Tuesday May 6, 13.5mi/21.7km

Above Amargosa River (430.7/880ft) to Tecopa Hot Springs (444.2/1400ft) (CA)

I woke up early, excited to get to town today. My shadow followed me across the canyon all morning.

For the first few miles, the old railroad grade was pretty smooth and great.

Some of the cuts through cliffs were filled with bits of rocky rubble, it seems the bedrock around here is very loose.

I came to a confluence in the wash, where all the ATV riders split off and went up Sperry wash.

The guidebook mentions three spots where the old railroad trestles are gone, and I have to go down and cross the creek through bushes and weeds.

The first one wasn’t bad. I got my feet wet, but otherwise it was easy to find a route through the tamarisk and mesquite bushes. Then I was back up on the old railroad grade for a mile.

Again, another trestle was missing and I had to cross the Amargosa River.

This one was a bit more challenging. I had to push my way through a short section of aquatic grass.

But it only took 20 minutes and I left with my spirit intact. I made a cairn on the crossing bank for any future hikers.

Back up on the old railroad grade, it was easy walking for another half mile.

The cliffs to my right had this cool fluted pattern.

And then the railroad grade ended for the third time, and the day went to hell. This was my last crossing of the Amargosa River, and it took a couple of hours….to go only 200m/600ft. I only took one photo in the middle of some tamarisk thicket.

It was by far the worst bushwhack I’ve ever done, and involved using all my strength to push through some of the thick brush. A few places I had to turn around and find less thick brush, as I just couldn’t get through. I was afraid I would have to turn around and retrace all my steps today and exit back at the dunes I passed yesterday. After a lot of mud, pollen, sweat and some blood, I emerged 2 hours later on the opposite bank. I was now determined to find a way forward, since I would never go back through that thicket again. I was able to follow the edge of the river where it met a rocky slope.

After a quarter mile of relatively easy walking, I was out on some gravelly flats which was nice.

And then I had to re-cross the river, but here it was only grasses to walk through, and these were only knee-high and pretty easy.

I am emerged back on the railroad grade and trail, and from there it was a pretty easy 4 miles to the town.

I hadn’t seen these white flowers before.

I got to Tecopa at 3pm, it’s basically just a post office, brewery, and cafe.

It’s Tuesday so all the businesses were closed, but I sat on the front porch for an hour and collected myself and charged my phone. Then I finished the day with a 2-mile roadwalk to the Tecopa Hot Springs. This was a funny sign, I’ve never heard of this species of bird.

The Hot Springs! It’s a campground and has showers and also my resupply box.

The caretaker for the campground wasn’t on site today, but I happened to meet some long-term occupants, James and Lena, who were very generous. They gave me some cold drinks, fed me dinner, and drove me to another local hot springs.

After we got back from the hot springs, the maintenance guy had finished fixing the plumbing and I was able to take a wonderful shower. It had been 10 days since my last shower. Tomorrow I will attempt to hitch to either Baker CA or Las Vegas, and catch a Greyhound bus down to the California coast, for my next hike!

Monday May 5, 24.4mi/39.3km

Shadow Mountains Wash (406.3/2860ft) to Above Amargosa River (430.7/880ft) (CA)

It had sprinkled on and off overnight, so I packed up a damp tent, and left a dry rectangle on the ground. Ha!

The hike down the rest of the wide wash was easy and I slowly woke up as my feet crunched over the gravel.

After a couple of miles, the wash was channeled into a deep slot canyon. Not going in there!

I detoured right. followed some gravelly terrain to a different wash, which led me to Kingston Spring.

I poked around the spring, which took a while given how thick some of the brush was, and determined there was no water there. The guidebook says occasionally BLM the will come and burn away the brush, since all that vegetation consumes all the water, leaving none for the animals. Or in my case, people! I didn’t need the water but I added the information to the water report for the Desert Trail. From there I continued an hour on a nice 4wd road, which was easy to follow and even had some of these fancy markers at two of the turns.

When I got to Kingston Road, a medium-clearance dirt road, I took a long break and celebrated finishing the end of that section by finishing my jar of Nutella. The next segment of hiking was 27 miles long and would take me across the Valjean Valley and Amargosa River Canyon. I started with some easy XC across the Valjean Valley.

The clouds kept things nice and cool, I would not want to be crossing this valley when it was sunny and 90°F. As I approached some little hills, they turned out to be sand dunes and I noticed all the ground around me was becoming buried in soft sand.

At the top of a little pass I had a pretty great view to the north. The sandy area is called the Dumont dunes.

