Friday, March 7th, 2025, 0600-1650
Amboy to mm 13.5, Section 8, elevation 636′.
13.5 miles.
I slept pretty well considering my location. The trains came by every few minutes, blowing their whistles every time, but I got by with my standard tricks for drowning out the noise. The wind was also whipping my tent, so no matter what, earplugs were in order. In the morning, I had my instant coffee and first breakfast, but was looking forward to more gas station food, sad as that sounds. But the store didn’t open until 8 am, so after packing, I decided to do a little exploring. The area used to be a real town, with a school and houses. People worked at the nearby mines and there were probably also cattle ranches. The trains once stopped here, instead of just roaring by. Surprisingly, the school (kindergarten to 8th grade) was open until 1999, pretty recently in the grand scale of things.
I poked inside the abandoned school and was surprised by how much it had degraded in 25 years. Time had not been good to it. There was trash and books covering the floor and lots of offensive graffiti all over the walls. The doors were ripped off and most of the furniture long gone or destroyed. The ceiling tiles were caving in. In short order, the place really gave me the creeps. It was like a scene straight out of the Walking Dead. I was waiting for a zombie to jump out of every corner. Little did I know, there might well have been a real zombie lurking around…
I quickly had my fill and didn’t bother going into any of the other dilapidated buildings. I found the old playground behind the school particularly sad. The whole place was the perfect apocalyptic and dystopian scene, amplified by the starkness of the desert surrounding it. Just think of how many famous and epic movies\TV series the desert has been a backdrop to… Star Wars, Dune, Breaking Bad, the Ten Commandments, etc. The desert seems to be iconic in showcasing the bleakest of situations. As a kid, I was particularly fascinated by Lawrence of Arabia, because that movie also presented the desert as a thing of beauty.
I was having fun on my photo excursion of the old town until I arrived at the store to find one of the windows shattered. I couldn’t tell if someone had gone inside and stolen stuff and I didn’t want to be accused of the same. I was worried I might take the blame, since they would know I’d camped overnight. I was also afraid that whoever did it might still be around. My mind went back to the creepy guy with the bull whip. Then just 5 minutes later, I saw his beat-up truck go by. What kind of idiot would return to the scene of their crime? A meth head, that’s who. But it was the woman driving and I didn’t see the guy. It turns out, she was looking for him, because according to her, he’d run off the night before.
I quickly pulled out my phone to take a video of the truck but couldn’t make out the license plate because it was so dented and faded. The truck was weaving around so much, it seemed like it or the driver was not road worthy. I later learned that the control arm on the suspension was being held together with rope, hence the bad steering.
I called the store phone and left a message, reporting the broken window. I’d been contemplating an early departure, but now I felt obligated to stick around to share the information I had. As soon as an employee arrived in the morning, I showed them the window. Nothing appeared to be missing from inside the store, so that was good. Ken the manager arrived shortly after and began reviewing the security footage. After a bit, they got a clear view of the perp and no surprise, it was definitely Bull Whip guy. There was footage of him swatting at one of the outside cameras, which he’d managed to knock down, kicking the front door, and then breaking the side window. And for what, if he hadn’t stolen anything? Who knows with meth heads, they just do crazy, destructive shit when they’re high. I was really lucky I didn’t bump into him around the abandoned buildings…he was probably still hiding inside one of them. Like I said, there actually were zombies.
I sent Ken my footage of the truck, but then the truck came back and they were able to convince the woman to come inside and identify the guy on the security footage. She gave them more information on him (name, address, etc). By that time, a police officer had arrived (all the way from 29 Palms) to take statements from everyone, including me. From the sounds of it, the guy had quite the track record of substance abuse and petty crime. I was glad that I’d at least been able to point them in the direction of the suspect. Ken would probably never recover a dime for the window and security camera repair costs (over $1k in damages), but at least he had the name of the guy in order to press charges.
By the time all this ugly business was over, it was almost noon. As much as I liked Roy’s gas station and employees, I wanted nothing more than to get away from all the drama that seemed to follow me there. These were society problems that I didn’t have to deal with out in the desert. I yearned for its solitude and simplicity. Beauty, starkness, both death by dehydration and exposure and life by the brilliant glow set off twice a day in the Earth’s rotation. The desert barely held the things I needed to survive, but certainly was devoid of the things I didn’t want in my life. Bliss.
Walking down the road towards Amboy Crater felt like breaking free. The 29 Palms deputy passed me on his way back to the precinct, and I wondered what he must be thinking, probably ‘what a bunch of crazy people out here in the desert!’ Here here! I crossed the railroad tracks and followed the road to the crater. At the entrance sign, a van pulled over and the guy offered to take my picture. I guess this can be a con to steal a phone, but one look at the fancy Sprinter van and the clean-cut Ohio couple inside, I knew I didn’t have to worry. Then they offered me Gatorade and crackers. Trail magic!
The parking lot was quite busy and for the first time in a long while, I saw some other hikers. But by the time I reached the crater, the crowds had petered out and I had it all to myself. Of course I had to take the mile side trail to the inside and top. It wasn’t that much higher and it was very cool. The views were pretty great from the rim…I could almost see the Honda Accord still stuck out there on the old mining road.
After my tourist trip, it was time to get down to business. I needed to make it to my first water cache, which was about 14 miles from the gas station (much shorter if I would have just walked the road south). Instead, the route took me to through an incredibly convoluted landscape of lava dunes for the next 4 miles. Looking across this moonscape, I saw craggy lava peaks, great rifts and a mosaic of sand, lava, and the weird features in between. A part of me wondered if such suffering was really necessary, but the other part of me trusted in the Routemasters. If they thought the experience was worth the effort, then so be it.
The lava field ended up being one of my favorite stretches! It was so much fun finding my way. As a child, I loved solving paper mazes. I was bad at most other puzzles like word finds and crosswords, but mazes were barely a challenge for me. I could just look at one and see the path through. So this lava field was like a giant 3D maze from my childhood. I quickly discovered that I had quite a knack for finding an efficient path through and around the obstacles. The only thing that slowed me down were the underground tunnels in the sand. I don’t know what animal made them (kangaroo rats?) but quite frequently my foot would punch through the sand and I’d almost go down. It was like postholing in snow and the movies Tremors and Princess Bride came to mind. The ROUS’s and\or sand worms were trying to pull me down. So I just went fast and within only an hour was through.
My next challenge was walking across the playa of dry Lake Bristol. The substrate was like walking on mashed potatoes. My feet would sink a few inches with each step and my pole baskets keep getting stuck in the crust. It was very tedious. I tried to take a more direct path across the lake but this was a big mistake. I ended up retreating back towards the shore, rejoining the route. Rule #1: trust the Routemasters!
Miles of walking across crusty mashed potatoes…no bueno. Amboy crater is the small black speck is in the distance
The rest of the afternoon was easy dirt road walking. My last challenge for the day was finding some sort of refuge from the wind. But there were nothing but creosote barrens for miles around. Then just as I was nearing my water cache, I found a man-made gravel pit that was just perfect. I snuggled up to some bushes to pitch my tent, then walked a short ways to retrieve my gallon of water, stashed near the highway. What a wild and crazy weird day! But it ended peacefully!