot it melts the soles of their shoes off. At the top, it has occasionally snowed as the runners were finishing.
You should look into it, if you're bored and have some free time…
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Damn @Matt I am ridiculously jealous right now. I'd love to get the family out on an adventure like this - I'm thankful that you are taking us along on this journey!
Surprisingly enough, the Residential Commander just gave me the green light to do another Mojave Road run in the Jeep so need to get a crew together and set it up.
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@Chris I looked into it. Sike, no I didn’t, that’s kooky.
@Manticore That’s awesome. We loved Mojave. We barely scratched the surface but we’re glad we got to see what we did. The Rings Loop Trail was one of my favorites on the trip so far. We discussed going back to see the lava flows but we will be near some other ones soon.
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Residential Commander
Brilliant…..
On one of our hikes yesterday the trail map said at the end of the trail is a 15’ rock wall that “most” people can’t make it past so for casual hikers that’s where the trail ends. Obviously I got to it and prepared to mount the wall to continue on my hike. I was abruptly halted by my own Activities Manager who informed me that portion of the trail was off limits to me. On the way back we saw a couple who asked us if the trail continues much further. I asked if they were married and when he replied yes I said “Nope, that’s it.”
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You may have just saved his life.
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Nice looking train depot.
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There was an open air art area in Rhyolite. I’ll post some photos separately but among the sculptures was a plaque I found to be extremely interesting. The artist is Eames Demetrius and he has created an alternate or linear universe to our own. There are over a hundred “memorial” plaques around the world denoting places of his conjuring that exist parallel to the locations in which the plaques have been placed. I’m hooked now and will be on the lookout for them as we move on.
