BLM Dispatch #48 - BLM Campgrounds in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts
Over the past six months, we’ve traveled together across the Mojave, Sonoran, and Colorado deserts of the American Southwest. But every desert season eventually comes to an end, and though people live in the desert — and though the temperatures haven’t yet reached their true boiling point — every May my body, brain, and spirit begin quietly saying goodbye.
I have already covered the BLM campgrounds in California’s Eastern Sierra in Dispatch #5, but now to close out the season, I wanted to shift to some of my favorites in California’s Mojave (and Colorado) deserts…
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Dispatch #37 - The Trona Pinnacles
This month marks the 11th anniversary of a random January camping trip I took in 2015 — one that would eventually rearrange the trajectory of my life.
I’m not sure which rabbit hole I fell into on the antiquated BLM website that led me to the Trona Pinnacles, but of all the tunnels I could have crawled into while looking for a place to camp, I’m sure glad it delivered us to those ethereal tufas.
We left Los Angeles on New Year’s Day, 2015 — my kids in car seats, my wife at home with our newborn. I remember thinking that no matter how this impromptu camping trip turned out, or what the Pinnacles looked like, we were going to have some kind of adventure. And that seemed to matter as much as anything.
Four hours later we arrived to the gravel entrance off Highway 178. We stretched, ran around, read the welcome signs, and then hopped back in our Element for the final six mile drive that would take us to the heart of the landscape.
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