S California Offroad Map: Darwin Falls

The fifth in a series, a completely new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file which is available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Darwin Falls Offroad Riding Area.

The California Master Map having been split into North and South, room for more trails exist; although, the way things are going the southern map may need splitting again shortly. One hundred and twenty-eight new GPS locations for mines and other waypoints have been added to the Darwin Falls Trail.   [A free Google Earth file of this route is available at: Offroading Home: Southern California Master Map.]

On top of that, eighty-six new trail segments (both ride and hike) have been added … WHEW! These new additions have been submitted by an "anonymous reader" who apparently is some sort of "mine aficionado" scouring southern California for mines and their data. Credit where it is due to Mr. Anonymous; but, the data needs substantial re-working so I'll pat myself on the back as well… even if I need to dislocate my arm to do it.

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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.

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GEO-tography: Reflective

The magnificence of being outdoors is heightened by being "off the road." Offroader's prefer the destinations with a view and for many seniors the only way open to be able to see them is on an ATV or some like vehicle.

Today's collection of "Geo" related photography is about an aspect of the view which is not often noticed and in fact can be looked directly at but not seen. The human brain is funny that way.

I'm talking about: reflections. And, they are everywhere, not just in mirrors as the images below will reveal.

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How Much Water Is On The Earth

"How much water is there?" is a question that I remember asking myself (and others) back when I was in high school. I didn't get a good answer then, and it seems that other pressing issues completely buried all memory of the event until this week when I found the answer from the USGS: How Much Water Is There Really?

Falling Man Update

In a bit of unusual happenstance, Gordon and I were taking one of our last rides together on the butte this season (and still commiserating about the complete incompetence of the BLM over the "first rock" fecal "grafitti" that they have been completely ignoring for the past two years on some of the most old and rare petroglyphs in the whole area) when we saw something completely unexpected that I'll tell you about.

But first, as you may know, there are petroglyphs of several different ages at this particular site and it's some of the oldest that are being destroyed by the fecal matter being flung at them. We've posted about this before in this blog and reported it to the ranger as well as other BLM officials more than once. My guess is that either they are so misguided that they think large birds can't fly to another rock to nest; OR they are too lazy to do the minimal work necessary to "rearrange" the birds descretionary choices.

PEOPLE, birds can move (even poor little eagles) but petroglyphs can't! And, once they're gone, they're gone… FOREVER!

However, I digress. You must forgive me, for this kind of "official" incompetance stirs my soul. Back to the story.

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S California Offroad Map: Blythe Vidal Riding Area

The latest in a whole series of updated to the California maps, an entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file which is available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Blythe Vidal Offroad Riding Area.

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Offroad: Old Narrows Trail

The trail that once was: The Gold Butte Narrows. Oh… I know, those of us "Johnnie-come-lately's" still have a trail we call "the narrows," but as good as it is, it doesn't hold a candle to what "once was."

Back in the day before the National Park Service (NPS) got a burr in their blanket and decided to close off the well used trail, one could navigate up a high-walled, carriage-wide, multi-colored, serpentiginous, slick-rock canyon to everyone's amazement and absolute delight.

Today, pretty much NO-one uses it at all – except those who ignore signs.

Hikers don't – because it is really, really, really far off road from the nearest staging area, across huge amounts of uniforn, non-colorful, boring, hot and flat desert and would require them to ride an offroad vehicle to get there to hike it. And, because it was never really important to them anyway.

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S California Offroad Map: Alexander Hills Riding Area

Yet again, an entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Alexander Hills Offroad Riding Area.

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Offroad: Red Hollow Arch Trails

This is a rather unique post in that it had its origins in an email with a question: "I'm an offroader who loves to travel in mountains with my group on our my bikes and am wondering if there is a 'best way' to get to Red Hollow Arch in southern Utah," or words real close to this.

He went on to say that he was able to see the place on Google Earth, and several trails – at least what looked like trails; but, wanted to begin in Beaver Dam and travel to the arch from Arizona. He wondered if any reader had been there and submitted a recent trail.

Well, I was glad to help; but, there was one problem: I personally had never heard of Red Hollow Arch so didn't have a clue where he was talking about!

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S California Offroad Map: Skeleton Pass Riding Area

An entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file available for free at the Offroading Home web site: The Skeleton Pass Offroad Riding Area.

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GEO-tography: Forest

Without a doubt, most of the Utah offroad ATV trails run through our wonderful mountains. And, it just so happens that the most downloaded post of any we've ever done on Offroading Home is the GEO-tography post about mountain photos.

However, much of a mountains granduer has to do with its dressing: forests. It is true that often we don't stop to see the forest for all the trees, like these aspens near Old LaSal by Moab.

I ran across a photographer who had some great tips for us the next time we're out photographing trees. And from what he seems to say, it's not that difficult to obtain a great shot: "Take time, find a point of interest and shoot any season" – now those are things that I can do!

Take Time

"One of the beautiful things about landscape photography is that there is no need to hurry. Take your time and get a real feel for what it is you want to capture. Time is on your side. Lighting conditions can change dramatically throughout the day, and if you’re really fortunate, the perfect shot may find you!"

He say's for us to "wander through the forest and consider all the possible vantage points" which is something that most of us have down pat! Then he advises us to "try out both wide and telephoto lenses" or, I guess, to at least try zooming out and in if we have cameras without changeable lenses. Pointing a wide angle lens upward emphasizes size and scale. A telephoto lens compresses a row of tree trunks and captures patterns.

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S California Offroad Map: Whipple Mountain Trails

An entire new trail system has been added to the Southern California Master Map file available for free at the Offroading Home web site.

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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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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.

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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…

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