The first road through Riverside County was blazed by William Bradshaw in 1862, as an overland stage route beginning at San Bernardino and ending at La Paz, AZ (now Ehrenberg, AZ). The trail was used extensively between 1862 and 1877 to haul miners and other passengers to the gold fields at La Paz. The trail is a 65 mile graded road that traverses mostly public land between the Chuckwalla Mountains and the Chocolate Mountain Aerial Gunnery Range. The trail offers spectacular views of the Chuckwalla Bench, Orocopia Mountains, Chuckwalla Mountains and the Palo Verde Valley.
Finding the trail is a little tricky. You have to go through a few residential streets then run along a Canal for about 10 miles before you reach the trail head.
Once you get to drop 24 you have now arrived at the trailhead. We chose to air down here.
Old railroad crossing that is no longer in use.
The Eagle Mountain Railroad trestle across Salt Creek Wash.
What remains of Clemens Well today. Dug by Riverside County to provide good water for prospectors and miners. Today is has been considered a death trap and filled in to preventing anyone getting hurt.
Entrance to Red Canyon. We didn't have time to explore here. There's always next time.
After running through the Salt Wash for 20 miles the trail heads south east. This section is called the Chuckwalla Bench. It cuts off nearly 200 miles of sandy wash terrain. This is why the route was so popular. We made our turn here and this was the next stretch of Bradshaw Trail.
All along the side of the trail you will see "LIVE BOMBING" signs.
It goes without saying, but yes keep out! This is a gunnery range and the signs will be seen for the next 23.9 miles. Navy jets can be expected to fly over at any time, day or night. We never saw one.
However we did see some old bombs laying on the ground just a few feet from the trail.
Old Stage Coach stop.
From here on out we had to break ground to get to camp by dark. So we didn't have time to stop to see any other sites. Most of the sites were well off the beaten path anyhow and would cost us day light.
We proceeded to camp. Wileys Well Camp. This camping are was setup for travelers by the BLM. It's literally in the middle of no where at about mile 64.
Wileys well
Old water pump at the camp
After experiencing high winds all night... many of us did not sleep well. The next morning we would call the trip good and head home due to the high winds. It was simply going to get worse by the next night at the Colorado river. At this point we just had about finished 95% of the trail anyhow and everyone was fine coming back another time when the weather wasn't so grueling. We headed up Wileys Well rd. to the 10 freeway. The distance was only about 10 miles via dirt road.
It was probably a good idea that we headed home this day, because the winds were nearly 60mph and the traffic was already starting for the Thanksgiving return home rush.