The Mines of Joshua Tree –by Jungle Jim Carvin

Those participating were:
 

"Jungle" Jim Carvin

Brad Reese and daughter Jennifer Reese

David Hunter and son Kenny Hunter

John and John Haupt

John Laird

Bruce White and daughter Rachel White

The entrance of choice to Joshua Tree National Monument has traditionally been the moderately challenging Berdoo Canyon trail. Here's the beginning of that trail, where we stopped to air down the tires and shoot the "before" photos. The plan was to go in Berdoo Canyon and then, time permitting, go back out the high-speed wash of Pinkham Canyon.

Our jaunt into Joshua Tree was disappointingly easy and we found ourselves close to the main road rather quickly, where we stopped for lunch. Hanging out in these areas is half the fun - I wasn't in a hurry to leave this spot. I had the pleasure of introducing Paul Johnson (left) to our sport and kept him busy working the GPS. It's always fun to show a newcomer what off-roading is all about. It was here that Bruce had the great idea to go up to the mines, where we knew the trails were better (or worse, depending on your point of view). So from here, we continued the rest of the way up Berdoo.

(Left) This is the where Berdoo Canyon comes out to the main road (Geological Tour Road). From here there was a stretch of asphalt down to the south end of Old Dale Road (right), which was formerly coined the "Sand Freeway" but is now a hard-packed high speed cruise all the way across Pinto Basin (about 20 miles) up to the mining area.

Here we are climbing out the north end of Pinto Basin approaching the mines.

With the mining trails in the background, there are some ruins to explore. Not really much left there but a few structures and concrete slab foundations.

The apex of the trip was making it to Brooklyn Mine, after a slow crawl up a long, narrow, rocky, switchback, to this cul-de-sac (ha). This was a good place to goof off and look around the old ruins of the mine, all the time thanking the Lord that we never had to work that hard, and being careful not to fall into any shafts.

From here, with the shadows growing tall, we began our journey back to Old Dale Road for a northerly exit out of the area.

Once on Old Dale, there were more switchbacks and then another high speed cruise up to an all to familiar fork in the road, where I stopped and powered down, waiting for everyone to catch up and regroup. At this point, Bruce White and John Haupt just weren't ready for the day to end and were still thirsty for just one more adventure.

John Laird led the others directly north to find Highway 62. The three amigos went eastward to play in the solitary sand dune, a point of interest we always seem to find when we go to Joshua Tree, and then onward to the Iron Age Mine tail that finally leads up to Highway 62, about 7 miles past where the others came out.

That's a very interesting, moderately challenging, and picturesque trail. Somewhere along the line, I got a little too close to a sharp rock and popped one of my new Mickey Thompson tires. And before I could get my locking lug nut key, John already had his socket set out. And with Bruce manning the scissor jack the thing was changed pit-stop style in just a couple minutes.

We reached a spot  to air up near the highway and saw a beautiful sunset as the last tire finished inflating.

This was a satisfying event, where everyone had their fill of adventure and reached the highway unscathed.

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