I followed an easy wash down from the little pass and encountered even bigger sand dunes.

Thankfully it wasn’t windy at all today or I might have been getting sandblasted. From there it was a slow hike XC across some flat sandy terrain.

There was hardly any vegetation to weave around, it was mostly just the energy sucking sand to slow me down. It’s probably the same stuff they use in the runaway truck ramps! After over an hour that I came to an old railroad grade, what used to be the Tonopah-Tidewater railroad.

Which weirdly had a DirecTV satellite dish installed nearby. The wires didn’t connect to anything so as far as I could tell it was not functional.

I have no idea why that was there, my guess is it’s part of some geocache game. The rest of the day I spent hiking on the flat railroad grade, underneath an ever-changing sky of clouds.

The way they built this railroad grade baffled me, it just went straight across all the little washes, no bridges or anything. Like where was the water supposed to go? No wonder it has a bunch of washed-out areas.

Finally, at the end of the day I entered the Amargosa Canyon, which seemed to protect me from most of the wind out in the open dune areas. I set up my tent in the least rocky spot I could find and enjoyed the sunset.

Tomorrow, it’s only 12 miles to Tecopa!

Sunday May 4, 22.8mi/36.7km

Halloran Summit (383.5/4100ft) to Shadow Mountains Wash (406.3/2860ft) (CA)

After checking the weather and seeing it was going to be nice and cool in the 60s for the next couple of days, I decided to continue on this trail. The morning was a nice cruise on dirt roads through a Joshua Tree forest.

After an hour I left the road network and traversed the rocky volcanic plateau towards Solomons knob.

Looking back at the plateau I had just crossed, unknowingly above a line of rimrock:

From there I cruised downhill on a pretty nice burro trail, which led me to wash and then this little guzzler.

There were plenty of these on the DWTH route, they’re built for wildlife to have drinking water. In this case, birds. I grabbed a liter from the guzzler, figuring the next source would be cattle-polluted. From there it was an easy bit of xc hiking through sparse Joshua trees up to another dirt road.

The guidebook called this “Fence pool”, it looked like it had been dry for many years.

The next water source listed in the guidebook was Francis Spring, which was indeed polluted by cattle. But it definitely had water.

As the morning went on, the sky became much cloudier and threatened to rain. But it was still a nice walk on very faint 2-track old roads thru Joshua trees.

The middle part of the day I had a couple miles of XC hiking through these annoying little bushes. They don’t have thorns or spines, but they are uncomfortable to walk through even in pants.

And I could see the Kingston Range to the north was getting a pretty good rainstorm. I had lunch underneath some huge power lines, which were very buzzy. Most of the afternoon was hiking along this abandoned old road which was actually really easy to follow.

It was a very enjoyable couple of hours, and then the road merged with a wash.

I followed the wash downhill until it was wide enough to have some flat camping spots, and I set up my tent before the approaching clouds arrived.

Good timing again, rain 20 minutes after I was in my tent!

Saturday May 3, 18.5mi/29.8km

Black Tank Wash (365.0/3820ft) to Halloran Summit (383.5/4100ft) (CA)

It was a peaceful night sleeping in the wash, though I thought I’d heard voices at some point. I hiked the last mile down the wash, before exiting it.

As I was looking for the exit point through the cliffs, I heard voices again. There were people out here! And they were looking at the pictographs on the rocks.

Ron, Charles, and Emily were out on a trip looking for these artifacts.

They were fun to talk to about all the local desert stuff. And I never see people out here, so I asked them to take my photo.

And this arch was a complete surprise, as it was not mentioned in the guidebook.

From there, the rest of the day was walking across lava fields of varying degrees of rockiness.

Usually I was staring at my feet so I didn’t look up much, but when I heard hooves I saw this friendly burro in the distance.

I was slowly climbing the lava field, weaving through cinder cones, and eventually was up on a rim.

The views were great but it was rapidly getting cloudier.

It was a very scenic walk along the rim all afternoon. Especially in the north direction, which is where I’m heading.

Looking west:

The volcanic rocks lessened, so it was a little easier to walk without tripping, but I still had to stop to really enjoy the views.

And then after 3pm the sky got really dark and I started hiking faster.

I was about 10 minutes away from the point where I would exit the plateau and descend down through the rim, and I heard thunder overhead. I moved faster though my pace was limited by all the little bushes (blackbush and brittlebush). I made it down below the rim and then the thunder and wind really increased. I was down lower now, so I waited behind a large creosote bush for the wind to diminish. I had a good view of this flowering little cactus while I was waiting!

