For the first time in five years, the "annual" TacomaWorld trip has morphed into two trips. 
I suppose, technically, I should call it a trip-and-a-half, given the debacle that became Half a Trip in Montana, but I prefer to see the glass always full (there's always something in there) so we're just going to call it two.
The timing of the second trip - in December - clearly ruled out anything up north, so returning to Montana for redemption would just have to wait until next year. Plus, given the unexpectedly good time that we had in Death Valley a couple years ago, it only made sense to return to the desert. While the default would have normally been exploring more of the park, Hurricane Hillary - in August - left the road system in shambles and most of the place was still closed to the public.
And so, we're headed even further south in the Mojave Desert - to the East Mojave Heritage Trail (EMHT).
Created in the late 1980s by Mojave Desert explorer and historian Dennis Casebier, rather than following an established historical route like the Mojave Road, the EMHT is a comprehensive tour through some of the most remote portions of the East Mojave Desert.
Segment 1: Needles to Ivanpah - 173 miles
Segment 2: Ivanpah to Rocky Ridge -199 miles
Segment 3: Rocky Ridge to Fenner - 211 miles
Segment 4: Fenner to Needles - 155 miles
Split into four segments and more than 700 miles long - even without the nearby side-adventures that I added for our enjoyment - that would be a lot of ground to cover in two weeks, so we're going to try to complete it in one!
Spoiler: we only got through the first half of the route on this particular visit in late November 2023. The perfect excuse to head back for more!
Segment 1 and 2
We All Arrive ...Except for Monte ...Again | EMHT Segment 1A Needles to Caruthers Canyon - Prologue For the first time in five years, the "annual" TacomaWorld trip has morphed into two trips. I suppose, technically, I should call it a trip-and-a-half, given the debacle that became Half a Trip in Montana, but I prefer to see the glass always full (there's always something in there) so we're just going to call it two. The timing of the second trip - in December - clearly ruled out anything up north, so returning to Montana for redemption would just have to wait until next year. Plus, given the unexpectedly good time that we had in Death Valley…
Almost the End | EMHT Segment 1B Caruthers Canyon to Clark Mountain - There aren't many nights that I close up all the windows and doors on my tent, as - especially when there is a full moon as there was on this night - I enjoy being able to gaze out on the surroundings if I wake up in the middle of the night. But parked under the watchful gaze of Easter Island Rock, with temperatures in the my-feet-are-numb range and a 10mph breeze blowing through camp, I zipped everything up tight, inserted my earplugs, and hoped for the best. It worked, and I was nice and toasty when my alarm -…
Mine Hopping | EMHT Segment 2A Clark Mountain to Silver Lake - We lucked out with a windless night along our ridge on the eastern edge of the Clark Mountains. Hoping that out orientation would allow for some nice color at sunrise, I was up early to try and find the best angle from which to capture the splendor we were lucky enough to call home for a night. Framed by Clark Mountain, there was just a hint of color in the sky. Mike @Digiratus and Zane @Speedytech7 weren't far behind, and as I was wrapping up the morning photo session of their best-gen trucks, they were boiling water for coffee and…
Colorful Ore | EMHT Segment 2B Silver Lake to Ivanpah Mountains - Camped at 2,250 feet above sea level, the entirety of the night was quite a bit warmer than the previous two evenings at more than 5,500 feet, and it was so nice to open up all the windows and doors on the tent so that whenever I'd wake up through the night, I can take a quick glance at the surroundings and admire them under the moonlight. Morning brought more clouds than on previous mornings, but with a clear eastern horizon, more clouds just meant more color! After three days of doing it, getting out of camp early was now…
Racing the Sun to the Mojave Megaphone | EMHT Segment 2C Ivanpah Mountains to Rocky Ridge - I don't know if it was the coldest night of the trip from an absolute perspective, but when I climbed out of my tent, it was the only morning I found the rainfly - and the cab of the Tacoma - covered in a layer of frost. Luckily, as the final full day of our trip, we'd decided that no matter where we were, it was where we were going to cook our shared breakfast. And that meant we'd have a couple extra hours for our tents to defrost. While I waited for Mike @Digiratus and Zane @Speedytech7 to wake…
