Cerro Gordo Jeep Trip

slimtwo

Adventurer
A few weeks back, our jeep club went to the salt Trams in Southern California near Lone Pine. There is also the town of Cerro Gordo (and old ghost town) up there as well. We hit the trial on a Friday about 09:30 for a four (4) day trip. We got some rain off and on, including hail, but it was a great trip.

On the way to the trail head
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Airing down
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At the bottom of the saddle, you can see two of the salt tram relay towers. They were mining salt from the Saline Valley, and transporting it over the mountain range for shipping.
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The terrain and vegetation are changing as we continue our climb to 9,500 feet. We are at about 6,000 ft. here.
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Close to the top of the tram, we have a view of the saline Valley (The haze you see in the picture is from the fires in Yosemite)
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Arrived at the top of the tram
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slimtwo

Adventurer
Cerro Gordo Continued

We got up to the tram station about 15:30 hours, so we didn't have allot of time before we had to think about finding a place to camp for the night. Luckily, there was a suitable place near by.

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This is a big disc brake that controlled the speed of the cars
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This is our camp site for the night
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And this is our view from the camp fire looking south west
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More pictures in the next post
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
More Cerro Gordo Trip Pictures

That night for dinner, we had Cowboy Beef Stew with baked corn bread and a Cherry cobbler for desert

Saturday morning we get an early start for the town of Cerro Gordo
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This was the only mishap of the trip, unfortunately for me, as it is my trailer that went over on its side. Fortunately for me it was in an area that allowed my friend to get above me to winch the trailer back on its feet.
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Along with the fender and trailer side damage, my new CVT RTT took the biggest hit. I still haven't took it apart yet, but it will require some replacement parts I'm sure.

That behind us, we continued to our next destination. the trail was steep and very off camber (one of the reasons the trailer went over), so I had to be very careful not to repeat the lay over again.

Here is our first view of Cerro Gordo
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There is a caretaker that lives on site with his wife. They do have electricity up there, only the water pump is broken so they have to hall all their water up there.
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
Still more Cerro Gordo

You have to call ahead and make a reservation to go up to the town, but if your in the area, it is a very cool place, with lots of history.

These next pictures are of the town museum

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The museum was the towns General store back in the day, here is a picture when it was open for business
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This is the front porch of the Hotel/Saloon
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Inside was like stepping back in time
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slimtwo

Adventurer
This is the bunk house, and it is ready for guests
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Well there is allot more to see, however, we are burning daylight, so we are off to our camping spot for the night up near Big Pine.

Half way down to the main road (blacktop), is a lone suspended ore car (you have to look carefully)
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On our way to Big Pine
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Arrived at our camp spot around 16:30, elevation 8,000 feet plus
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We stayed at El Noren, which was a group site. We were the only ones there at that site, although you could hear other campers in the area. It was nice.
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
Our dinner Saturday night, consisted of baked Cornish game hens and baked potatoes (Dutch over cooking at it's best), we also had salad, rolls, and for desert a whipped fruit concoction.

We started our day on Sunday morning with this splendid sunrise
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Today we are leaving our camp intact, and going up to the Bristle Cone Forest, elevation, 11,200 feet. On the way up, we encountered some thunder storms including hail.
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There were many water crossings on the way up. Half way up is when the sky opened up on us... and the hail.
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Once we got out of the canyon, the storm had moved on and left us with a beautiful day
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slimtwo

Adventurer
We finally made it up the the Bristle Cone Forest at elevation 11,200 feet (that according to our GPS)
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According to the plaque, this is one of the oldest trees in the forest, hundreds of years old
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We headed back down to the 8,000 foot level and our camp, and prepared for dinner and our last night on the trip.
Dinner included baked lasagna, garlic toast, tossed green salad with Italian dressing, and a couple of bottles of red wine. Then for desert, we had a cherry/berry cobbler. All of this was done in dutch ovens. The following morning we said goodbye to our camp and headed home.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Happy trails!
 

v_man

Explorer
thanks I loved all the photos ... and the age of those Bristlecones are measured in thousands of years ...
 

Borrego60

Rendezvous Conspiracy
Very nice report. Have been to the salt tram and Cerro Gordo twice, Robert the care taker is a gem an
d full of information on the town.
 

ANDYROO

Adventurer
Hey guys, I made contact to the owner of Cerro Gordo last week and he informed me (via email) that the town is now closed to visitors. Is it still possible to simply turn up I wonder? Is the caretaker Robert still living there and happily engaging people? It seemed you did just this without any issues. We're spending 5 days in that area over TG, so wanted to make sure whether we should keep it on our schedule.

Thanks for any insight.

Andy
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
Very nice report. Have been to the salt tram and Cerro Gordo twice, Robert the care taker is a gem an
d full of information on the town.

I agree! It was a pleasure to meet him. I hope that they can fix the water pump and actually open the town up for people to stay. I think the B & B would be a cool idea.
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
Hey guys, I made contact to the owner of Cerro Gordo last week and he informed me (via email) that the town is now closed to visitors. Is it still possible to simply turn up I wonder? Is the caretaker Robert still living there and happily engaging people? It seemed you did just this without any issues. We're spending 5 days in that area over TG, so wanted to make sure whether we should keep it on our schedule.

Thanks for any insight.

Andy

We set up the visit directly with Robert. And while we were there, a camper came up the main road to visit the town and Robert was fine with it. He still lives on site, so he is most always there (except for supply runs to town).

Happy trails!
 

slimtwo

Adventurer
How did the trailer flip happen? Did it just catch the edge of the trail? Do you have trailer brakes?

There were several factors involved that contributed to the lay over. First, the center of gravity was to high, second, we were on a section of the trail that was quite steep and off cambered on the left side. And thirdly, the trailer is to heavy for the stock suspension. The trailer went over a rock on the left (down hill) side, and when it came off of it, the suspension compressed enough to tip the scales in that direction and the trailer went over. And yes I have trailer brakes, unfortunately they couldn't help in this situation.
 

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