An hour later, I arrived to the interstate 15 crossing and found my water cache.

Yup, after a very beautiful 5 days I was finally leaving the Mojave National preserve.

I hiked by this abandoned old gas station which felt really creepy with all the graffiti and vandalism.

Crossing the interstate, looking north towards Las Vegas direction.

I don’t like camping near roads, but there wasn’t much choice in this area so I got myself a half mile from pavement and setup under some high voltage power lines.

I could see more clouds coming, so I quickly got my tent set up and it started lightly raining a few minutes afterwards. Perfect timing. Tomorrow, depending on weather, I may exit the trail here, or continue north for another 3 days and exit at Tecopa.

Friday May 2, 22.8mi/36.7km

Kelso Wash (343.2/4370ft) to Black Tank Wash (365.0/3820ft) (CA) +1.0mi non-sucky alt

I started off the day hiking through the same Joshua Tree forest from yesterday.

After an hour of that bliss, I came out of the forest and saw the hamlet of Cima. It’s basically just some railroad tracks and a couple of train buildings.

For the next hour, I covered some miles on a paved road. I saw exactly 0 cars, a pretty quiet road!

And then it was back into the Joshua Tree forest, on the climb up Cima Dome. Except that had all been burned in a giant wildfire.

From the looks of things, the fire was not recent but I need to look up the year. The guidebook told me to “follow an old dirt road along a fence line”, but the fence was surely in ashes, and bushes had overtaken the old road. So for an hour I played the game of “find faint traces of an old road”, which I was mostly successful at but it required a lot of concentration. Next I came to an old corral with a water tank. At least, it had been a water tank about 20 years ago.

In this area the old dirt road had been recently improved, which was a little suspicious. And a few minutes later I came across a half-dozen No Trespassing signs, so I backtracked to the corral area. I also found some new construction on a solar well.

And a working windmill which was pumping, but the pipe didn’t lead anywhere.

I had phone signal so I downloaded some more maps and discovered that this area is a private inholding, that pre-dates the formation of the Mojave Reserve. So my guidebook isn’t outdated, it was always wrong! Neat. I hiked up the rest of Cima Dome, through a charred and mostly non-existent Joshua Tree forest.

Pretty cactus flowers.

With all the vegetation gone, the views on top of Cima Dome were spectacular. I could see the Granite Mountains and the Kelso Dunes, where I had been 4 days ago.

On the hike down the other side, I came across this strange benchmark for Teutonia, which is a little peak about three miles north of here.

As I followed the ancient remains of an old 2-track dirt road, I kept noticing these boulders with barbed wire tied around them. Maybe this used to be the fence?

As morning turned into early afternoon, I noticed it started to become really cloudy. Time to get lower!

I never would have noticed the junction of two different barely discernable 2-track roads, had it not been for this little cairn.

I made the turn on to the new “road” which led to Deer Spring.

I filtered a few liters, I had almost 30 miles to get to interstate 15 and my next water cache.

It’s crazy to me that in almost 400 miles of hiking on this trail, this is my first natural water source. Everything up to now has been spigots at campgrounds, or the water caches I placed beforehand. Dry trail! From this point, the guidebook says to hike 5 miles xc, weaving through bushes and cacti. That sounded miserable, so instead I mapped out an alternate route that used nearby dirt roads, and is 6 miles long. It led by some more defunct corrals.

It was a relaxing hike without having to dodge prickly plants or constantly navigate towards a bearing. at the end of the day I left the road and entered Black Tank Wash.

It was beautiful and these interesting new volcanic rocks were starting to appear, but the granite gravel was very soft and made forward progress very tiring. As usual, I camped in a wash.

Hopefully it doesn’t get windy tonight it’s pretty wide open here.

Thursday May 1, 19.7mi/31.7km

Wild Horse Canyon (323.9/4250ft) to Kelso Wash (343.2/4370ft) (CA) +0.4mi old homestead

I slept in a little later than usual due to all of yesterday’s shenanigans, but once I got moving at 7:30 it was easy walking on a dirt road.

I came to the area for Hole-in-the-Wall, which is always interesting.

I was here a couple of years ago on the “Winter thru-hike”, it’s a neat area where the rock has lots of little pockets and holes, there is a trail that goes up a short slot canyon with some rings installed.

It’s a fun little trail but very short, and on the other side is the campground, where I refilled my water and enjoyed a nice sit at a proper table.

