EDIT - I posted this a WHILE ago, and wanted to update the info abit.
Another thread from the Adventure4x4 run also exists describing Odessa Canyon. As you can tell from the post, I got real scared on one of the upper obstacles in Odessa Canyon
I've since run it a couple more times. It's still dicey, but it is obviously doable with a high chance of survival
As erosion continues, it's not clear if it will remain so.
Anyway, Odessa and Bismark Canyons are part of the old Doran Scenic Loop (yup, misspelled in my original post title - should look this stuff up before posting
). They are near
Calico Ghost Town, just
north of Barstow on the 15 freeway, in SoCal. A map of the trails in the Calico OHV area
can be found here.
I've
added some more photos of what you'd be in store for as an extra post on the end of this thread. Movies of some of the lower obstacles are linked at the bottom of this post.
Original post:
We ran the Doran (misspelled in title) scenic route this past weekend - up Odessa Canyon and back down Bismark Canyon. I'd tried to do this same loop back in December, but my co-pilot got cold feet at one of the steps. This run is doable, but tricky, except for the "gate keeper" obstacle at the bottom of Bismark, for which a nice bypass exists (This obstacle is run by extreme rock crawlers, but when we walked on it, is had a fresh scraping of red paint and a pool of leaked gasoline - it's NOT to be tried in an FJC). My main reason for posting is that I would be very concerned about running this route again - so this is an FYI: there is a narrow slope path climb near the top of Odessa Canyon that is only barely wide enough for an FJC (read, not quite wide enough) with potentially fatal consequences for screw-up - we held our breath and gunned it, but it's DICEY (so should probably be run as two in-and-out trails rather than one loop). Other than that, the trail is GREAT with lots of boulders and steps/ledges and is generally just very bumpy. Under-carriage armour is VITAL
Here are some videos (first few seconds of each are messed up):
