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Trip date 6/16/08
Ever wondered what is just off the 15 Freeway on the way to or from Las Vegas? What about gold mines and old cars and more? We pulled off at Halloran Summit (not Halloran Springs which is a few miles away). The temperature here was about 90 degrees, whereas near Barstow it was 108, so this was really pretty comfortable. About 100 Feet up the off-ramp on the west side of the freeway the paved road turned to dirt. My GPS showed a number of trails fairly close by, so we took a right on the dirt road and began searching for the trail.
My GPS (with the Topo maps added) showed a number of trails that went on forever, but we chose some of the shorter trails that made a nice loop to get us back to the freeway in about an hour.
I will say that I would not try this without a GPS, because the trails are not well travelled, and there are many turns and twists in the trail, and it would be easy to get disoriented. Also if you go as far as we did, you will scratch your paint on the bushes. We saw no tire tracks on most of the trails we were on, and there was quite a bit of small brush in the middle of the trails. On one trail I had no choice but to drive over a 3’ bush that was right in the middle of a very narrow trail.
The shot that follows is the first part of the trail right off the main dirt road; mostly sand.
A ways back in to the real trail, one branch took us up a hill on in the distance we could see the remants of an old gold mine.
This path was drivable down to the mine itself. You can see that this was not well travelled, and in some places we had to really look hard to find the trail, even though the GPS insisted that we were on it.
Around the mines we saw a lot of old rusty metal from the old days. This is one of the coolest examples close to the first mine.
Up close at the first mine.
More trail
Note: When your GPS shows a dead-end trail, it probably is. This trail ended here and I had to back up the trail about 50 yards to get out.
As we got neared to another mine we came across this vehicle
Another mine: This one was fenced off because of the mine shaft
As we neared the end of the trail we found some more cars (note the 15 freeway in the background of some of the photos). Hard to believe these are so close to the freeway, because you really can’t see them from there.<p>
Ever wondered what is just off the 15 Freeway on the way to or from Las Vegas? What about gold mines and old cars and more? We pulled off at Halloran Summit (not Halloran Springs which is a few miles away). The temperature here was about 90 degrees, whereas near Barstow it was 108, so this was really pretty comfortable. About 100 Feet up the off-ramp on the west side of the freeway the paved road turned to dirt. My GPS showed a number of trails fairly close by, so we took a right on the dirt road and began searching for the trail.
My GPS (with the Topo maps added) showed a number of trails that went on forever, but we chose some of the shorter trails that made a nice loop to get us back to the freeway in about an hour.
I will say that I would not try this without a GPS, because the trails are not well travelled, and there are many turns and twists in the trail, and it would be easy to get disoriented. Also if you go as far as we did, you will scratch your paint on the bushes. We saw no tire tracks on most of the trails we were on, and there was quite a bit of small brush in the middle of the trails. On one trail I had no choice but to drive over a 3’ bush that was right in the middle of a very narrow trail.
The shot that follows is the first part of the trail right off the main dirt road; mostly sand.
A ways back in to the real trail, one branch took us up a hill on in the distance we could see the remants of an old gold mine.
This path was drivable down to the mine itself. You can see that this was not well travelled, and in some places we had to really look hard to find the trail, even though the GPS insisted that we were on it.
Around the mines we saw a lot of old rusty metal from the old days. This is one of the coolest examples close to the first mine.
Up close at the first mine.
More trail
Note: When your GPS shows a dead-end trail, it probably is. This trail ended here and I had to back up the trail about 50 yards to get out.
As we got neared to another mine we came across this vehicle
Another mine: This one was fenced off because of the mine shaft
As we neared the end of the trail we found some more cars (note the 15 freeway in the background of some of the photos). Hard to believe these are so close to the freeway, because you really can’t see them from there.<p>