In addition, because the hike is approximately 10 miles long, and because there are no trail markers (and, in fact, there is no real trail) some parts of the hike could be fairly challenging. There are at least three canyons that one can access from the trail head, the road trails get harder to locate and follow each year because they are being claimed by nature, and one part of the hike involves about a mile of winding through high rocky areas where you have to find your own way. We thought some additional information might be helpful to anyone attempting this hike.
The Furbish book was last revised in 2005, making even the hikes that are newer additions potentially somewhat dated. Some of the trail markings she describes for this hike are nowhere to be found (a barrow pit, stakes, etc.).
We would not recommend this hike unless you felt as if you had 10 miles of hiking for a day in you, more if you would get lost for awhile. In addition, we relied heavily on our GPS which had the location of the Ruby Lee Mill on it. We would not recommend this hike unless you had a GPS.
Here is the hike we are describing here, in black with red arrows. The red lines and solid black/gray lines are from other hikes we have taken in this area, including the six-mile round trip hike directly to Ruby Lee Mill.
Here is what the area looks like without the markings of the trails we have taken. Fifty years go the road trail presented in yellow dashes would make this a fairly straightforward hike. However, the road trail is gone in places and hard to locate in other places.
So why do this hike? Several reasons. One is that the canyon you walk through at the beginning is lovely. The route through Porcupine Wash (bottom of the trail map) is incredible. A wide, beautiful valley. The road trail on the left of the map heading north shows wonderful views, the tall hills with boulders at the top left of the trail are fun to work your way through, the mill itself is interesting, and the road trail back to the trail head is much easier to find going west to east than east to west. Lots of different terrain and, important to us at least, it is unlikely you will run into other hikers. You feel all alone with just the Joshua Tree desert.
First, coordinates of the Ruby Lee Mill. Program them into your GPS.
Finding the correct canyon:
This map shows the correct route from the trail head (the Backcountry Board along the highway). It is marked in yellow.
The spot marked "Canyon" is where the canyon begins. It is almost exactly a mile from the Back Country Board.
The GPS coordinates are the following:
Be careful not to head too far to the East and find yourself on the route in red on the right. The critical juncture is circled in yellow below. Follow the black route, not the red one that goes directly south.
After walking a mile through this canyon you will enter a large open area between two mountain ranges. You will follow the wash marked in yellow below. It is 3.7 miles from the spot marked "Canyon" to the end of the yellow route. This would be 4.7 miles from the trailhead. This is the well known Porcupine Wash.
There is some mild boulder scrambling. Pretty easy as this kind of thing goes, and not much of it.
At this point (4.7 miles from the trail head/Back Country Board) you will see an old mining road on the hillside to your right. Here are the GPS Coordinates:
Here is an enlargement of this area. It is easy to miss if you aren't watching the mile marker on your GPS and are not looking at the hillside. Easy to miss because it doubles back behind you.
This road trail is very nice and easy to follow for awhile.
Here is Vicky on this road trail. We are heading toward the far horizon on it.
The road trail goes about 1.2 miles NNW. As you can see, we lost it at that point, or think we did. There were cairns in the area, but we couldn't follow them, and perhaps missed them. Cairns are easy to miss unless they are very large in a desert that is filled with rocks. They don't stand out.
We overshot the "road," because we found we were on another old mining road. There are mining roads everywhere, many no longer on maps. But because we had our GPS we could tell after awhile that we were heading in the wrong direction. We turned around, set a bearing toward the Ruby Lee Mill using our GPS, and wandered around in rocks and hills in that direction. This is the point of the hike where we would have been lost without the GPS. If there was a road at one time, it was long gone.
We did see a deer, though, our first ever in Joshua Tree National Park. A large buck.
From the Mill, it is a fairly straight shot back to the Back Country Board. There is an old mining road trail which is hard to see sometimes. But just keep walking down if you lose it, and eventually you will get to the highway.
We enjoyed it a lot. Hope you do too.
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