Afton Canyon:

The Mojave National Preserve is a huge area of pristine desert landscape in south eastern California. My blog on Mitchell Caverns and Hole-in-the-Wall covers our first trip there. We expanded on that trip over the past two days by visiting Kelso Depot. We intended to camp in a primitive campsite alongside the Kelbaker road that crosses the Preserve from south to north from Interstate 40 at exit 78, to Interstate 15 at Baker, CA. The road tops 3000 feet on both sides of Kelso and for a time exceeds 4000 feet elevation. For comparison both I-40 and I-15 pass through this area at about 1000 feet.

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Mitchell Caverns:

Today we joined some friends and toured Mitchell Caverns and the Mojave National Preserve a little east of Needles California. Ed and Sarah are good friends from Portland Oregon. They have traveled to the area to visit Ed’s sister Jo, for Thanksgiving and they all came to Needles to meet with us and do a little spelunking. We drove up onto the Providence Mountains in time to catch the 10 am tour through the Tecopa and El Pakiva caves.

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Life is a Journey