After loading up the Rover with all of my stuff and picking up Jan and his stuff from his house, a more heavily laden than usual Land Rover left Ridgecrest for Needles early on Friday afternoon. We reached Needles without incident around dusk, grabbed some fast food and headed off to find the campsite in the dark. Ironically, the other 3 vehicles had GPS units, and I, the one who looked up the coordinates didn't. In the dark we overshot the objective by a few miles. So we turned around and found a rocky dirt track that was about in the right place. I locked the hubs and started up the trail.

After about 500 yards I called out on the CB just to see if any of the other Rovers were in the area. Jim and Lynn answered. They said that Gerry had also just arrived. During the conversation Jan and I followed the road towards higher ground. We established that I was really close to the campsite but couldn't spot their headlights in the dark. Gerry had driven down to the road to make the correct trail so I turned back. (In the morning we discovered that literally I had been about 100 yards south of the campsite and if I had continued on the road I was following, I would have arrived at the campsite.)

So we talked a bit, had a small fire and when to bed. I awoke about 30 minutes later to Rick's D90 arriving.

The next morning we headed back into Needles to see if anyone else was going to arrive. None did. So we headed out to the trail. The Mojave Road (aka the Government Road) was used in the 1860s and stretched from Prescott Arizona to Camp Cody (near Barstow, California). The section that we were following was from the Colorado River crossing to 10 miles short of the Camp Cody site. The path through the desert roughly corresponds to that which the Mojave Indians took on their way to the Ocean to trade goods. The trail does not take the easiest route; it takes the shortest route between water. I don't have the book, but I think the Mojave Road was for the most part abandoned circa 1870 when the southern Rail Road was put in.

The first bit of the trail rouse out of the Colorado river basin. For the first few miles of the trail, someone had painted ever single piece of bedrock that stuck more than an inch out of the dirt with bright red paint. I guess they were trying to identify the diff killing rocks for people with low profile tyres.

Lunch was in a shady grove in Piute Creek. It almost looked civilized with us sitting on blankets in the shade. At this point we had to get off the trail and take some newer roads because the Piute Creek section was blocked. (In Piute creek there are some sandstone rocks with ruts from wagons still in them and the powers-that-be don't want 4x4s destroying the tracks.) In vectoring around we came across a 3 to 4 foot tall enscarpment from a wash. All I told Jan (who was reading) was "Hold on". Then the front end of the Rover rose towards the sky. (Observers say I lifted a wheel) Unfortunately I didn't make it and needed to try a different line. One of the Defenders needed a second try, but we all got up without too much trouble.

We had to drive a few more miles on a graded dirt road before we rejoined the Mojave Road. Lots of wide open spaces. Sandy trails. Despite it getting dark around 4:30 in the afternoon we found ourselves moving fairly quickly and were way ahead of schedule. So when we came across a graded dirt road that lead up to the New York Mountains, we decided to try and find one of the mines I visited on my previous Mojave Road trip. Now this graded dirt road was rounded, smooth and could take 4 cars abreast. It was in such good shape that all one needed to do was pour the pavement. With dust clouds billowing, we raced 10 or so miles up this road at about 60mph.Now I didn't recall the exact road that I took last time, but one of the mine names sounded familiar. And with Rick's GPS we found a trail that went towards that mine. This trail proved to be fairly interesting. The trail wasn't challenging, but it was technical driving. We wound our way up a wash and into the hills. After a number of miles we came about a mine site that was very familiar. We parked looked around. After looking down a mine entrance and my remark that I didn't recall seeing a bunch of boulders from a cave in there last time, we all wisely returned to our vehicles for more trail riding. I knew that further up the valley was some really technical boulder crawling in a stream bed so we pressed on.

The main route in was marked "Keep out", but I knew there was a higher road, so we looked for that. (And found the easier way into the valley than we took. After a few wrong turns we found a steep, loose rocky track that looked familiar. It went up for maybe 150 feet and then down just as steeply into the stream bed. We traveled up the streambed. Then, maybe 100 yards short of the mine that we were trying to find, as the streambed got rockier and rockier we decided to scout ahead. Gerry decide to leave his Disco where it was and the Defenders and Series III forged on ahead. We even passed the pink chunk of bedrock (that dented my rear quarter panel the last time I was there) without incident.

