Offroad: Lower North Valley & Seeps ATV Trail

To the south of Mesquite Nevada, in fact to the south of Bunkerville, is a large, flat, sandy bajada known as Bunkerville Flats. It is divided into east and west portions by the substantial Nickel Creek Ravine and is the unassuming portal to a "magical" valley – which is where we are going to ride today.

North Valley! Ahhh, dad and I have fond memories the first time we "explored" it – only about six years ago now. We were snowbirding "in the warm" (Mesquite that year) and had my ATVs with us. Simple, little, meek things that enabled us "old codgers" to get out from under-foot and see the world.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: 21 Goats Petroglyphs

What do you do when you've been to a place many times, wish you could be there even more and someone tells you that now the only way you can be where you've always been is to be one of the "pretty people" in their private click?

That's the dilemma that we have right here on Gold Butte and if we think what the government did to native people has ended we're mistaken. The government, in the form of the BLM, still shows their avarice; but, now it's for whoever has the money – I'm looking at you Sierra Club and Harry Reid.

If you're one of the "pretty people" who still has stamina and good joints – You're the ones the BLM-Sierra has decided are deserving to be able to see the glyphs.

Press to Read The Rest ...

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.

Press to Read The Rest ...

A Good Year For RZR 900's - Scanlon Ferry Road

Being very unhappy with the way his last rig was designed and thereby performed, Gordon determined to buy the new RZR 900 this year – and he did. Apparently, at the same time, Hugh became enamored with the machine and replaced his old rock-climber as well.

Arriving at their favorite riding spot for the winter season (Beaver Dam/Mesquite Nevada), they found that Steve had also made the same decision. Hugh and Gordon took their rigs on a "shake-down" ride up to East Canyon (which we already told you about) and then all three of them went down to Scanlon Ferry road – to test out their brakes!

They wrote that the trip, which normally takes merely a full day's ride, became a tad eventful – well I'll let Hugh tell you about it…

"Steve, Gordon and I went for a ride yesterday (Dec. 20th, 2012). We all have 900's and it was Steve's first trip out with his.

Press to Read The Rest ...

East Pass - "Officially" Closed

It's one thing to have the BLM put up a sign and close a trail; but, quite another still to have God do it. One of Hugh's - and I suppose mine as well - favorite rides from the Mesquite Nevada area is to run up Beaver Dam Wash, through the Tule Desert past Sam's Camp and over what people call East Pass back into Nevada.

Well he and Gordon just attempted their annual ride and he's just sent in a report that "As of Dec. 17, 2012 East Pass is now officially closed. See attached pictures for documentation."

I've posted a previous article and map of the East Pass route. Thanks for the photos Hugh.

Offroad: Five Canyons Trail

Forty-three miles and a full day will get you out of Mesquite and into the mountains for a great loop around the five major canyons in the Bunkerville Range of the Virgin Mountains; plus a picturesque valley thrown in for good measure.

This is a ride which can easily be done without trailering from Mesquite. It loops from Water Tower Lane in Bunkerville to North Valley before running into the Parashant via the 4,900 ft Lime Kiln Canyon and returning via White Rock Road. It also happens to be what we think is the very best get-acquainted "sampler" ride one can your visitors on.

Although there are roads and trails going up all the canyons which can be navigated by 4-WD vehicles, the trail as shown in the free map accompanying this post is best taken on ATVs, side-by-sides and single tracks due to width, camber and turns. None-the-less, it really is considered beginner level (well, one part is a "strong" beginner level due to incline). [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home.]

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Mesquite-Bunkerville Backroads

We've been riding the Mesquite offroad area now for, what, five years? And we've tried to figure out the easiest possibilities to get from the city to the trailheads without the need for trailering.

The absolute insane prices of gasoline in Mesquite the past couple of years makes this even more important; especially since careful price comparisons often make it more economical to drive up to St. George to fill up than at any of the local stations – even with the higher per gallon gas tax in Utah.

In years past we've run around the city on the back roads to show that it's possible to get from one side to the other – although the spiteful closure of the newly refurbished city creek wash makes it nearly impossible this year. And, we've run from the south up to both Flat Top Mesa and Whiterock Road.

Press to Read The Rest ...

URGENT: Help Rescind Mesquite's Wilderness Bill

Tuesday, April 25th, the NEW Mesquite City Council will discuss a resolution to RESCIND former mayor Susan Holecheck's (now a paid lobbyist) resolution to close off the entirety of Gold Butte, clear up to the outskirts of Bunkerville, from offroad use and make it the largest wilderness area in the state.

