Goler Wash. I wish we would have taken photos of the tough spots but we were too busy spotting and driving to bother to think about it. Don't even think about heading over Mengel Pass without high clearance 4wd and at least a rear locker would help a lot.
The rest of the wash was as usual. Tall, and narrow in places. Water was running down the majority of it. Not much but wet. It was another beautiful day and once we arrived at the mouth of the canyon things slowed way down. TheFreqOfNature and Blabberon followed Tabby and I as we entered this wonderful canyon.
We stopped at one of the cables that are strung from the top of the canyon and played with a it for a while. No photos for some reason. Give it a yank and see how long it took for the reverberation to return from the top. The next stop was Newman cabin and for some reason I didn't get any photos of that either! I guess I didn't pull out the camera till we got to
The Keystone Mine Camp. The place looks rough now but it was only abbandoned in December of 1997. The road switchbacks all the way up the back canyon to the mine at the top of the saddle. We didn't have the time to explore it. That will be left for another trip.
Finally we get to one of our main destinations. Barkers Ranch. Where Manson and his gang were captured in October 1969. The place didn't look all that evil. It was just a nice place that some terrible people took over for a while. It's really not a bad place at all. After mulling around there for a while we headed out for Mengel Pass and Butte Valley. The passage was getting a little tougher now
and we struggled a little harder to get where we were going. But nothing too tough for the Blazer. Freq did an excellent job of driving as his rear end is not locked and that made the trip twice as tough for him. We top out at Mengel Pass. There is a stone cairn on the left side of the summit dedicated to Carl Mengel, who lived between 1868 and 1944. Carl came to the area in 1912 and lived out his life here. At his request, his ashes were interred here.
Once over Mengel Pass we dropped down into Butte Valley just before the sun went down. We had just enough time to visit Stellas Cabin and shoot a few photos. We ate a very late and quick lunch and
got back on our way for the return trip to PSR. It was getting late and we didn't want to be dealing with possible winching and strapping issues in the dark if the ride back up the pass turned out to be tougher than we thought. As it turned out it was a breeze and we got over the bad spots in no time at all.
The ride back through Goler Canyon at night is wonderful to say the least. As the sun went down it darkened in the canyon and changed the whole look of the place. By the time we were back on Wingate road it was dark. As I passed the Briggs Mine I noticed that there was not a light to be seen from the place. I thought that strange. We arrived at Ballarat and dropped Blab off at his Volkswagon Camper where he had left it and off he went towards home. Freq and I left for PSR.
That was our last trip for the event. The following evening B-Spec and I had our own little bar-B-que and we didn't even try to burn the campsite down. Or anything else for that matter. We had a great meal and I got a good night's sleep. I got up to a beautiful sunrise the next morning and packed up and left for home.
I would like to thank everyone who showed up for a wonderful time. And I would like to thank the entire staff at PSR for being great hosts. I know they are suffering growing pains but the place is in the greatest shape it's ever been in and will just get better. We have to thank David Bricker for puting on the feedbag for the event and Panamint Charlie for bringing us all together through his website. Last and certainly not least I would like to thank the Desert Explorers for sharing themselves with us at this most wonderful event. It was really nice meeting all of you.
