Bachelor trip on the Mojave

deangraen

Active member
Joined
May 5, 2022
Messages
81
Location
Garden Grove, CA
Getting married so gotta go have a good time with the homies. Decided to plan a run starting in Lucerne Valley and looping through the Mojave desert. First day we will be starting at our property in Lucerne and running up threw newberry springs and connecting to the Mojave trail, then ending the day at the first camp spot off Razor Rd. Second day we will be going up and jumping onto the eastern Mohave heritage trail, running one of the segments and ending the day at the amboy craters. Third night will just be a blast back to Lucerne. Should be a good loop, full trip will be 3 days and 273 miles. IMG_1275.png
 
Looking forward to the trip report, I would like to try to get on the Mohave heritage trail some day.
@Brett_408 this will be a hell of a shake down run in the bronco 🤘🏻
 
Day 1 of the trip started out rough, had a blow out on the 4Runner 5 miles from the trailer. Changed it quick, but since we were close we went one truck back to grab another tire off the trailer. While he was headed back his flex plate shattered. Had to get another truck to get him back and get his gear into another truck so he could still join the trip. After all that was situated, the run was flawless minus the heat. But rain came in and dropped the temp which was nice.
 

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Day 2, we ended up having to bypass the lake bed on the Mojave trail. All the rain ended up flooding it and wasn’t passable. So we had to hop on the 15 and travel down into baker to get back in the dirt. This section of trail ended up being super fast and fun. The rain smoothed it out in a lot of sections. We then stopped at the lava tubes where we had lunch. We noticed while we were there one of the broncos engine mount bolts backed out loosing all of its bolts. So we sourced some new hardware and got it going again. After the lava tubes we turned down on the Eastern Heritage Mojave trail and ran that all the way down to amboy. Along the way we got into some flash floods and monsoon weather. The amount of rain that came through washed a lot of the trail away and we were first tracks through it all so it took some navigating. We also stopped and helped out a mustang that got a flat crossing the flooding on the highway. Once we got to amboy we were behind schedule a tad so we hopped on the 66 to get to camp at the Pisguh Crater right at sunset to setup. This day we cover 153 miles. But was by far one of the best days out in the dirt
 

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Day 3, got up and packed up camp. Decided to change the route a little so we didn’t have to run a section we’ve already ran. So we found a trail that connected us to power line road that would bring us right back to the property. Which ended up being a great decision. This trail was rad, lots of fast sections as well as some mountain roads and rad washes. We also found a desert tortoise along the way. Ended up getting back to the property before noon. The change in route saved us 10 miles and and ended the day with only 35 miles to cover. The total round trip ended up being 260 miles. By far one of the coolest trips I’ve done and Defintely won’t be the last of the pre landing adventures.
 

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I’ll add some pics I have. Awesome trip! Weather made it fun we have some good monsoons that really kept dust to a minimum and cooled everything down. Pretty surprised the Afton canyon water crossings were completely dry with how much waters been falling in the high desert lately. Also the pic with the white ranger in it that thing sheared the flex plate off the crank bolts about 2 miles from the property we staged at. We towed him back and he rode in my bronco for the weekend. No other major issues after that for the entire trip. @Austen2019 had a few motor mount bolts loose up and come out but we came up with a few replacements and got them swapped pretty quickly.

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Great trip my bronco lost motor mount bolts on passenger side but the rear shock mount that holds the plates together were the same bolts so had to take one bolt from shock mount to fix motor mounts. Also my bronco was on its very first trip with all brand new suspension and was valves quite stiff. Ended up blowing the windshield out but nothing some ductape couldn’t fix.
 

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