Offroad: Mesquite to Overton Nevada

We've posted before about the offroad trip from Mesquite to Overton touching both the Virgin River and the historic Old Spanish Trail, but the trip is such a yearly tradition it deserves re-gifting.

The first of this month (Jan 2013) Hugh took Gordon and Mary, Jerry and Chellen and Craig and Vicki on the trip and stopped at Sugar's for lunch. Often, because the trail is so dusty and filled with "whoop-de-do's", the wives don't go; but, after the recent rains everyone got out on the rigs.

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Offroad: Mormon Mesa-St. Thomas

This ride was a good days outing from Mesquite Nevada in a mini-van around the historic Mormon Mesa and St. Thomas overlook. The ride was 125 miles around some breath-taking overlooks and red rocks with a thousand feet change in altitude. At the time of the ride the dirt roads were dry and fairly well maintained. Lake Mead was still below the historic town of St. Thomas and hiking trails were being well used.

Seeing the Virgin River Valley from the top of Mormon Mesa with Gordon and Hugh wasn't enough for me. Even though they were dirt, the roads seem to look like they'd been scraped in the not to distant past so we decided to try to get the family van up the mesa from the Overton side so Mom and Dad could see it too.   [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home.]

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Offroad: Beaver Dam - East Pass Loop

I got a chance to take a ride in Gordon's CanAm and jumped at the opportunity. We joined Hugh and the "Beaver Dam Gang" on their adventure up "The Wash" to "however far we can get before the snow stops us" – not really expecting to get all the way to East Pass, which I think was Hugh's secret goal.

The Beaver Dam Bridge seems, to me at least, to have a new entrance this year after all the repairs to the bridge caused by last years floods. It actually makes it quite easy now for all the town's residents to head to the trails on their ATVs – a major past time activity for them.

There was but the tiniest trickle of water in Beaver Dam Wash this winter but you could tell that there had been major runoff by all the broken limbs and debris strewn along the banks and caught on rocks.

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Offroad: Mormon Mesa Point

In order to explore the Mormon Mesa a little more, Gordon, Hugh and I took to the offroad once again and headed south. OK… Gordon had convinced Hugh to go find two mines which were on his mine database, but which no one in recent history had seen. Then somehow we ended up on the trail without the coordinates to the spots so went sight-seeing instead. And I'm glad we did.

The view from the top gives the Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon a run for their money; but, I digress. Hugh calls any trailhead in the area, except the water tower, "riding from the girls trailhead." So, once again, we staged at the water tower parking area on Ben Franklin to begin the days ride.

Up and over the Flat Top Mesa is a beautiful ride, in and of itself; but, for me at least, I've already "got the tee-shirt" on that ride so it can be a bit of an impediment to getting to the "real" destination on the other side. Recent weathering and wear has made opening and closing the gates at the top on the steep grade quite an adventure; so, if you're smart you'll make a side-by-side carrying two people go first. The "spare" can climb over to the gate and open it to let everyone through then close it after.

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