At the mine site, there was a large pile of tailings from a shaft located maybe 100 feet above the streambed. (Anyone for a winching challenge up a 60+ degree tailing pile?). There was a steep trail up to the shaft. Rick with lockers for and aft decided that he wanted to get his Defender up there. Now to paint some the picture. He had to drive off of a 3 foot stream bank into the streambed (which was not much wider than a D90 is long) and then climb up the other side which was the valley wall. The other side was loose (though not tailings) crumbly rock at maybe 45 degrees of slope. If Rick could get his front wheels up 20 or so feet, he would make it. After moving some of the larger (200 lb class) rocks, and locking his diffs, Rick make his attempt. It was too steep. But in attempting, Rick managed to wedge a 6 inch thick, 1.8 foot diameter rock between his frame, rear axle, right rear tyre and the ground. His D90 still had it's front wheels way of the side of the trail. So Rick was "between a Rock and a hard place" With a section of pipe was able to removed the rock with about 10 minutes of work. (And the LR V8 was happily running with no loss or pressure at this extreme angle). After that Rick extracted himself.

By now the light was failing. We headed back down the streambed and up the side of the mountain. It was full dark as I descended the initial steep rocky section. Near the bottom, while slowly engine braking in 1st low (and brakes), my Rover stopped dead. I couldn't back up hill and couldn't go forward. In fact in neutral I was effectively chocked in place. We found that I was hooked by a rock on my rear diff. I few well placed rocks and I lifted the rear end enough to clear the obstacle.

We drove down a bit to where we had passed a rock cabin site. Here we camped for the night. The site had a small flat area maybe 30 feet by 40 feet. On the streambed site there was a small retaining wall at the edge of the flat area and a stone structure. The structure was a cabin for a miner and most of the walls were still intact. So imagine if you will a grey stone and cement cabin with 2 foot thick walls, about 8 feet tall and had an inner space of about 9 feet by 9 feet. The doorway was about 5 feet wall and faced the retaining wall and flat area. Inside there was no ceiling, but a fireplace with chimney was opposite the door. One of the corners near the fireplace had collapsed at one point and the wall had been rebuilt to about half height by just stacking the stones. We started dinner outside in a firering on the flat area, but right after dinner we lit a fire in the fireplace and extinguished the other one. I hung a dark green, wax impregnated, canvas tarp over the doorway. The wind gusted, but we sat around the fire and talked for a number of hours. Rick, Lynn and Jim set up tents to sleep in. Jan slept under the stars. Gerry Elam and I set up next to the fire in the cabin. It was a nice campsite for a small group. We could have fit maybe 4 or 5 more people in there for talking. I'll have to remember that campsite.

The next morning dawned and we decided to explore the next valley to the north. I knew that there were some mines up there, but not exactly where. So we drove back up and took the easy road over into the next valley. Gerry mentioned that he was going to start back towards Arizona sometime around noon or 2pm. Trial up and over was fairly easy, but on the downhill side recent rains had leaf some 2+ foot deep ruts and it was a little tricky to maneuver around them. But we soon joined the road up into the next valley.

Since I have never been on this trail before I was selecting turns at random. We took a left at a major fork in the road. Soon the trail was steeply climbing the mountain side. There were a few tight spots between fallen boulders, but nothing special. Then we rounded a corner and had a most impressive view of the desert. We spent a while taking photos and just looking around. A stiff wind was blowing abut that didn't stop all of us from climbing around to the nearest highpoints.

After a bit we headed back down and tried the right fork in the trail. Almost immediately the trail got rougher. About a half a mile later the trail turned into a steep, rocky, frame and diff damaging track. I stopped to see if the rest wanted to go on. Gerry wisely decided that his Disco didn't have the ground clearance. Rick offered to go first since he had the air lockers. After about a hundred feet he paused at a patch of larger rocks to lock his diffs. (larger being 1 foot and larger diameters). He easily when on up and out of sight. I removed the spare from the bonnet and tossed it in the roof rack so that I could see more of the rocks. I went next in 1st low at about 1000rmp. I got to the point that Rick locked and lost momentum. It took me 4 or 5 attempts (all slowing in 1st low) to get it right and get over the rocks. Then on up. About 100 feet later I dodged around (well mostly through) a tree branch and came upon a soft, loose gravelly section and stopped. I tried 10 or so times but just couldn't get past the spot. Meanwhile Lynn and Jim had come up behind me. So I got out my sand ladders. That made all the difference. I was out of there in one attempt. The trail when up some more and then switched backed twice to get up the tailing. Near the top was a 15 foot section of ice (and the steep tailing side becking if you screwed up) and then I was at the mine site. A narrow gauge rail lead into a 3 foot diameter horizontal shaft from which a small stream of water flowed. We lined the 3 Rovers up with my blue Series III between the two black Defender 90s. It was a great picturesque scene and we took a bunch of photos.

