Without a doubt this is a great
time of year to be out in the California desert and the ranch with
moderate temperatures and clear blue skies. It doesn't get much
better than this.
In late January, my trusty side-kick Pat Moore
and his side-kick Dalmatian Sawgi and I set out to explore a small
portion of the Mojave on the ranch ATV's. It was the best trip we
had in the ten years we've been going out there.
We found things we've never seen before and were
amazed they were all so close to the ranch. There have been books
written about things to see in this area but we found some things
that aren't in those books and they were surprisingly close to the
ranch which you can see from the pictures below.
Instead of riding out from the ranch in a straight
line before turning back we made more of a circular route around
the ranch testing the fuel endurance of the ATV's.
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| Moore's Canyon |
We came across this canyon pictured
to the side and below that was less than a few miles from the ranch
which I never ever knew was there. It's not on any maps that I know
of and you can't see it on the horizon because it's...a canyon.
It runs at least a mile and has a few forks and is deeper in many
places than the pictures show. There were quite a few Coyote and
Jack Rabbit tracks due to the presence of water.
There were also a lot of colorful and interesting
rocks inside the canyon. Some had a rainbow of colors. On the rim
of the canyon were lots of black rocks which I'm guessing is shale
or slate. I'm not a geologist. What was interesting was a flat and
smooth area made up of thousands of these rocks. It looked like
a paved road made by Mother Nature herself. Unbelievable.
This canyon probably has a name but we
don't know what it is so we called it Moore's Canyon because Pat
came across it first.
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| Desert Beach |
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| Mine Shaft |
Abandoned mine shafts can be
found all over the desert but many of them have been filled in by
higher authorities because of the dangers they impose. There have
been instances of off-road vehicles unwittingly falling into them.
This shaft appears to be untouched since the
day the miners left it. It's a very shallow mine as most of them
are several hundred feet deep
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| Inside Mine Shaft |
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| Kodak Moment |
Rob Little making sense of the
law...Brandon Hopper breaking it...Ian
Longley with Valentines plan set in stone...Lisa
Hampton expected to say, "Yes"...Mary Anderson
thinking accommodations over... |