Segment 3 | see A Bit More EMHT (Dec 2023)
Desert Art | EMHT Segment 3A Rocky Ridge to Granite Mountains - There was no way Mike @Digiratus, Zane @Speedytech7, and I were going to run the entirety of the East Mojave Heritage Trail when we set out to do it at the end of November. At something more than 700 miles long - not including the nearby side-adventures that I added for our enjoyment - it might seem like a Backcountry Discovery Route, but the roads are significantly slower and more technical, and the percentage of on-dirt miles is significantly larger. Frankly, these two things make it easily twice the length of a BDR, not to mention the fact that we…
Unfinished Business | EMHT Segment 3B Granite Mountains to Providence - After cleaning up after dinner and getting the tent deployed, it was still only 6:15pm, too early - even for us - to hit the sack for the night. It was, rather, the perfect time for me to be reminded of what we had in store for the morning; the trail description I'd neglected to re-read prior to planning the trek. Whipping out what we lovingly refer to as the Mojave Preserve bible - @mrs.turbodb was happy to oblige: From its head near the highest point in the Granite Mountains to its mouth, Budweiser Canyon climbs about 2,800 feet in…
Seems "Safe" | EMHT Segment 3C The Bonanza King to Fenner - Just to remind everyone where we left off - we'd found the perfect camp site, with one minor caveat: it was located about 25 feet from a rather deep, Tacoma-sized, hole in the ground. With no barriers. "If you get up during the night to pee, do it on the driver side of the truck," The main shaft of the Bonanza King Framed by enormous lumber, this is one of the most impressive shafts in the preserve. It plunges down 600 straight feet, then continues as a winze for another 200 feet. When the shaft encountered a new ore body,…
Rig Review - First One in a Long Time - December 28, 2023. It's been quite a while - eight months to the day - since the last Rig Review, making this only the second review of 2023. That's just pure lazy on my part, but I'll plead "no way to work on the truck since it's been in Las Vegas" most of that time ...and move on with my fingers in my ears and a la-la-la escaping my lips, as though that were the real reason. With that in mind, let's get down to it, because there is a lot to cover. This Rig Review is the result of…
Segment 4 | see Wrapping up the EMHT (Jan 2024)
It's All Wilderness Now | EMHT Segment 4a Camp Clipper to Turtle Mountains - After running the first two segments of the East Mojave Heritage Trail (EMHT) with Mike and Zane last month, and then returning for the third segment with @mrs.turbodb only a week later, it was less of a question of "where" and more a question of "when" my first trip of 2024 would take place. The "where" - of course - would be the final, fourth segment of the 770-mile long route, winding my way through the Mojave Trails National Monument and the Turtle Mountain Wilderness. Segment 1: Needles to Ivanpah - 173 miles Segment 2: Ivanpah to Rocky Ridge -199…
Worn Out | EMHT Segment 4b Turtle Mountains to Needles - My plan - if one can ever really have a plan when out adventuring, was that this was going to be my last day on the East Mojave Heritage Trail. After nearly 10 days of travel, I had only 70 miles or so to complete Segment 4, and in an effort to ensure that I'd actually get through those 70 miles before dark, I was out of the tent nearly half an hour before the sun peeked over the horizon. With no shadows, the ambient light on the Turtle Mountains was something special. The main reason I was up so…
Extras Along the Way | EMHT Segment 4 - I could have included this stuff in the main East Mojave Heritage Trail stories - and usually I would have - but they were already getting long. Plus, I know that most would prefer YouTube videos anyway. Not that there will be any YouTube videos here, if I just got your hopes up. Anyway, this is a mishmash story of a few things that weren't explicitly part of EMHT Segment 4, but that I experienced during that same span of time. The Copper Glint Mine As I was leaving Las Vegas - my body and the Tacoma both resupplied after…
Looking for other segments of the EMHT? Check out
East Mojave Heritage Trail
for other trips where the other parts of this epic route were enjoyed.