It was getting on towards noon so we started down. I lead the way, pausing only to reclaim my sand ladders. I almost made it. Right in the spot where Rick locked his lockers and I had a hard time the Rover got stuck. I couldn't back out. We tried adding weight to no avail. I was stuck on both diffs. We tried adding rocks, but I couldn't get out. So Lynn attempted to winch me back up the trail. It was a nice winching setup and we even used a snatch block. On the first pull all we did was pull the Defender forward so we had to reblock the Defender and pull again. This time it worked and I was pulled back about 2 feet. Rocks were added so that my diffs would clear and I started down. Almost at the bottom I paused to gather gear. Someone noticed that my engine had dropped some 20w-50 while I was stuck, so I pulled head of the Disco to a flat spot to check.

The instant I walked behind the Rover to get a rag, I knew something was wrong. The right rear corner was too low. I peaked underneigth and saw the problem. The outboard Ubolt on the right side had snapped at the top of the threads. The Ubolt had bent and dropped the shock mount plate down a few inches on that side. (The Ubolts clamp down on the shock mount plate to hold the spring against the axle. The other UBolt was tweaked. And the plate that the break line attaches to, the one that is supposed to be between the shock plate and the spring had been kicked out, rerouting the brakeline. Luckily the brakeline hadn't kinked and wasn't leaking. So I got out the high lift and jacked up the corner to get the weight off of the ubolts. While everyone else sat down to eat lunch and watch (and was nice enough to shove food in my direction periodically --thanks guys!). The Ubolts came off as did the brakeline plate and the shock mount plate. I pulled out my spares box and found 2 old Ubolts (I had replaced the existing ones 3 years ago). But the Ubolts were too short (from the front axle). I puzzled a bit. Then someone mentioned taking some leaves off of the spring. A grand idea! I undid the nut and removed the two lowest leaves (the ones that aren't held in by the bent clips). But the bolt that holds the leaves together isn't threaded that far. Despair not, I got a big washer from my toolbox to act as a spacer. I passed the end of the bolt through the shock mount plate, put on the washer and bolted the plate directly to the spring. Then the Ubolts fit. But I only had 3 nuts. Luckily the Ubolt nuts are similar in thread to the nuts that hold the SIII doortops in. So I uses two of those nuts on one side and two Ubolt nuts on the other and attached everything. I was back in business and the field repair had only taken 1 hour 15 minutes. Then I looked under the Rover for more damage. There are now 2 dents in the oils pan and the crossmember under the bellhousing is severely bent and crushed. The bellhousing is resting on the crossmember in fact. It looks like it had 4 or 5 big hits (I didn't head any). And now my front propshaft is scored from rubbing on deformed crossmember while the axle articulated. the rear propshaft and both diffs show where they rubbed against rocks, but are undamaged. The oil leak proved to just be my valve cover gasket which started leaking recently. For the most part on the weakened side the axles was resting on the bump stops.

So a much subdued Ben lead everyone down the hill towards the dirt superhighway. I was very careful to minimize the bumps. At the dirt highway Gerry took off headed for home and we drove back towards the Mojave Road. We found it and soon were headed for Rock Creek. More desert miles and a steep decent into a wash were our next encounters. Right after Rock creek we had to join a graded dirt road to go over a pass. The last few miles of the road were actually paved with MacAdam. Then back to the dirt again. The terrain in front of us is called Cima Dome. On paper the contour lines are concentric circles. But the slope is so gentle that you can't tell that it is a dome. It just looks like a gentle slope desert. The guide books mentioned that before cattle came the water ran smoothly off of the dome. Cattle compacted the soil an now the whole dome is covered with little washed. So we had 4 miles of slow going on a rough road. The sun was going down and we finally got to better road where we could pick up the pace. A few miles later we came to a few hundred foot tall rocky hill with some massive boulders that formed semi wind break. We decided to camp there. No roads nor lights were anywhere in sight.

We camped in the lee of a large boulder and strategically parked the three Rovers to block the wind between the boulder and the hillside. All night the wind blew in gusts with a few calm periods. The fire was placed on the lee side of the rock. We huddled around the fire, ate, drank, talked and waited for midnight to toast the new year. It's a long time to wait when it gets dark around 4:30pm. Lynn, Jim and Jan didn't make it. Right at midnight Rick and I said "Happy New Year" and then Rick turned in for the night. I spent the next half hour nursing my last beer and watching the fire.

