Exploring California's Mining History in the El Paso Mountains

We camped with some friends at Dove Springs in January and couldn't pass up the chance to hit the beautifully scenic El Paso Mountains. This wilderness area in the Mojave Desert is located at the far southeastern end of the Sierra Nevada Range and has a wealth of mining history. Several old mines, cabins and mining camps can be found. Seeing the Burro Schmidt Tunnel and learning the story behind it alone is enough to justify the trip (I've visited the tunnel many times just because it's so cool!). We tried to convince our friends, who all had Jeeps of their own, to join us on the trail, but they weren't motivated.

You can read about it, and they can see what they missed, by reading my latest article on DrivingLine - Exploring El Paso Mountains: Mojave Off-Road Trail Review
I'm still trying to figure out the best way to integrate my work on other sites with own website and blog. I realized that I've been so focused on getting photos and stories to clients that I've hardly even bothered to upload photos to my own site for far too long, let alone keep my blog updated. Kind of makes it looks like I haven't been doing anything, when the truth is the exact opposite. I've been trying to keep the list of my published articles updated on a regular basis, but if I don't tell anyone that the page has been updated, you don't know to look. So I hope you'll click through and read the story on DrivingLine and leave me a comment either here or there!

Some of my Milky Way photos were done at the Holly Cleanser Mine mentioned in the article. The mine is a very cool place to visit after dark and it was a lot of fun to play around with lighting the old mining equipment to create an alien-looking landscape.

I previously wrote about three other trails in the El Paso Mountains many years ago here on my own blog - Last Chance Canyon, Sheep Springs and Nightmare Gulch. Nightmare Gulch has since been closed on a temporary permanent basis, so I feel fortunate that I was able to visit this area while it was still open. We had hoped it would re-open some day, but it doesn't appear that it will happen any time soon.

Have you done any of the trails in the El Paso Mountains? Which one is your favorite? Any good ones that I have't hit yet?