I hope you purchased the wonderful set of 4 books on the East Mojave Heritage Trail sold by the Mojave Desert Heritage & Cultural Association. You can find the MDHCA at themojaveroad.org... Current info is that Sections 2, 3, and 4 are passable with technical sections. Section 1 on the Mojave Road is impassible through the Paiute Range but there are directions on the MDHCA Site for a bypass. I always love your write-ups on your wonderful adventures... I can't wait to read this one. I plan on doing these routes after I retire...
Thanks Russ. I know of the books, but I've not purchased them as I know the Mojave pretty well and have travelled most of the EMHT route over the course of previous adventures (without knowing it!). We just (today) wrapped up sections 1 and 2 over a 5-day period (short winter days make doing the whole thing in a week... impossible I'd say). Both were easily passable for rigs like mine. The "bypass" of the Mojave Road in section 1 is the same bypass that's existed for more than a decade (AFAIK) - heading up over Paiute Pass, since the Mojave Road is closed at Fort Paiute.
Pretty fun trip, can't wait to get the photos processed and the story written. Glad to hear that you're looking forward to seeing it! 👍
Hey Turbo! Long time reader, first time commenter..
Just went out and did the EMHT over the week of Thanksgiving with my gf and a buddy that drove down from Oregon. We got through 3 sections and while my buddy had to make the trek north for work on Monday, we decided it best to not run section 4 as fast as we could... Plus we wanted to go back and revisit a couple of things on section 3, namely having time to hike the dunes! Hoping to get back to do section 4 before it warms up again!
Very much looking forward to this one and your descriptions of the wash in section 3 😉
Nice! On this trip, we only got through sections 1 and 2, but I'm headed back for section 3 shortly. (Most of which I've done previously, but never as the EMHT.) I'll be curious to experience the section 3 wash that you're alluding to... And if you mentioned that, how about the "wash" in Valjean Valley, next to the old Tonopah and Tidewater rail grade? That was actually a route across and alluvial fan which is what made it a disaster. Sort of like the "shortcut" that @mrs.turbodb and I took when we hiked to Military Canyon in the Owlshead Mountains of Death Valley. Cut a mile off the hike, but shortcut my a$$. 🤣
You very well may have been the next two people to sign books at the mailboxes then! I certainly thought what would turbo do a couple of times on the trail haha. It took us the same time to get through sections 1 & 2.
That's exactly the section I was talking about. My friend joined the emht fb group which is pretty active for a bit of a report (a stock looking Sequoia was stuck the other day, for example). Our biggest challenge in the area was probably losing light, because it was near impossible to see tire tracks, and needing to find camp (I've got a few points for you to camp in section 3, if you drop me an email). There was one spot where my 3rd gen got stuck, but a rear locker and some rocks made easy work of that. My friend took a wider line in his stock Bronco and had no issues.
The road does at times follow the map and sometimes does not probably from the hurricane rains given the area. There was one fun spot with deep silty sand leading to an off kilter ramp up to the main road that I got a nice video of the Bronco romping and getting a bit of air under the front tires haha.
Other than the alluvial fan road, Vulture mine road was a bit bumpy with one steep loose rocky section. It won't be a problem at all for your rig! We also had minor issues with the railroad leaving cars blocking a path and had to go around as it would have meant trying to cross 4 tracks. The railroad construction is very apparent, though the trail entrance they keep grating over is not.
Over all, section 3 was pretty tame. The slowest roads are likely behind you.
Hey hey, there you are in the book! Super cool! One person (who signed it anyway) between us.
Mailbox #1
And mailbox #2 is a lot harder to find, so I don't think people write in it nearly as often. I wasn't going to miss it, even as we had a fun time racing down the wash!
Mailbox #2
Definitely comment as I post the trip - I'd love to hear your experiences - similar or different - or bits of the route that you thought were fun that I don't mention in the story
Forgot to add - I think I know the section of road at the Vulcan Mine that you're referring to. We visited back in 2019, and with about six inches of snow, we couldn't make it up that section!