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April 2000 In 1973, the Bureau of
Land Management announced that they were going to close This caused a great deal
of consternation on the part of my two desert-exploring buddies and myself
as we had never explored the southern half of this mountain. We had two
weeks until the closure took effect. Plans were made to return to the
desert in the following Early October 1973, finds
our merry band driving East on State highway 62. After passing the road
junction at Rice, California, we slowed our vehicles and watched carefully
the North side of the road where we would see a dirt road from the Northwest.
Spotting the road, we left the Now we looked for a campsite that would be our base of operations for several days. Soon found, we stopped, stretched our legs, unloaded the motorcycles, opened the ice chests and settled-in. What a view! Next morning we studied
the topographic After about four miles,
the road forked. To the left was the steep and rugged road to Horn Spring.
To the right the The road climbed up and down the slight rises and drops, winding through the upper part of the valley. The vegetation here was mostly low straggly bushes, sage-like, frequently punctuated with low red barrel cactus, and lots of small to medium rocks. Now we could see Castle
Rock (an old eroded volcanic core) and beyond were the twin Mopah Peaks.
As the gravely road would pass As we passed the West side
of Castle Rock, the twin Mopah Peaks come into view. Vegetation on both
sides of the road begins to thicken. The valley remains pretty level with
seasonal water runoff flowing into this part of Vidal Here I took several pictures scanning in a circle, to look back into parts of the Mopah Range. Note the larger red-thorned barrel cactus. The desert here looks quite self-protective. Time to turn around and see if we can explore Horn Springs and a promise of a mill site deeper into the Turtle Mountains, themselves. Quickly we returned to the
fork in the road and after consulting our map, proceeded Northwesterly
up the other graded road into the Turtles. At these stops one could look along the sides of the road and find broken chunks of green copper-stained rocks as well as the usual rusty stain of iron on quartz. From time to time one could see small tailings piles running a short ways down the side of the mountain where some prospector or miner had done some exploratory work to see if a vein or contact surface with different rock might bring potential mineral wealth. We Across the sometime stream,
the walls of the From the foundation slabs,
as well as scraped earth in the shape of houses or other buildings one
could get a pretty g While my friends explored
the area, I climbed a few hundred feet up a steep ridge to photograph
the entire scene below. Back down on the riverbed, I examined the well.
Sand and mud from years of rain storms Time to return to camp and enjoy a well-earned rest and to feed a hunger-growling stomach. We had made great progress today. Tomorrow would bring another exploratory ride further into the heart of the Turtle Mountains, but that is an adventure for another time in Jerome�s Notebook. I hope you enjoyed the trip as we did. -- Jerome W. Anderson |
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