Southern California Club Xterra
Southern California Club Xterra => SCCX Xcursion Pictures => Topic started by: Paul on February 15, 2010, 08:04:35 PM
-
I pulled these two trails out of the Massey/Wilson book and wanted to see if they were worth running with the SCCX. I found that the Starbright trail was more of the Starbrig__ trail as since my book was published in 2006 the Goldstone Deep Space Communications center expanded their southern border about 12 miles cutting off miles worth of both trails. I had maps of the area but still it took awhile to find a trail that cut far enough west to meet back up with the public access to the public land. The opal collection area of Black's Canyon was behind fence line, I did find an open gate but decided to not cross onto the "fort".
The area has been a national landmark since 1972.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/WarningSign.jpg)
OK that "little" bit of problem aside the trip was about 50 miles of 2WD and about 2 miles of 4WD fun and exploring. The trail starts north of Barstow along the Fort Irwin Road and runs a zig-zag trail back-n-forth across the hills around the remains of mining ruins. The area was mined until about 1920 for opals and other gemstones.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/MapofTrail.jpg)
The views are beautiful and there weren't many folks out there - I ran across a couple of families out on their quads and bikes. The rains have the cactus happy.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/CactusandX.jpg)
The ruins of an old cabin.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/Ruins.jpg)
The ruins of some mining equipment. It looks like the equipment that could be unbolted and moved to the next mine were removed leaving only the concrete mounts. It looks like something went around and around here crushing rock while water from a nearby spring was used to washing the rocks.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/StoneCrusher.jpg)
A watering trough looks fairly new construction.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/Ruins2.jpg)
Well preserved wooden structure.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/MineRuins.jpg)
Before dark we reached Inscription Canyon where the local Indians have been making petroglyphs for an estimated 10,000 years.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/Petroglyphs1.jpg)
There are hundreds of them covering both sides of the canyon.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/Petroglyphs2.jpg)
That night we snuggled in for a cool night. The night was the quietest night I've ever had, there was no wind at all so once the birds settled down for the night it was 100% quiet. The aircraft have to fly around GoldStone apparently as there was nothing in the skies above us either. We were the only ones in the huge canyon from 5:00 PM to 10:00 AM when the first tourist started coming down the trails again.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/TheStarsatNight.jpg)
Come morning there was frost on the tent walls, the chairs and the Xterra. The coyotes were calling each other from all parts of the canyon, something I've heard before at night but never in the morning.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/FrostyMorning.jpg)
Black's Canyon was a nice rough trail with some good rock hound discoveries.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/View01.jpg)
The canyon was formed when a volcano pushed against the existing sedimentary rocks. The miners have been everywhere seeking gemstones and there were digs in lots of places. Some of them pretty deep and a few big enough to be sealed off with the iron bars. In the picture below you can see the volcano flowing around either side of a sedimentary rock ridge.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/BlacksCanyon.jpg)
The canyon was used as a stage coach and freight line to move 500 pound balls of silver from the Panamint City mines toward Los Angeles ports. One of the teamsters was A. Tillman from San Francisco and the photo below is suppose to be his signature marking from back then.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/TilmanSignature.jpg)
The way out south of Black's Canyon takes the trail across a "dry" lake bed which thanks to the recent rains was a bit less dry than normal! The trail crossed into an area that was several hundred feet worth of water and an unknown depth of water. I cowardly took a by-pass around Superior Lake rather than wade out into it to see how deep it was. Without another truck - or at least trees or rocks to act as an anchor point for the winch - the lake was not save to cross.
Some of the water puddles were fun!
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/BigSplash1.jpg)
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/BigSplash2.jpg)
The ride out takes the roads through Hinkley which has seen better days. The hill to the north of the "city" is covered in cans from the turn of the century but closer the locals have been using it as a trash dump. The city itself is a mixture of burned out and abandoned homes and a few hanging on. The movie Erin Brockovictch with Julia Roberts was shot in the town.
(http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y215/paul1960/Xterra/10-02%20Feb%202010%20Starbright%20Blacks/OffRoad.jpg)
We shot a bunch of HD video which I'll put together later.
-
Great pictures and write up Paul.
-
Nice find Paul. Great pics and narrative too.
-
Cool pictures Paul, thank you for posting....is there still a Panamint or Calico trip in the works for March???
-
Awesome adventure! Thanks for sharing Paul!
-
March is a good time to run the desert before it starts getting too hot - the Mojave Trail would be ideal.
I want to run the trail from the east back to the west this time. After two days of driving there's just nothing like a four and a half to five hour ride back along the highway to ruin things. I'd rather make that long drive to start with, relax during the off-road portion and end up with a short 1-2 hour trip back on the pavement.
I was planning on taking three days and two nights to run from the Arizona/Nevada border back. If others wanted to join for two days and one night we'd meet about 1/3 of the way back - near the mail box or lava tubes. The far east end has some neat stuff that I've never managed to make it out to so I'm wanting to get out there. The flowers ought to start blooming in another week or two and last into March. Based on what I saw yesterday there was lots and lots of rain out in desert this year.
I've been testing my new GPS software and learning its abilities and flaws. Between December's trip through the Panamints into Death Valley and this trip I'm pretty confident in it's capabilities. I'm using Delorme Topo USA V8 which is great software. I set up the trip using GPS waypoints from the books, down load the high definition maps from Delorme using their map service and then connect the dots between waypoints all from the comfort of my big monitor on my home computer. I transfer the work to the netbook and connect up the Earthmate GPS and away I go. The weakness is that along the trail if I have to re-route it's difficult using the tiny netbook's 9" screen and trackpad ... from the discomfort of the driver's seat.
I don't do lost very well. ::)
-
Very cool trip Paul. I'd like to get out to see that area. Looks a lot more scenic than Calico just to the East.
I'm interested in an AZ/NV border and back trip.
-
You just can't resist a good mud puddle. ;D Nice pictures.