Lovell Canyon
I had a minor repair to deal with, then a bit of a drive to the Las Vegas to meet up with Carolyn. We had a vague plan to travel north together for a bit before I had to head back to Canada at the end of my six months in the USA. ‘Vague’ turned out to be a good thing as some flexibility was to be needed for the unexpected. Speaking of unexpected, I had an unexpected animal encounter. Read on to find out all the details.
My day started with some research in Bullhead City as to where shops were that could deal with exhaust repairs for an RV. There are a bunch of repair shops going down Arizona 95 through the city. I chose Latinos Tire & ATV to try first, doing the usual googles review evaluation. It turns out they have two shops. The first one I hit, “Latinos Tire” was the north shop that was more limited on services. They told me to head south to their second location which could handle the exhaust work I needed. Since I was heading that way anyways, I continued down to their second shop. They were able to get me worked on right away, which was great. They quoted me $50 for what turned out to be 20 minutes work thanks to having to drag out the big blow torch to heat up the pipe enough to bend it back into shape, a fair price, I thought. The prompting for a tip at the payment terminal was not so appreciated, but since they put aside some work to handle my request right away, I tipped anyways. Tipping is getting out of hand. I thought mechanics earned decent money, so shouldn’t require tips? Just charge me an extra ten next time and get rid of the tipping prompt, I say.
I was happy to have my problem fixed quickly at least. I proceeded out of town for the drive to Pahrump, then onto Carolyn’s camp. A good stopping point along the way is the Terrible’s in Searchlight. Terrible’s is a local brand that is spread out around the southwest USA. Their main businesses are gas stations and Casinos. I could care less about the gambling but it is useful to know that their gas is usually not the cheapest around. I just did a quick check in Searchlight and they are a whole 95 cents a gallon more expensive than the Rebel station down the street. That would be a good thirty bucks more to fill up my tank! I would say the price difference isn’t usually that steep, but yeah, terrible gas prices at Terrible’s for sure. The McDonald’s attached to the casino is just fine though. It might be a bit pricier than some, but I’m less worried about a buck or two when I only hit a McDonald’s every few months on average. This location even has some nice shade trees to park under, a very unusual thing out in the desert. Even though the place is busy, the parking lot is big so I could take a spot on the side by the trees and be away from most people.
McD’s lunch consumed, I headed onto Pahrump, making a stop at the Smith’s there for resupply. I wanted gas too, but they had half the pumps closed, so that was going to wait until I was back in town. I did verify that with my discount, gas was actually cheaper here, so since I was going to be shopping here again anyways before I left the area, I might as well get gas on the way out of town. I was headed east out of town. There is a ton of boondocking out there. You can see the RVs scattered about as soon as you leave Pahrump. I was headed higher up since the heat was still oppressive.
Someone lost a red ball in the canyon. Sadie made short work of it as a dog toy.
Carolyn had picked a spot close to the hills, with a canyon to explore nearby. It was a couple of thousand feet higher than Pahrump proper, which was appreciated with the temperatures in the high 30s down in Pahrump. I’d estimate we were about 5 C cooler than down there, just enough to not be in ridiculous heat. Hikes were a bit challenging in the heat. It was nice to be able to head into the canyon and take refuge in the shady bits. The canyon had some sheer walls so even in the middle of the day you could find some shade.
There is an interesting slot canyon branch off of the main canyon here. It gets really narrow with a bit of rock scrambling required to get through. It’s nothing too hard if you are somewhat limber at least. I revisited several times trying to get just the right light to photograph the area, but I never got anything with a real wow factor. I never even noticed the fossils embedded in the rock until my last visit there. They are super obvious, a grouping of what looked like limpets in black rock. No one is going to be stealing these fossils, and they require a bit of scrambling to get to so hopefully that will discourage vandals.
 Fossil grouping in slot canyon |
 Zebra-tailed Lizard according to the googles image search. |
There were a lot of lizards out and about the area. I managed to get a really good shot of one of the larger ones, who conveniently didn’t move when I walked by his rock perch, giving me plenty of time to snap a good pic with the phone. With it being so hot, I had been wondering about Rattlesnakes. I need wonder no more, as I had my first Rattlesnake encounter, just upstream of the slot canyon.
He was just a little guy, but big enough to warn me with his rattle that was I was two steps away from him. I was happy that it had not been a closer encounter than that, and even happier that the snake moved off slowly enough that I was able to get a little video snippet. I now know that the snakes can be in the shade in the mid-20C range out here.
I did have one navigation mishap while hiking out here. When I went through the slot canyon, I continued up the wash, with the idea that I would loop back over the ridge to my left and hit the road that the topo map showed for the hike back to the rig. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the topo map’s geo-location was off by a good quarter kilometer in my app. That resulted in me cresting the ridge after a pretty arduous climb out of the wash to find that there was no road anywhere to be found in the next valley over. I realised what had happened and adjusted to the new reality. My walk back ended up following the top of the ridge, which wasn’t too bad walking even without a road. It goes to show you, always leave some reserves in case an unexpected event lengthens your hike.
