Ride 14: Half-Way, Petroglyphs and Hackberry Spring

If you have a FULL day to spend in the outdoors off-road you could take the ride Gordon and I took into the "Half-Way" and "Toquop" washes near Mesquite Nevada.   [For a free Google Earth file of this route see: Half-way and Toquop Wash Loop]

Gordon likes to get started real early, me... not so much; but, by the time we were done with the ATV ride, both of us were satisfied and more than usually exhausted.

The adventure started at the I-15 truck stop trailhead in Half-Way Wash just southwest of Mesquite. We took the RZR north toward the gap in East Mormon Mountain, near Davidson Peak, and the radio tower. It is an area landmark which nearly everyone talks about but I had never seen.

Across the wash and up the… graded dirt mountain road is definitely class-I riding but very dusty. It is surprising just how much "stuff" they've put up there.

We then went north up the foothills on the east side of the mountains, passing Macbruson Mine, Peach Spring, Gourd Spring, the CCC cabins, Farnsworth Jones Mine and eventually to the South Fork of Toquop Wash where the petroglyphs are. Most all of those landmarks were on both of our GPS units.

That's what I wanted to see, to get more photos. I'm surprised that Gordon let us pass up all those mines but he had his sights set on the Whitmore Mine over on the other side of the mountain.

We did find a couple more petroglyphs than what I wrote about in two previous postings: One and Two. And, I was able to clarify the previous ones that I saw more specifically. There are also several more rocks which are the petrified lake bottom ooze from eons gone by.

We will stomp to the top with the wind in our teeth.”
George Mallory, 1924

We went through the gap, instead of turning east back down Toquop like we normally do, and followed the trail back south over a bit of a rise known as "the Summit" (3737ft) then west toward Hackberry Spring.

We had been to the area before but found it blocked by a vehicle "corral." It still was… some things never change. Undaunted, we did head up the trail but not the way we wanted on the RZR. I'll just tell you, there was way too much walking to suit me. After crossing yet a SECOND post and bolt fence, Gordon began wondering what on earth was up there that they really didn't want us to see. Me, I was just trying to catch my breath.

We made it up to Hackberry Spring and the abandoned cement water trough before the pitch of the trail headed past 30 degrees closing in on 45! There was no way out of this canyon except on yak back and the GPS seemed to show the Whitmore Mine over in the next canyon, higher up the mountain.

Back at the hiking trailhead, I think even Gordon had had his fill.