All interested offroaders should attend the 5pm meeting as we have been told that Susan, Nancy and their Sierra Club type contingents intend on bussing people up from Vegas and stuffing the meeting at City Hall. Naturally, as is probably their intent, the latest battle is occuring after the large number of senior offroaders have left for the summer.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Anniversary-Oar Car Mines

For some reason this year, it has taken nearly everyone a lot longer to "ramp up" for the offroading season in Mesquite – the "oomph" just didn't come easy.

I thought it was just me, but all the locals I know are going through the same thing – a touch of the ol' "lakawanna." It could be the weather, it could be the "been there, done that" syndrome or it could be that pretty much every time we hear of Gold Butte or the Bunkerville Mountains any more it's in the context of some political idiocy.

The weather was cold when we arrived (unusual), got intermittently wet (not enough to do much good), snowed (not really unusual, but early) and completely warmed up (odd) – so perhaps that's it.

With the weather being so capricious, and gas prices being so unearthly high, we didn't want to trailer very far; so, I guess it might be a bit more difficult to get excited seeing the same things over again. However…

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Quick Trip to Lime Kiln Pass

The winter of 2011 is a funny snowbird year weather wise. Snow came and then … went. Just after Christmas it had warmed up and the snow had all but gone from the mountains.

We decided to get out of the house and take a quick afternoon ride up to the "fish tank" – the name the locals have given to the huge stock tank at the mouth of Lime Kiln Canyon which everyone has taken on as a project to keep stocked with goldfish. (I've written about that before).

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Virgin River

Nine hundred and ninety nine times out of a thousand the Virgin River is pretty much as laid back a river as you'll ever want to meet. Always a refreshing and beautiful landscape, it was once a terrible hardship to pioneer travelers; but, today, merely an annoyance preventing one from crossing anywhere one wants and a source for mosquito's and Tamarisk.

However, its increasing schizophrenia has been bringing it to people's mind a bit more often lately; namely, the thing has had two 500-year floods in the past five years! The restorationists have had a couple substantial setbacks of late when huge volumes of water tried to see just how high up the banks it could erase in one fell swoop.

We were greeted to the 2011-12 snowbird season, yet again this year, with a couple of weeks of rain. Nowhere near the deluge we had last year, but enough to prevent much escaping from the condo.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Mesquite-Overton Loop Trail

Pretty much a yearly tradition for the Mesquite Kokopelli ATV Club last Saturday's ride welcomed a hefty number of new members, almost doubling the size of the club this year and took the backroads over to Overton along the Mormon Mesa.

From the water tank trailhead, (the large gravel parking lot at the top of Ben Franklin Drive), the trail began first to go up and over Flat Top Mesa, a very scenic ride in itself. Once on the other side in Toquop Wash the trail to Overton begins just on the other side of the I-15 bridge and heads west beginning the climb upwards.

The first goal is to run along the Virgin River over to and cross the Riverside Road at Cook Bottom. The twenty-two rigs made it easily across the highway in shifts as there is rarely any traffic on the highway.

Hugh blazed the way following the Virgin River along power-line roads and offroad trails for about 7 miles (17.5 mi from the trailhead) until one last "up and over" brought the group down into Half-way Wash.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Mesquite - CCC Cabins

A bit stir-crazy from all the rain and snow, Gordon and I took our rigs up to Toquop Wash for the first time this season. There are many nice things to see up the wash, and several areas which are quite challanging; but, as rides go, much of is a bit nondescript so sort of falls down the priority list a bit.

Beginning up at the water-tank road trailhead, will take you to Toquop by a trip up and over Flat Top Mesa. You'll need to negotiate opening and closing heavy gates on an incline on both sides of the Mesa; so, unless the Mesa is an actual destination, most riders prefer a little easier access to the wash.

Press to Read The Rest ...

The Wilderness of Gold Butte

For some time now I have had the BLMs map of their proposal for turning Gold Butte (and Bunkerville Flats) into a WILDERNESS AREA, glaring at me from the middle of my desk top, not knowing what else to do with it except look at it and shake my head in disgust.

Frankly, as a useable map for making an assessment leading to meaningful comment, it is completely worthless; there, I said it. It is nothing more than an enhanced clone of the map the Las Vegas BLM field office foisted on us when they went through and systematically closed close to fifty or so trail segments a couple of years ago. That map was completely worthless to the public, and so is this.

Absolutely NO geo-location marks! Absolutely no latitude or longitude markings! No road names. For the most part NO readable, meaningful labels! All this leaving even the most basic understanding of where things are, woefully complex and time consuming; beyond what most reasonable people are either able or willing to undertake. Then there's obsessive-compulsive me.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Offroad: Mesquite - Noodling on North Flats

Probably one of the easiest ATV, SUV trailheads to get to in Mesquite is up the Mesquite Heights Road, most know it as the "road to the dump." There is quite a large staging area for the trailers of offroad vehicles just to the left before you arrive at the land-fill, a testament to its popularity and frequency of use.

