“It’s alive and waiting for you. Ready to kill you if you go too far. The sun will get you, or the cold at night. A thousand ways the desert can kill”
The Mojave is a desert of wind, temperature extremes, Joshua Trees and solitude. When most people hear the word ‘desert,’ images of tumbleweeds, rattlesnakes and bleak desolation typically come to mind. In reality, the Mojave is anything but a wasteland. Amongst the sand and sagebrush lie many places of beauty and wonder, and of historic importance. Some are the result of time and the elements, some are the result of man and his efforts to live in the Mojave, both in recent and prehistoric times. Let’s go see what we can find.
I had just left the neat little ghost town of Ruth's Camp and was heading north on the Trona Wildrose Road. My plan was to stop at Ballarat and then continue north, connecting with CSR 190 and thence to Lone Pine to spend the night. I made it as far as Ballarat, where I discovered that the road ahead was closed due to being washed out during the most recent flash floods. Ballarat now had my full attention.
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The town of Bullfrog, Nevada got its start soon after “Shorty” Harris discovered gold nearby in 1904. A year later Bullfrog was hopping and some 1,000 residents called the place home. The town boasted a three-story hotel, general store, bank, jail, post office, lodging house, icehouse and a number of other businesses and homes. Empty lots on main street were priced at $1,500. Gunfights were not uncommon, sometimes fatally so. The west was still wild.
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Fall colors in the Eastern Sierras. Beautiful country and lots of territory to explore. I'll be heading back again next year.
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As I was driving up to Dante’s View, I pulled into the parking area for Zabriskie Point. A short hike later and I was looking at one of the most impressive and starkly beautiful views in Death Valley. Spread out before me was a maze of wildly eroded and multi-colored badlands. Off to the northwest, Manly Beacon reached for the sky. White salt flats shone on the valley floor in the distance. A few steps in the wrong direction and I would be swallowed up by Gower Gulch. I jumped over the wall anyway to get as close to the edge as possible, to see what I could find.
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I’d seen pictures of the Wildrose Charcoal Kilns in Death Valley many years ago and had put them on my list of places to visit. Unfortunately, the time between adding them to my ever-growing list and then actually making the trek to see them was a good number of years. But when something turns out to be even more impressive that you thought it would, it more than makes up for the wait. And that was the case with these crazy dome things out in the wilderness of Death Valley.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