Lovell Summit view to Pahrump
We broke camp and continued to Lovell Canyon. It was a pit stop with Carolyn needing to do some work after running errands in Las Vegas. Where we camped was far enough up the canyon to be a little cooler too. But being close to Vegas on a paved road, there were a lot of people around with the same idea to get up high. We found an OK spot, but there wasn’t much selection. In riding around with the motorcycle, I found a lot of spots were taken, even some going up the rough road to Lovell Summit. I wish I could take the RV all the way up to that Summit, but the road gets a little too gnarly near the top. There are some spots up the way that looked to be good camping, although you do run out of cell signal pretty quick.
Pump down in Baker
We broke camp and proceeded in separate directions. Carolyn was heading into Las Vegas for some errands, then was going to meet me north of Barstow, where we were going to start adventuring up US Route 395. I was proceeding directly to Barstow, so was tasked with finding a boondocking spot for us. The drive there is one of the more remote stretches of road you can travel – Shoshone is the only civilization you’ll hit between Pahrump and Baker, where you meet up with the I-15. You are skirting Death Valley, following some backroads so what do you expect? Getting back to civilization in Baker, I treated myself to lunch at Dairy Queen and moseyed onto Barstow, where my adventure finding boondocking was to begin.
The area looked like it had a lot of boondocking. There certainly wasn’t a lack of public land in the area. But I soon found out that the land had little in terms of access to it. The road was graded down a bit from the terrain, leaving large berms you couldn’t get a vehicle across to camp just anywhere. What offshoots there were never led to anything level, at least not enough for two rigs. There was a bit of sand around too, I nixed some roads for being too soft. I was proceeding up the road to the Rainbow Basin area. There is paid camping up there, but we were shooting for boondocking around there. I investigated a potential spot from iOverlander that turned out to be very ‘meh’. It might have been better at one point, but had been washed out to be not much more that a spot a van could tuck into beside the road.
I proceeded down the washboard gravel road past the turn off to the natural area, hoping to turn at the second road going there to investigate another potential spot. That was not to be, as it was marked ‘one way’ with this being the exit. It turns out the Rainbow Basin had a one way loop with some boondocking along it. I continued down what was now a rough cart path to a junction that had some promise. But it was a ways in and still not the greatest spot. I awaited Carolyn’s arrival to see what she wanted to do. It turns out she was having motor and fridge issues – she didn’t want to be that far from civilization, understandable for sure. So we go back towards civilization, finding a turnoff onto a powerline road that had some spots down it. Powerlines are always worth investigating for potential spots, even if they are not the most scenic places at times. Indeed, we found a spot that was deemed ‘good enough’ considering the circumstances.
Carolyn’s engine issue was either ignition or fuel related – she had an appointment booked in Barstow to have it looked at. In the meanwhile, we tried troubleshooting the fridge. It was still working to some extent – freezer was just barely freezing, but the fridge was warm. Some testing and disassembly didn’t resolve the issue so that got added to the list to be looked at too back in town. She wasn’t having a good week with her RV. I only had a furnace to deal with, but that was going to wait for colder weather to see if it was working properly or not now.
We had a weekend to sit before Carolyn had to go back into town, so I took the motorcycle off the rack and explored around the area a bit. It turns out the loop road for Rainbow Basin loop road is not only one-way, but not recommended for any large vehicles. I took the motorcycle down it to see how restricted it was. The road gets pretty gnarly in places, to the point you need at least some clearance – I wouldn’t take a Honda Civic down there in the current road state. But everything looks good size wise until you are near the loop exit, then there is one narrow cut you are not going to get a wide vehicle through. I’d make it with my rig, might have to put the mirrors in – but I’d not try it with any wider rig. The loop had some interesting rock scenery to drive by on the way, but nothing too spectacular.
Shooters in the distance, Grom below, and camping off to the left back closer to the highway
I decided to go exploring a bit further afield to a spot I’d pinned as potential last year I was through the area. Had I had more time, I’d have gone and checked it out with the RV when I was hunting for boondocking. Of course, this area turned out to be quite good for boondocking, up a little higher (it was still hot) and with more hills to hike to. I explored up the road a bit from the camping spots, finding some shooters in the distance, and a mine tunnel to explore. Climbing to the top of the hill above the mine, I could see this would be a good area to explore if I was in the area again someday. It goes to show you, the maps may show potential, but your yield in boondocking spots will vary wildly.
For a hasty camp close to town, the spot we’d been on for the weekend wasn’t too bad. But it was time to start traveling north up the 395. Carolyn was headed into Barstow to have her RV looked at. I was heading up the 395 to Lone Pine, where hopefully Carolyn would be able to join me again with a fixed RV. I’ll leave you with a few more pictures of the Rainbow Basin area, see you next time up the 395!
