Backcountry camping and hiking in Wild Horse Canyon of the Mojave National Preserve

This was our second back country camping spot in the Mojave National Preserve.

It was almost as isolated as was the first site--we sighted just a handful of vehicles in the week we were there.

The site was special in a couple of ways.  First, it was at the edge of a rather large burn area.  Ordinarily burn areas depress us, but this one was different because it was caused by nature.  In 2005 there were several lightening strikes here.  The desert burns and is reborn.  A natural cycle.

The other special part of this spot was that just to the left of the above photo the hills descend about 3000 feet, very rapidly, to the valley floor.  Here is a photo from that spot showing the train going through the middle of the valley and by Kelso Station (the restored train station that the Parks Service maintains).  We called it being on the edge of the world.

Here is a photo showing Vicky walking toward this spot:

In the mornings we would take our chairs to the edge of the precipice and drink our coffee.

And at night, from our camper, this is what we usually saw:

 

And what we saw when a storm approached from that direction.

Unfortunately, our hiking around this area was limited by the fact that I got a blister on my bunion.  Band aids and so on weren't working.  So what I did was create the Graybill-Hiking-with-Bunions shoe.  I haven't patented it yet.

 

Put a piece of duct tape over the opening, and it worked pretty well, surprisingly.  Because we were in an area that had a lot of small gravel, Vicky also used duct tape to tape my hiking pants to the back of the shoes.  That kept the gravel out.  Clever people aren't we?

 

We hiked in all directions, but the most fun direction was down toward the valley floor.  Because of said foot issue, we didn't get to do as much of this as we would have liked, but there is always next year!