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No country for old men

Three miles into the trip and the tires on my Pathfinder were struggling with the brutal Mojave Desert terrain. They spun out in the loose sand, and my teeth rattled as I drove over pebbles.

Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Laughlin, Nev., is only a few miles back, and it’s not too late to turn this into a casino-and-river weekend.

As I climbed out of the truck to let air out of the tires for better traction and a smoother ride, I was stopped cold by the eerie silence of the desert. Other than a breeze rustling the creosote bushes, there was nothing — no cars, no music, no casinos, no nothing. There was just me, my girlfriend and a rough desert path.

Maybe it’s not so bad after all.

Most people who encounter the Mojave Desert see it as a drab brown landscape of mountains and flat expanses whizzing by as they drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for the weekend.

But the Mojave is best experienced at a slower pace. Its canyons, lava flows, wildflowers and archaeology can be appreciated only if you make the time.

A beaten path

The reason we’re here: The Mojave Road, one of America’s great off-road driving trails. It stretches 133 desolate miles through the 1.4-million acre Mojave National Preserve, from the Colorado River near Laughlin to the Mojave River east of Barstow, Calif. It began as an Indian trading route, and after the Civil War, it became a wagon road — protected by a series of small Army posts — for pioneers heading west.

Today, it offers a unique outdoors and historical experience for off-road enthusiasts bold enough to venture into a hostile, nearly waterless landscape with no modern services and hours or even days away from help.

My goals for the trip were to make it across the 133-mile desert trail in a rented truck without breaking down and to ask my girlfriend to marry me.

I’m not sure which I was more nervous about.

Unforgiving place

The first challenge of the Mojave Road is finding a suitable four-wheel-drive.

After picking up a rental, we drove about three hours east on Interstate 40 and got a $23 room at a Laughlin casino.

We hit the trail about 10 a.m. on a Friday with plenty of gear and provisions for a weekend trip, but perhaps the most important was my copy of Dennis Casebier’s “Mojave Road Guide.” It’s a mile-by-mile guide to the Mojave Road and its landmarks, and it’d be nearly impossible to navigate the road without it.

The road starts on the west bank of the Colorado, which here is a large watercourse. Across the river are the ruins of Fort Mojave, the first of the Army forts built to protect the road.

The first 23 miles — during which we saw only one other group of travelers — is a slow but steady climb through a landscape rutted with washes and vegetated by creosote, sage, yucca and cacti. It is spring, and during our venture, wildflowers were abundant.

The first mountains we saw were in the low but scrappy Piute Range. After crossing a broad lowland for several miles, the road became rockier and began to climb more steeply. We passed an abandoned homestead where a man tried unsuccessfully to eke out a living in the 1930s. Scattered among the ruins were boulders with Indian petroglyphs of snakes and antelope.

The road made a hard, final ascent to Fort Piute, the best-preserved of the Army forts on the Mojave Road. We explored the stone foundations of the fort, which was built in 1867 and abandoned a year later. Just down the hill was a rare spring — vital to early travelers on the road — watering a small oasis.

The remaining 30 miles we traveled the first day continued to climb in elevation. Above 3,000 feet the desert is populated by spiny Joshua trees.

After a couple more hours, we made our way into Caruthers Canyon. The juniper- and pinyon-forested canyon stands at 5,000 feet above sea level and is surrounded by granite spires. The sense of solitude is absolute.

This is the spot, I decided. After setting up camp, I started a fire to grill steaks and cooked a foil packet of vegetables. We drank beer and ate our meals, my heart pounding with anticipation. Finally, as twilight falls, I pulled the ring out of my pocket and clumsily popped the question. She gasped and cried and said yes, and all was right with the world.

Until about 2 a.m., when a windstorm forced us to abandon the tent and spend the rest of the night in the car.

The next day held more Mojave marvels, including million-year-old volcanoes and some of the highest sand dunes in America.

My fiancée and I finished the trail in the late afternoon and skipped our second night of camping because of a sandstorm blowing our way.