Mojave to Kanab

We packed up the rig and headed out into the Central Valley of California. It was smooth sailing to our first night near the summit and Sherman Pass. The pass is little traveled and had never been traveled by either of us. It is the highest navigable pass over the Sierra at 9,500 feet. The road was two or single lane all of the way.

Next morning we descended to a T intersection at highway 395. 395 snakes up the beautiful and stark eastern side of the range. At this point we took a few minutes to decide our route, left turn to Death Valley or right turn to the Granite Mountains in the Mojave Desert. We turned right and were fortunate to find our favorite primitive campsite unoccupied. We spent two nights there. Took a few long hikes and witnessed two lovely sunsets.

We then drove on through Las Vegas twice due to a 40 mile turn around to retrieve an errant gas cap. Starbucks was involved and Nancy bought me a frozen coffee drink to make up for all the backtracking.

As we approached Kanab we saw smoke rising from the distant Kaibab Plateau. A forest fire was just starting. Unfortunately it was right in the notch that we needed to drive for our approach to our planned camping site on the North Rim.

Bummer. We instead headed toward the Paria River and camped on its banks in a remote site. The area had been an old settlement but now was just an old ghost town. Most of the ruins had been washed away in some flash flooding in the late 80s. A movie set where they filmed quite a few westerns was washed away as well. The Sinatra Brat Pack and Clint Eastwood were the biggest names to have filmed there.Read more