Mojave Trail & Baja (Part 1)

Plan was to head back down to Baja for about two months.  Tiffany and the boys would fly down during the Christmas holidays.  I made a call to my friend, Wayne, up in Canada as I knew he was headed down as well.  We decided we'd meet up before crossing the border, jump on the Mojave Trail for a few days, and then cross the border together.

I arrived a couple of nights before Wayne where I camped, hiked a little and explored the area for a couple of days prior to his arrival.  Wayne arrived late one afternoon and we departed the following morning to get on the trail and head east.  Our first order of business was a fairly substantial water crossing. I was first in line and when I pulled up to this my thought was that I should get out and walk across to check for depth and bottom conditions, or possibly end up swimming, the crossing to ensure it was a doable crossing.  I opted for the "go big or go home" method and threw caution out the window, slowly pulling in.  This crossing is probably well over 100 feet in width and as the water started creeping towards the bottom of the window I began praying that it didn't get any deeper and god forbid, the engine stalls out.  With the water level approaching the bottom of the window I thought I'd made a big mistake but after a few tense moments the truck eventually started crawling out the other side.  Exiting the truck, water poured out of the cab.  Carpet was wet but hey, I'm in the desert and it will dry.  I grabbed the camera and shot Wayne coming across behind me.  This was certainly the deepest crossing I'd done with my Tacoma.

The remainder of the day we crawled east along the trail where we became lost a few times.  Tough following the trail in places as it exits out of some major washes and you just don't know which direction to take.  We ended up in some large dunes where we became stuck but eventually reconnected with what we assumed was the trail. We were still lost but enjoyed a spectacular full moon and ended up making camp for the night.

 The trail is out there somewhere.

Stuck!

 

  Moon rising as we looked for a campsite that evening.

The following day we got back on the trail and kept working our way east towards Marl Spring.  After camping at the springs the second night we needed to make a decision as to whether to finish the trail or cut off and head south towards the border.  The weather was really turning cold and it was forecasted that the winds the following day would be a consistent 40+ mph.  We decided that the warmer weather of Baja was looking good so after two nights on the Mojave Trail, we cut off and pointed the rigs south towards Baja.  I'll have to return later to finish the second half.

Camp at Marl Spring.

Stopped and did some hiking in the eastern part of the preserve.