Where the paved road ends

Hello everyone,

I figured for my first night in the Mojave, I would stay at one of the campgrounds in the park. It’s a pretty basic place, called Hole in the Wall Campground, but it had potable water nearby and a toilet, and as mentioned, those are nice amenities. I heard some coyotes again in the night, which made Arthur curious, but didn’t seem to bother him a lot.

But today, I wanted to get away from campgrounds, away from anything that was prepared and set up. I would truly go out on my own. The term I’ve used, one I’ve picked up from the literature on this, is boondocking. Another they use is dispersed camping.

The Mojave preserve is a good place for it, as people have been doing it there for decades. I asked where I should go from the guy at the information centre, and he said to just find a dirt road and head down until I found a cleared area with a fire ring. Noted.

We didn’t go immediately from our campground to our next spot. In the morning, after packing up, Arthur and I instead drove across the park, across a very bumpy dirt road, to a popular hiking spot. It’s a 3 or so mile round trip hike, up to the top of a high point with a good vantage. It was nice, but again, hiking is a bit of a let down for me.

After that, we set out to find our spot for the night. Not too far from the trailhead for the hike, we found a dirt road, and figuring it was as good as any, we struck off down that path, through a growth of Joshua Trees. After a mile or two, we found a couple of occupied sites, one was even taken by a couple from Ontario, and kept going until we found a good place to make our camp for the night.

When you rock climb, you have to check and double check that everything was done right. That your harness is in good working order, that the knots were tied right, etc. But after all that, you have to just trust that you have done everything correctly, and climb the wall. Dispersed camping is similar. You are very much on your own, and in my case in the middle of a desert. You have to trust that you have done all the preparation. That you have enough gas, enough water, etc. If anything goes wrong, you have to be able to deal with it.

Fortunately, nothing went wrong for me, and it was in fact a wonderful experience, but I liked being out on the edge like that. When I started this trip, I hoped to get into the backcountry a bit and it really felt like I had accomplished that goal. It was a good feeling.

wes