For the rest of the morning, I hiked on an actual constructed trail.

Complete with signs at the trail junctions!

The trail is 8 miles long and slowly climbs from Hole-in-the-wall campground to mid-Hills campground. As I ascended, yuccas started appearing again.

Neat cliffs of some sort of chalky rock.

The trail mostly followed washes or was in soft gravel, so I moved slowly all morning up to a pass where I had lunch.

Just after I packed up from lunch, I saw a new type of lizard I hadn’t seen before.

Unlike all the other lizards, he wasn’t in a hurry to move either. And even more surprisingly, I saw some new wildflowers up here at this elevation of 5000 feet.

I never would have expected to see Indian paintbrush in the desert. When I got to mid-Hills campground I was even more surprised to see they had Wi-Fi.

It looks brand new, and I think it’s just so people can reserve a campsite. But they haven’t even fixed the water system, and it’s been a few years since it has been inoperable. Weird priorities.

It was a nice stroll through the campground and there were even a few other cars there.

It’s always tricky to find the right spot to leave a campground, since you don’t want to walk through someone’s occupied spot. I chose site 22, and ended up exiting onto this nice ridge which even had a herd path.

Pretty soon I dropped down into a wash which I followed for a few miles.

Initially I was disappointed because the guidebook said there were Joshua Trees everywhere, but this whole area burned in the 2005 fire. And then finally at the end of the wash I saw a Joshua Tree!

My first Joshua Tree sighting of the hike! And then I saw dozens and then hundreds more.

The view of Cima Dome in the distance, which is tomorrow’s objective.

For the last couple hours of the day, I followed an old 2-track, which was absolutely inundated in Joshua Trees.

The “Old Thomas Place” was quite dilapidated.

The guidebook made it sound like an actual house that might be haunted, but there was no need to call Scooby & the gang, the house had long since collapsed and the ghosts departed. A little further on, I came across Burro Spring, which was unsurprisingly dry.

Oddly enough, my right knee randomly started hurting so I decided to stop and camp for the night. Sleep always helps!

Wednesday April 30, 20.9mi/33.6kmKelso Depot boundary (303.0/2060ft) to Wild Horse Canyon (323.9/4250ft) (CA)I packed up from my little spot nestled in the creosote bushes and walked the easy mile over to the Kelso Depot.It used to be a train station, the passenger service stopped in the 1950s but it still remains in active freight line today. The station was converted to a visitor center in the early 2005. unfortunately the main building was closed for renovations but I still had access to the bathroom building.Which meant I had access to running water, outlets, benches/tables, and trash cans. Most everything a hiker would want anyway. It’s also a popular crossroads for tourists, and I met a man and woman who were driving back to Michigan. When I explained the trail I was hiking, the guy said it sounded like the PCT when he hiked it ….in 1986. And then he gave me a cold beer and an apple!Trail magic on the Desert Trail, I’d never have predicted that! As I waited for my devices to charge, I watched several freight trains go by.And I got a better look at the Depot/ Visitor center, even though I wasn’t allowed to go inside.Since I had access to running water, I also decided to wash out my socks and shorts. I was careful not to use the hand dryer since that outlet was also powering my charger.The brochure for the Mojave National Preserve has a pretty good map that illustrates the different deserts I will be hiking through.Finally at 10am, I hiked out of the visitor center and made my way down the road. I didn’t get far, as I had a fun conversation with a couple from BC, Canada. Martha and Peter are on a long drive back up to Canada, and are enjoying the sites along the way. I’m going to Canada too, it will just take me until September!The Desert Trail follows a paved road for 4 miles, and I entertained myself with the funny road signs.Fortunately after only a few minutes I found a dirt road that ran parallel to this one, so I hiked that instead. It was closer to the train tracks which would frequently feature loud trains, but I didn’t mind that.Finally I left all the elements of civilization and hiked up a wash. The vegetation reminded me that I am truly in the Mojave Desert now.I even got a photo of a jackrabbit!I see like a dozen of these everyday, but they are usually too fast for me to get my camera out. As I climbed higher, the wash became narrower and had a series of fun little rocky dryfalls to hike on.I had fun poking around an old mining site, and even saw some graffiti from 1922.The guidebook lists this as a potential water source called “Summit Spring”. It’s basically just a set of wet cow prints, and no water. It was more like a slurry of mud and cowshit.I climbed out of the wash and to the top of a little ridge, and got a view of my main objective for the day, Wild Horse Mesa.I descended down a little wash for a mile and then climbed up the rocky hillside to reach the top of the mesa.It wasn’t that steep and the navigation was fairly easy, though I did get spooked by the three rattlesnakes I saw within 20 minutes. I think they like all the warm dark rocks on that hillside. Once I had gained the rim of the mesa, I had pretty good views. Looking ahead to the summit of the mesa:It was easy hiking along the top of the mesa, which had little vegetation or rocks. From the summit I had good views in all directions. Looking southwest:And West, toward the valley I came up from:And North:Sunset was quickly approaching, so I didn’t stop and made my way down from the summit, still hiking along the rim of the mesa. I could see my objective for the end of the day down in the valley far below, Wild Horse Canyon Road.It was an easy hike down the mesa, until the very end when it got rocky. That part was tricky as I had to navigate the terrain, lookout for snakes in the rocks, and watch my footing in the loose ground. Because it took me longer than I expected, I had to stop and get out my headlamp for the last half mile. Darn. But the extra light was quite helpful in negotiating the unexpected series of cliff bands that I had to weave me way down through. Finally at 8pm, I was down on the valley floor and quickly setup my tent in a wash.Happy Justin Timberlake day!

