Mojave Preserve/Ivanpah Range - "With an old umbrella frame on top"

 We drove east on I-15 and clawed our way past a 20 mile traffic jam before/after Barstow by using a couple of backroads.

 After what seemed like, and actually was, hours we turned south on Cima Road, entered the Mojave Preserve and drove through a Joshua Tree forest to our campsite.

Our camp nestled in a rock cove in the Ivanpah Range.

Dawn and a telephoto lens brought the Mojave Cross into view. Good to see the legal battles concluded and the cross restored.

 We drove northeast toward some places that I had visited 25-30 years ago.

 This cabin was collapsed but the outhouse was still standing.

 We drove on.

And soon reached Riley's Camp.

 The largest of the rooms inside the cabin. A lot has changed in almost 30 years. It had a lived-in look back in the 80's. I told Jan that I had photos of the place and she reminded me that I did not. Ahh, yes. When one's home is incinerated by a raging wildfire, paper photos don't survive.

 We checked out the other cabin and then drove over to the next camp. The gate to Geer Camp was shut and locked, so we moved on.

 The next camps were in rough condition.

 Jan remarked that this kitchen looked like mine before we were married.

 I remembered this old bus and after all of these years the tires were still holding air.

 Behind the bus was a dugout.

 Was really disappointed in the state of this cabin. The inside rooms were again gutted and destroyed. It had been the coolest of the cabins I visited years ago.

 This truck still sits where it was last parked.

 We drove west to this cabin.

 Spartenette trailers were manufactured in the 1940's and 50's.

 Here is a link to see what this trailer once looked like.

What the interior looks like now.

 View out the living room window of the main cabin.

 After taking this panorama photo we drove on.

 House trailer and dozer at the Standard Mine.

 Near the trailer was a dugout with an old umbrella frame on top.

 Another bus.

 And near the bus was 2/3's of a car.

 It was late in the afternoon when we reached a small graveyard where Riley Bembry, the man who created the original Mojave Cross and built Riley's Camp, rests near his friends.

 The shadows were getting longer as we drove to the next objective and our camp for the night.

 Rogers Camp.

 A look down a nearby shaft.

 Soon the sun had set and the temperature dropped considerably.

 I had never visited this cabin and thought that it probably had once been a snug little abode but we slept in the camper.

 Dawn at Rogers Camp.

 After breakfast it was time to head for pavement.

 We drove north, crossed I-15 and soon arrived at the slag piles of the Copper World/Valley Wells smelter.

 The smelter began operations March 10, 1899, producing six to seven tons of ninety-five percent pure copper matte or bullion daily. - Larry M. Vredenburgh (1996)

After checking out the few remaining structures at the smelter and admiring flow patterns in the slag it was time for us to drive on to Nipton.