Most of the use is from all forms of carry-alls of motorcycle's. The sandy wash banks and trails make for favored two-wheeled riding and we have never failed to see a group of cyclists whenever we have been there ourselves. This day was no exception, there were five in a "sleeper-van" who were spending the day offroad down from St. George. Actually, they were back at their trailer taking a "break" when we arrived.

It had been one of the ubiquitous rainy days this season and quite chilly; when, the sun coming out of the clouds triggered one of our genetic responses to "swim upstream" and get out in the air. Late in the day, there is really only one place to go offroad from Mesquite and that's North Flats.

Press to Read The Rest ...

What A Change: Mesquite Offroading

If there's nothing else that can be said about Mesquite it's that this years snowbirding adventure has been different than any others – anywhere! Well, perhaps not anywhere; because, if we went anywhere else one would expect it to be different. Coming back to a spot where we've been before, we expect it to be the same, or at least a little similar.

The Kokopelli club is still here. Nancy, the lobbyist is still at her paid job to turn Gold Butte into a "hikers only" coffee table book for the Sierra Club. And the Mayor is still here - for a little while more.

But, right off the bat we found that many of the washes had substantially changed from rains either last spring or early this fall. Charlie said that things had washed out a little – and boy was he right! We almost didn't recognize Mud Wash for all the rocks. BUT, little did we know that was merely the beginning.

Press to Read The Rest ...

Gold Butte Trail Monitoring

Offroading Home met with an intrepid group of offroaders who have just quietly and behind the scenes been going about the business of monitoring trail usage in the Bunkerville/Gold Butte riding area.

Probably few of us know that the BLM recruits cooperation from clubs and individuals who can ride the trails taking GPS readings and noting things like wash-outs, land-slides and other trail damage as well as noting usage.

A few members of the Trails and Dunes club from Las Vegas rode the West Bunkerville Flats area today monitoring trails along Nickle Creek Ravine and into the Old Mine area being trained on how to use the BLMs GPS units and what types of forms are necessary to document "hazards and incidents" for the BLM.

Why on earth would an offroad club want to monitor trails for the BLM? Well, there are many reasons.

Press to Read The Rest ...

NEW: Silver State Trails

The Silver State Trails in Nevada was posted about over on the Offroading Home Forum a few days ago. I'd never heard of them before, so did a bit of research and found that the trails were just a bit north of our old stopping grounds in Mesquite, up by Pioche and Pananca.

The person who posted about them left some links to pages that he had found, so I followed them.   As usual, there were no REAL, usable maps or files available; so, no-one could actually download anything but PR hype.

I found the BLM web site for the area, and one additional site which had the area split up into five of those proprietary, and nearly unusable, Adobe PDF maps.   As you know some BLM field offices are still using this "protectionist" type of format – probably thinking that what they are doing is somehow useful to people.

Press to Read The Rest ...

NEW: All Roads Lead To - 3 Corners

With the addition of the "3-Corners Western Route" trail, it now seems like this is the second sought after destination (right after Devil's Fire) as far as downloads and submissions are concerned.   [For a free Google Earth file of this route see: Nevada Trails Master Map]

From the statistics, almost as many readers search and browse to the various three-corners tracks as do to the Devil's Fire map files.

For some reason it has also become a frequent destination of our own personal rides when we are snowbirding down that way. Perhaps it is due to the several directions one can get to it.

Trailheads can begin along old Route 95 just north of Beaver Dam, or along Lytle Ranch Road. We've also found ourselves at Three-Corners when we've ridden from the top of Mesquite Heights Road.

Additionally, just about any trail which takes you to Powerline Road over Flat Top Mesa or Lone Mesa or Toquop Wash can also get you to Three-Corners. As do trails coming from the north around Beaver Dam Wash.

Just about the only direction we haven't already taken has been from the far southwest –and now this trail begins from the Carp-Elgin exit off of I-15!

Press to Read The Rest ...

On The Butte With 'Desert Walker': A Gold Butte Summer

One of the advantages of posting a blog such as Offroading Home is the opportunity to meet some interesting 'characters.' I was at Kurt's Grotto just after the "fiends of Gold Butte" and BLM idiocy which closed it off, and struck up a conversation with two riders who looked like they knew what they were doing.

When I started to tell them about the maps available on the blog, they already knew all about it and showed me that they had been using them a lot. Since then the two, who use the moniker of 'Desert Walker,' have assisted in verifying tracks and waypoints and every so often send a photo of something they've seen.

When I began receiving photos of the Gold Butte rides they were taking in the middle of the summer, and heard about the 'unique' modifications they've made to their rigs, I then knew that they were indeed characters so decided to 'interview' them via Email, which went pretty much like this:

Press to Read The Rest ...