A couple weeks ago Cari and I drove both vans to Las Vegas to get anti-theft Revelco units installed in both vans. The 3 hour install was successful and we headed to a Natural Grocers in town to stock up on some not-found-in Pahrump items (for those who haven’t followed to date we are now almost a year into our “Vegan” experiment, so we are picky shoppers). After that we headed to a north side Costco. The lines at the service station were crazy long but the Promaster needed fuel, so Cari stuck it out while I waited in a nearby parking lot as I was unable to find even a single parking space in the lot for the Chevy.
Since there was no rush to get back to our property I’d done some research before the trip and found a couple candidates for some dispersed camping on BLM land north of town. After looking at the line to get through the entrance gate to Red Rock Canyon we drove to an area about 10 miles north and took Lovell Canyon Road east off highway 160. We found a nice level spot about 6 miles up the canyon’s single track road (a well maintained paved single lane road with passing areas). There was only one other camper that we saw in the area and quickly set up camp for the night. The next morning we woke to sunshine through the rear windows. We usually park with them facing SSE to let the hoped-for morning sun in to take the chill off as we do not heat the interior of our van(s) and had a relaxing morning…
After some morning hot brew from the electric kettle (power is from our AGM battery bank charged via the roof top solar) and a quick study of the map I decided we should attempt going further up the canyon and take the “Lovell Summit Road” and look for another camp and views. In hindsight, I now realize this “Summit” road was beyond what I should have asked of the Promaster!
Read on for the adventure…
I’lll start at the camp and work backwards, this is the camp that Thommy found, waaaaay up a single track dirt trail:
We spent two nights in this spot before heading 45 minutes north back to our place in Pahrump. There were some nice views of the valley and camp was basically surrounded on all sides by hills that were part of the Lovell Summit area. Both of us do quite a bit of reading while relaxing in camp and often times will relax and read in the cockpit of the Promaster if not outside soaking up the sun.
There was no one anywhere that we could tell.
And now for the rest of the story 🙂
What is not seen in any images are the looks of astonishment by those few in Jeeps, lifted 4x4s, and side-by-side quads who drove past our camp. The reactions of the few who passed our camp ranged from your basic WTHeck?, to High Fives… and this is because… we had no idea that this “Summit” road would turn into a jeep and quad trail !
Cari did amazing at getting the Promaster up to the campsite, and down the hill back to pavement. The trip down I drove the Chevy behind her allowing her to set the pace in the FWD Promaster. A couple of times she had it up on three wheels due to it’s more citified suspension, verses the Chevy that is ready for trails such as this.
Next time I plan an adventure, I’ll do my best to take a closer look at topo maps and any online reviews of a given route…and while we kissed and made up after getting on pavement below the summit, I really don’t need to put my dear wife through “wheeling” in our home on wheels!
Until next adventure…
(Lake Havasu is our next planned stop on the way south to Phoenix area for the holidays)