Monday dawned with a lot more miles to go. More desert roads, Marl Springs and on past some lava flows. The trail was soft sand and I picked up the pace quite a bit. Soon I was zooming around bends and getting up to 40mph on the straight aways. The Rover swayed too and fro as I skidded around turns. I was having a blast. And then I spied a bunch of bumps near some embedded lava boulders. I was trying to avoid the bumps to avoid the shock on my Ubolts. So at maybe 30mph I dodged right then left to miss the first rock which aimed me at the next one. An even sharper turn avoided that one and started the skid. I was headed right for the lava enscarpment (maybe 3 feet tall at this point) and cut back sharply to the left. I lost the rear end and is skidded thought the sand leaving foot deep furoughs. As I was correcting out of the skid we slowed down to maybe 5mph and leaned way over. Not quite enough to go over. Of course all though this all of my load from in back shifted dramatically. Lynn was behind me and said that she wished she had a video camera to record my swaying and skidding. Heck, I had a huge jolt of adrenaline out of the event. It all happen so quick all I could do was react. Then afterwards the adrenaline hits. Funny that.

Next was the descent to Soda Lake. Since it had rained a week before I was worried that the lake bed might be so muddy that it wasn't passable. As we got to the dusty bottom of the lake bed we paused to airdown the tyres. We decided to order the Rovers based on traction (least in front)--My Series III then Lynn's D90 then Rick's with the airlockers. We kept a large following distance. And our fears proved to be unfounded. The path across the lake bed was mostly dry and only minimally muddy towards the end.

The terrain turned to sand as we entered the Mojave River wash. As Rick mentioned we spotted a white gazebo on top of a sandy dune. It was noon and the gazebo looked so out of place, but was a good place for lunch. Upon closer inspection the gazebo had a fresh coat of paint, some wicker chairs and a chained anchor affixed it to the ground. It even had a weathered brass rooster wind vane on it's top. We had a grand lunch sitting on the wicker chairs in the sunny calm air with, of course, the grey poupon.

After lunch we set out back on the trail, but my navigational skills failed me. Instead of following the Mojave Road through off road park I ended up on a trail the quickly converged to that of only 4 wheel ATV tracks. The trail was fun enough, but kept on taking us father off coarse. We didn't spot any cross trails, and eventually ended up on a graded dirt road near I-15. A few quick miles and we rejoined the Mojave Road. At this point the road follows the wash into Afton Canyon. Steep walls grew on both sides. Eventually, we encountered water (traveling up stream). I play in the shallow streams a bit was we passed through until I splashed enough that the engine started to run rough. All to soon we got to the point at which the wash was blocked with a cable and posts are were forced to get on a graded dirt road.

This road had a bunch of ups and downs. Previously I had successfully navigated some small, shallow puddles. But the last one, more of a small stream crossing at in the bottom of a larger dip was my undoing. I even slowed down and got into first gear. But I hit it too hard and drowned the engine. I was only hub deep and maybe 2 or 3 Rover lengths wide, but I didn't make it out. So with grumbles and curses at might self I use my Rover like a set of monkey bars to crawl all over and still stay dry. Rick offered to pull me out, but I refused. The WD-40 came out and I sprayed down the cables. The first attempt didn't start Dora. Rick said that I had one more shot and then he was going to pull me out. I was blocking the road and all. So I pulled the distributer and pulled the rotor. Only the rotor popped out of my hands and dropped between the engine and the fan. More curses in Dora's general direction. I looked for a spare rotor in the dash, but didn't find one in good shape. So I grumbled, took off my shoes and socks and got in the 6 inches of water. I was going to reach under an get the rotor when I realized that it was behind the axles. Bugger. So I got her in neutral and started to push her into deeper water. The others pitched in. And I retrieved the rotor. After WD-40ing and drying everything I got in. Just then a red Jeep Wagoneer showed up. Great, now a Jeep sees a stalled Rover. Dora cranked over a bit and then started right up with a little bit of stumbling. I pulled her up the hill to a flat spot (no working tranny brake) and reloaded everything.

About here was the end of the road for us. We decided that it wasn't worth the time to drive the last 10 miles as the site of Camp Cody is on private property and nothing remains. And it's tricky to find a way out around the private property. We also were getting low on fuel and weren't quite sure if we had enough to make it. So we drove out on the graded dirt road and joined the madhouse on I-15.

I had fun. I assume the others had fun. And Jan wants to go on other Rover trips. He even mentioned that if I came across a $2000 SIIA 88 he would be interested.

So, same time, next year?