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CA4WDC MAPPING PROJECT
By Ric Jones
As you probably know, CA4WDC has taken on a project of
logging all trails in California, a VERY ambitious project at best. What they
have done is assign a page from the DeLorme Atlas to each club, we got page 84.
The area we are to map is from Kelso on the North to Amboy on the south and from
Ludlow on the west to Kelbaker Road on the east. Luckily for us 2/3 of the area
is “wilderness” so it cuts down the required effort considerably.
On the November 6th weekend a few hardy souls mostly made up of “R” people set
off to drive as many of trails that we could find and had time for. The plan for
most of us was to get out there on Friday and return home on Monday. I followed
Dennis Sullivan out in my Jeep and he was driving his motorhome and towing his
Jeep. We arrive around 10:00, set up camp (lowered the jacks) and headed out to
explore. Directly behind where we were camped in Siberia were 2 gas line roads,
so we decided to log them first. We took the northern most one first and it
proved to be the most scenic. In Ragtown we picked up the southern most road and
followed it back east. Nothing exciting on either road, but it was nice to get
out and the weather was great.
By the time we got back to camp everyone else had arrived, they consisted of
Mike and Carol Kelly, the only non-R people, Jon & Dale Rice, and Bob Day and
Sally Kinsey. We decided since we had so much daylight left we would do a little
more exploring so we headed out.
At one point the road seemed to end at a wide wash. Following the GPS we were
able to find the trail on the other side, so we continued on.
To say the GPS came in handy would be a major understatement. We relied on it
heavily. We found that roads that showed on the GPS Topo didn’t necessarily show
on the ground. Mostly the “lost” trails were in washes and were washed away some
time ago.
We followed one trail that went up to almost I-40 then circled around back to
it’s self. We took the westerly trail going up and decided to take the easterly
one coming back. Well, we got to about 100 yards of meeting back up with the
trail and there was a washout. We looked for an easy way to get across, but
there wasn’t one. We, with a bit of work, could have probably made it, but since
we only had about another hour of daylight I decided to save that for another
day, and we turned around and went out the way we came.
On Saturday morning we set out at 9:00 as a group to see what kind of trouble we
could get into. The plan was to map as much as we could to the west of camp, in
the Klondike area.
At one point the Kellys sniffed out a side trail that looked interesting that I
had missed (easy to do while trying to drive, and navigate).
They along with Bob & Sally and the Rices went to check it out. It went in a
ways and they had to make their way over some pretty good size rocks before it
petered out. Upon arriving home and checking out where they were on a map, it
looked like if they had been able to go about another 1500 feet they would have
come out into a wash. This would be a nice trail to come back to sometime and
see if we can get through.
After that adventure we met up and had lunch. Lunch break was nice, the weather
was sunny, clear and about 75 degrees, just about perfect!
After lunch we continued on and eventually met up with a pipe line road. On the
way back we were looking for a road that showed on the topo, but it was really a
wash. We decided to take it anyways and took off trying to dodge as may bushes
as possible
This proved to be an interesting route. I’d say it won based on the number of
new scratches on the Jeep. The coyotes must have not heard of this wash since I
think I must have scared up a dozen big Jackrabbits. We found our way out and
mad it back to camp about 4ish. That night we spent a pleasant evening around a
campfire.
On Sunday the Kellys had to leave for home so the could WORK on Monday, and the
rest of us headed off to explore the eastern portion of our area.
The weather wasn’t nearly as good as it was the prior 2 days, it was cooler and
cloudy.
We took off on a road that is part of the 3rd segment of the Mojave Heritage
Trail and headed north. We wanted to hit a spur road, but once again it was in a
wash and we couldn’t find it. We followed a gas line road east then connected to
a road going to the Orange Blossom mine where we had lunch. It was cool and
windy there so we each ended up eating lunch in our vehicle.
After a short lunch break we were off again, back to the gas line road. At the
gas line road, there was one road that went to Kelbaker Road and one that headed
south. I made a quick run to Kelbaker just to log it and then rejoined the rest
for a trip south.
The road wasn’t bad, but like most of the roads we traveled, it looked like we
were the first ones on them for quite some time.
This road hit Kelbaker Road, so we headed south back to camp. Along the way we
stopped and nosed around beautiful Amboy for a while before heading back to
camp.
Not long after arriving back at camp we got a little rain, just enough to send
us to the motorhomes. It only lasted a few minutes and then we were back out
around the campfire. After dinner it was about the same thing, a slight shower,
but overall the weekend was very pleasant.
I would VERY MUCH like to thank Mike and Carol, Jon and Dale, Bob and Sally, and
Dennis for donating there time and ga$$ to this project. Especially for Dennis
for putting me up in his motorhome and putting up with me. I think we now know
much better how our GPSs work and how to navigate with them. I really enjoyed
the weekend and think we got about 85% of it mapped, probably about only a day’s
work to finish it off.
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JAN. 15 - Anza-Borrego
Meeting location to be determined.
For more information call Bob Day at (310) 544-2130 Rating 3
FEB. 19 - Joshua Tree
It’s been a while since we’ve done Pinkham and Berdo canyons so it should be
interesting.
For more information call Ric Jones at (714) 962-6215 Rating 3
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