This is my journey of the Sonora and the Western Mojave desert.

My main interest is in the exploration of Rock Hound sites and old mines/mining camps. We use maps, books and stories, as well as information from other Desert explorers to find some of the coolest places on earth. we camp, rockhound and have a generally good time. We camp in the State Parks, BLM campsites or just out on the desert floor.Ron and I have been exploring the Desert since the mid 1960's, unfortunatly we did not keep trip reports or photo's until 10 years ago. So these trips are mostly after the internet exploded. We travel by Four Wheel Drive Vehicles, we tread lightly and haul out what we bring. In addition I am a Amatuer Radio operator, my call is Ka7ayt, and I make Jewelry from the rocks (RAW stones) I find.

By Dick Wilimek

Amatuer Explorer

ka7ayt

This trip started out like a normal one, I got off work early and Ron got here areound 7:00pm. I had loaded up the Pathfinder and done the last minute things,spare gas,ice etc. Anyway Ron got here we loaded his things into the rig and hooked up the trailer (small 4x5). I went to start the Pathfinder and no one was home, it did not start. Well that was a first, so of course we checked the battery first and found a slightly loose battery cable, tightened that and still no start. So not being new to the auto industry I got out my trusty 1/2 breaker bar and rapped on the starter. Whow the rig started, ok so we knew we had at least a few more starts in her, plus a couple of extras with the breaker bar. So we hooked up the trailer and off we went heading for the western Mojave desert, Red Rock canyon area and Last Chance canyon area. Ron and I spent three days exploring the last chance canyon, barrett opal mine, burro schmidt's tunnel and anywhere the PAthfinder would take us, which meant anywhere we wanted to go. The small trailer we take is used mostly for fire wood between Ron and I we have all the wood we need for a three nite trip with large fires till late into the nite, we both like a camp fire. We stayed the first nite near a cluster of Joshua trees, the wind was blowing like 40 miles per hour that friday nite. Saturaday we headed for the shelter of richardo camp and the cliffs. that turned out to be a better place to camp ,for more than one reason. From there we started out around 10:00 saturday morning and headed for "Burro Schmidts Tunnel"

we visited a couple of mines along the way and got there around Noon of course we went through his cabin and also walked through the tunnel to the other side. You can not understand the feeling with out doing it, but it is truely a wonder 1600ft thru solid rock only to exit 3000ft above the desert floor..whew...We used our GPS reciever and maps printed out from my topo program to chart where we were at all times, this was the first time we had travel that way. We usually just use maps and feel our way around. We of course did a little rockhounding found some black opal and agate also some jasper, I will be tumble polishing them this summer The mines we saw a photographed were really neat, there are so many you get tired of checking them out. ckeck out the link to the photos below there are some of the entire trip. Ron and I found out that the only gas in the area is Mojave, Kramer Junction, Inyokern, and Ridgecrest. None of the other small towns have gas. On Sunday we did more exploring of mines and just the general area around and south east of the Barrett MineWe also got into the Dove Canyon ORV park, it is interesting the pipe line runs right through that area Monday we spent looking for rocks, we found a nice site with lots of black opal veins in a outcropping. Tuesday morning we got up had a lite breakfast broke camp and started for Oceanside around 11:00am We arrived home about 3:30pm, unloaded split up the rocks and Ron loaded his things up and headed for home. Ron and I both felt that it was one of the best trips we have had, with seeing the tunnel and all the mines and also being able to get through Last Chance Canyon.