Tuesday April 29, 18.6mi/29.9km

Bull Canyon (284.4/3810ft) to Kelso Depot boundary (303.0/2060ft) (CA)

Since I was up pretty late last night, I slept in and didn’t get moving until 8am. I had three more miles in the wash, and while it was much less brushy than the wash yesterday, it was still rocky.

Bull Canyon is known to be wild and remote, and apparently there’s even some water pools!

Though I learned later that it had just rained 6 days ago, so the water is probably just temporary.

After a couple of miles, I came to these neat little pools above a dryfall.

While scenic, they necessitated a detour around, which meant going up the canyon walls and back down. I hiked up the opposite wall to scout out my intended route up the rocks.

It looked reasonable, so I crossed the wash and scrambled up the rocks.

Twenty minutes later, I was descending back down until the canyon. I heard these loud flock of birds, just hanging out on top of a large boulder.

Once I was back in the bottom of the wash, I got a good look at the obstacle I had detoured around.

The guidebook suggests you might be able to climb down that dryfall. Umm….no. I continued on down the easy wash on flat slabs of rock.

There were several more little pools of water, which is always surprising to see out here.

And the cool white stripes in the canyon cliffs!

My last little obstacle of the morning was these little slickrock pools. They were shallow so I could have easily walked right through them, but I figured out a way to keep my feet dry by using some stemming moves from rock climbing.

Soon after that, I left the canyon and walked along a sandy dirt road for a couple miles.

In the distance, I could see my objective for the afternoon, the world famous Kelso Dunes.

I got to the Kelso Dunes campground at lunchtime, and I unburied my water and food that I had cached a few weeks ago. It looked like some curious human had started to dig a little bit where I had buried it, and then an opportunistic critter chewed a little bit on the odor-proof bag. But everything was fine so the system still worked!

I met Rob & Kathy who were camping there, and we had a fun conversation about this trail I’m hiking and the desert and general. It had been awhile since I had a conversation with other people, there’s no one else out here hiking! After lunch I left the campground and headed into the dunes.

The wind made these cool ridge patterns in the sand.

And also these cool edge patterns.

It was pretty windy at the top of the dunes, and I could see in real time the process of dune formation.

That photo is looking at the leeward side of the dune, where the sand is deposited by the wind. After enough sand is piled up, the hillside becomes too steep and the sand slides down. It felt like I was getting sandblasted up there, so I quickly continued down the other side of the dunes.

My objective for the end of the day was near Kelso Depot, just before the darker ridge in the distance.

I hiked in a perfectly straight line across a sandy valley all afternoon. Camping at Kelso Depot isn’t allowed, so I hiked as far as I could, while staying in public land. The miles this morning were pretty slow, so I ended up hiking until 7pm before stopping to camp.

I was too lazy to setup my tent, so I watched the sunset from my bivy bag.

Monday April 28, 18.3mi/29.5km

Cut Wash (266.1/2800ft) to Bull Canyon (284.4/3810ft) (CA)

The day started off easily enough, I hiked up the rest of Cut wash to a pass, and then down Gap Wash, through a cool gap in the rocks.

Up at these higher elevations, Spring is in its prime. So many flowering bushes and cacti.

I arrived at the spot where I had cached my water and quickly found it.

I had a nice break in the shade of the plentiful bushes in the wash, though I could hear the nearby freeway. And sure enough, I hiked right underneath it a little while later.

