Mojave Trails National Monument rocks out in November
The desert heat subsides, welcoming visitors to get wild in the eastern California desert. Behave yourself when hunting trilobites!
The Mojave Desert is at its best this time of year.
Summer’s brutal heat is gone and the wind doesn’t blow as much as during spring. Did I just write that? No guarantee about the wind.
The last of the 90 degree days are forecast this weekend, until they return for good in February and March. Where to go in the Mojave, besides Death Valley? The BLM offers an alternative to the more-popular Death Valley National Park and Mojave National Preserve, both managed by the National Park Service.
The BLM’s Mojave Trails National Monument sort of wraps the Mojave Preserve like a slingshot on the west, south and east. Created by President Obama in 2016, the National Monument is best known for having a long stretch of old U.S. Route 66 running right through it, among its 1.6 million acres.
This is isolated desert but still gets a fair amount of winter use from people escaping large metro areas on the weekends. Do note that the Mojave at elevation can feel cool during the day and cold at night from December to February.
Mojave Trails visitors like to hunt for trilobites, you know, those things a trillion times bigger than a gigabyte!😎😎 A trilobite is the amount of data your internet provider gives you each month, right?💻
Actually, a trilobite is a fossil turned into rock. They were arthropods, 250 million to 550 million years ago. Mojave Trails has a designated trilobite collecting area, but be sure to follow posted collection rules.
I spent five nights out there last December but wound up not doing much as I waited (near Interstate 40 with cell internet connections) to learn if the California governor shut the state to visitors due to a Covid spike. He did. Remember those days?
I had to switch lodging plans from Palm Springs to Las Vegas.
I wanted to visit Cadiz Dunes in Mojave Trails National Monument, but access was restricted from Route 66 due to road construction. I hiked Amboy Crater, but decided not to go farther west toward Afton Canyon (toward Los Angeles, if you know what I mean).
The farther from Los Angeles and Las Vegas you are in the Mojave, the more pristine your desert experience will be. It’s hard to escape their night lights, but you can outrun for a day or two the 30-plus million people (adding Phoenix and San Diego to L.A. and Vegas) who live a half-day’s drive from the center of the Mojave.
I would place the “town” of Amboy as the center of the Mojave Desert. You can get gas and cold drinks there at Roy’s Motel and Cafe, or would need to fill up at gateway cities of Twentynine Palms, Barstow or Needles. Ludlow on Interstate-40 has gas at $5.40 a gallon.
Afton Canyon has the only developed campground in the national monument, largest in the lower 48 states. The canyon also is a rare setting in the desert with year-round surface water from the Mojave River.