Mohave Trail March 2024

[Cleandezert]

So my buddy is getting married in May, so we decided to do a camping trip for his bachelor party. We tossed around ideas, maybe going to mammoth offroading, lone pine. Due to how early in the season it was we thought it would be best to do the mohave trail so we didnt have to deal with snow.

Leading up to the weekend the weather showed a nice 56 during the day and 44 at night. Not terribly cold, but it also showed 10% chance of rain friday morning, again not terrible should end by noon and lets be honest its CA... rain is a suggestion but rarely does it actually rain much. We decided to meet up at barstow del taco friday morning as we knew that the lakebed was going to be closed and we would have to jump in off kellbaker in baker. As soon as we pull into del taco is raining... and showing no signs of letting up at noon.....

As we hit dirt we stopped to air down as the 4 runner had like 40lbs of pressure in his tires.... which were also bald, i think his comment was " i will get tires after this trip, and i have 4x4 no big deal."

Due to the rain, we didnt actually stop anywhere on this trip except to camp.

 

[Cleandezert]

So we press on and we are discussing these bad decisions of offroading and camping in the rain... do we push through to laughlin and hang out there for 2 days, or do we camp on the trail. Well we pass marl springs which we normally camp at. But it was like 2pm and we still had time to play. We cross cima road and head up towards government holes.... its raining pretty hard now and the road is slippery.

Remember when i said the 4 runner had bald tires? well we hear over the radio... "Holy shit that was fun, we are completely sideways and almost spun a 360" So we decide to stop and discuss options. Our buddy saw a camping spot that he wanted to check out, so we back track a little bit and end up at a camp ground called mid hills... by now there is snow everywhere.

 

[Cleandezert]

the campground is pretty cool and we are all laughing at how dumb this trip has become with not only rain, but snow... We decided the campground is pretty cool, nobody is up there and we are going to camp for the night. The rain has let up some, and its not snowing so how bad could it be. its only 32 degrees out and we are semi prepared for cold. lol

We wake up to a bit of sprinkles and then about 15 min later its turning to heavy snow. see pictures below.

So we pack up as fast as we can while our hands are freezing and head out on the trail. Back through all the soupy mud... The rest of the trip was pretty quick, we bypased fort piut and jumped back in after goffs and made it to laughlin.

 

[Cleandezert]

We got into laughlin around 11am, and didnt have much to do, so we made the treck out to oatman... you know to search for donkey dick.. while we were there we also ran into jet blue and scott stienberger.

All around a great trip.

 

[KaiserJ]

How was the water crossing? We're going in April and I'm kinda worried I'm gonna Oregon trail that shit and sink my explorer

 

[Cleandezert]

we bypassed it all since the lake bed was closed... also since it was actively raining pretty hard, figured the water crossing wasnt going to be fun.

 

[JACKSONRALLYINC]

Seeing your photo of Jet Blue made me smile

I put so much blood, sweat and tears into that thing 20+ years ago