London Bridge via Sunset Trail

Lake Havasu State Park

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I must admit to feeling a bit uninspired by Lake Havasu. It seems like a place supposedly geared toward an outdoor life that merely tolerates me at its edges. It is full of big RVs and big boats and if you forgot yours (or just couldn't bring it while you flew in), there are a dozen places to buy some. There is a sense of a Disney World to the place that probably started long before there was one to emulate. The London Bridge was purchased in 1888 and brought over in numbered pieces. It is actually only the outer stones of the bridge which were placed on a concrete structure, so it isn't quite so ostentatious as it sounds. Still plenty ostentatious. And you've got to see it. That's why he did it, so you'll come and see it. And there is sort of a way to do it on my own terms as part of a hike: via the Sunset Trail. It's right there in the AllTrails list. The state park wants $15 or $20 entry depending on the day.

Signs, signs, everywhere, signs. Just so you know. Fee area.

There's nothing unnatural about this beach at all. Sure the sand is pebbles at the water line but the palms might have a relative growing naturally in a few hundred miles.

Move around the lot far enough, and I can find the trail. It has a nice big sign with a bit of information including a map. Behind it is a very wide sandy trail that is very easy to walk along.

Information on plants and animals to inform the public and a map of sorts.

Crossman Peak

Lake Havasu City area BLM

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I have as a sort of goal to climb peaks listed as the USA Lower 48 Top 400 Peaks by Prominence and Crossman Peak is ranked #343 on that list. Unfortunately that rank is by height, but a bit over 3k prominence isn't too shabby. Getting there is much easier with a 4x4 or even just some high clearance, but Alltrails says I can do it in about 13 miles round trip, so I am going to go for it. The day is a little short and my start got delayed thinking I might have dropped my wallet out of a back pocket while scaling something nearby called "Little Haystack" on Lists of John, but finally located it in an unexpected pocket of luggage before having to scale the "3+" rocks again hoping to spot it. It's the little things that make a day go smoothly. Never mind, it is practically a road walk anyway and the weather will not look good on photos tomorrow, so I found my way to the end of the pavement on Bison where there is a little bit of parking and am taking to the trail. Which, as stated, is a road for a bunch of miles.

The destination is the high point out there, but it's going to take a lot of flat, easy jeep roads to get there.

There are lots of roads to choose from, but as my destination is near a bunch of towers and you supposedly can get there from here, I figure I stick with the most main looking one and it should do the trick.

Plenty of other bumps to go up around here, often with a road, and some of them with a bit of color.

Looking back, there is already a bit of view of Lake Havasu on the Colorado River. It is a big, flat road, but they put a couple big rocks right at the start to discourage me.

Jeep road it may be, but what people really come here with is ATVs, which the city lets them drive about to the supermarket and everything, so no one needs to bother about trailering it to the staging point. Three of them pass me before the first mile. I'm ultimately going where they can't. There's a gate.

I've gotten to where the ocotillo grow. A little closer look at Crossman Mountain at the right and the antennas down at the saddle to the left.

Woods Mountains including Tortoise Shell Mountain

Mojave National Preserve

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There is a closer parking spot off the road a little to the north, but that one has gotten a bit rumpled after some flooding last summer, so I decided to just start where I was. I noticed I was just east of a benchmark right out there in the middle of the sands and thought I'd have a go at finding it first, then off to the cliffs I can see out there and around to some prime spot to head for the first peak: Tortoise Shell Mountain. First to head vaguely winding between the spines to a road, and then along that road until near the benchmark.

The real first destination of the day is the lump of rock that is Tortoise Shell Mountain.

Then on to the rest of the Woods Mountains for the high point, which is the third from the left.

The weatherman says the day will be cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon. Certainly has the first part right. Finding the benchmark is straightforward enough although it takes a little circling. The desert floor looks like it might be a bit mobile, but it seems it has stuck around here since 1935. The sparse plants around it are probably older than they look, but out here they do seem to be smaller and simpler than in other places.

Even the sighting post is still here for this benchmark out in the sand.

So attention back to that mountain. I make a line to the cliffs I can see and then around the edges of them. They may not be the lava I took them for at first. Most things around here seem to actually be ash and these are full of smaller rocks as ash tends to be when the rocks get kicked up with the ash. Lava can contain smaller rocks too, when the embedded rocks have a higher melting point or simply because it cooled enough before an embedded rock could fully melt. The dark color is actually desert varnish. They are very light where they have chipped, but they are sufficiently stable to have varnished to near black. The cliffs are interesting. Meanwhile the clouds play dancing games among the peaks.

Wildhorse Mesa is playing with some clouds, but they seem transitory.

Table Top

Mojave National Preserve

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Off to another mountain! This one took a little time to find parking, but eventually I found a bit along something I wasn't sure was a real road. It takes a bit of a jump of about 4 feet up quite suddenly which a few users have found a way around, then looks a bit like it is trying to be a camp site, then settles into being a road going on and on towards whatever it might desire. It is even on my map. It is easier to pull off to the side of than the main road so helpful as parking before that sudden up. From here, it should be a jaunty walk across the fairly flat desert followed by a general attempt to go up quickly, but not so quickly as there is a cliff to try to scale. Like the other peaks in the area, this one has a number of cliffs to ring it.

Rough stuff doesn't bother the people who come here. This is the Mojave National Preserve!

I follow the road a little bit, but its direction is far too much to the south for my taste. I am going east to get to the base of Table Top, mountain of extraordinary mesa shape. It is two miles to the east with something smaller to get around first.

That doesn't look far ahead, so it must be the something smaller.

Wild Horse Mesa, also holding up the terms of looking like a table.