Once I was on the other side of the I-40 freeway, I had entered the Mojave National Preserve.

After some very gradual climbing on some 4wd roads and washes, I was starting to get a pretty good view of all of the valleys to the south. After asking around, I’m pretty sure that snowy peak is Mt San Gorgonio.

The wildflowers in this wash were everywhere, and in almost every color.

For a few miles, I was on familiar terrain. The Desert Trail overlaps with the DWTH I did a couple of years ago, and this wildlife guzzler looked awfully familiar.

For an hour, I was hiking terrain I had covered before, so I didn’t have to pay attention to navigation, and could just go off of memory. Instead I paid attention to all the different plants up here at this elevation in the Mojave.

I arrived at Budweiser Spring, which was dry. I wasn’t really surprised, it was dry the last time I was here too.

After a nice lunch break in the shade of some large boulders, I started up Budweiser Canyon. It was very brushy and slow going.

And some steeper spots of granite slabs.

I was slowly gaining elevation and I kept looking behind me to gauge my progress.

Huge barrel cactus!

After an hour and a half of thrashing through brush and boulders in the wash, I finally got to leave it! By climbing up to the ridgeline…

That view is of a climb that ascends 1200 feet in half a mile. It was very steep and slow, so I forgot to take any photos. I did take this photo halfway up, as I was surprised that there was an actual tree growing.

I haven’t seen real trees on this hike since Day #1. Almost to the top….

And finally, at 5:30pm, I made it to the summit of the ridge. I loved the view to the south, seeing everything I had hiked over the past week.

And the view to the north, of the upcoming Kelso dunes.

But mostly it was so late in the day it was time to hurry up and get myself off of this mountain, and down into the next wash, where I could camp. I started off by going down an easy ridge.

And further down the ridge….

The descent wasn’t steep at all but the ridgetop was choked with Cholla cacti and other sharp plants that wanted my blood. And the “nice burro trail” that the guidebook says runs along the ridge was complete fiction. So that 3.5 miles took me over 2 hours, which meant when I was on the final descent into Bull Canyon, it was nearing 8pm and getting quite dark. Once I was in the canyon bottom, it was disappointingly a brushy and rocky wash. So I stumbled along until I found a spot that looked flat enough, and threw up my tent, and passed out. Definitely the hardest day on this trail so far!

Sunday April 27, 22.8mi/36.7km

Calumet Mine (242.1/790ft) to Cut Wash (266.1/2800ft) (CA) -1.2mi trailhead

I started off the day with many miles of flat easy walking, crossing the entire valley between two mountain ranges.

Pretty soon after sunrise some clouds formed and kept the valley nice and cool.

After a couple hours of flat and perfectly straight hiking, I came across my first object of interest, the BNSF railroad tracks.

It was actually a pretty active rail line, I could hear and see trains coming through about every 30 minutes. An hour after that, I came to old route 66.

There was zero traffic on the road, since multiple bridges are closed for repair. But it will be the route’s 100th anniversary in 2026, so Caltrans was hard at work getting the bridges fixed for the big celebration. Next I came to the wash where I had cached my water a few weeks ago, and quickly dug it up.

It’s only 18 miles to my next water cache, so I actually had extra water and had to dump a little bit. Now I was gradually hiking uphill on this cool breezy day, and the clouds really made scenery more interesting.

The guidebook says to follow an old 4wd road for a couple miles, which basically doesn’t exist anymore so I just hiked in a straight line toward the mountains.

I took a nice long break at an old mining area, which had some pretty neat looking equipment.

And also a couple frighteningly deep mineshafts that were fenced off for safety.

Hiking up the wash into the heart of the Marble Mountains was relaxing, and I no longer had to pay attention to navigation when I was just following a wash.

The guidebook has a list of plants for each section, I think these are Chinese Lanterns.

The Marble Mountains are volcanic in nature and that was becoming readily apparent from the cliffs of tuff.

The tuff also made really interesting color patterns in the washes, since the base rock is white but the gravel is reddish.

And right next to each other, I stumbled upon some very fragrant red flowers and a lucky horseshoe.

Volcanic tuff cliffs.

The cloud shadows playing with the lighting in the valley.

Towards the end of the day, I came out of the mountains and started hiking up Cut Wash, which was very wide and also full of various animal prints, including these.

Most of the hiking today was pretty easy, so when I checked my watch it was only 6pm and I had already covered 22 miles. I decided to camp here for the night, of course sheltered behind some bushes to protect from the wind.