Depending on what everyone wants to do, I have a couple of ideas. I also hate to be the one guy who objects, but I'm just going to throw it out there that I'm not a fan of meeting at the Bass Pro Store, for a few reasons. For starters, it's not right off of the freeway and is inconvenient to access, especially re-accessing the 15 to head north when we leave (several intersections/left turns on signal lights which will most certainly break our group apart). Secondly, for anyone taking the 215 in the morning (which will be the least traffic route for the SD folks and will be the only route for Motorpig77 and myself), they'd have to backtrack on the 15 or cut across on the 210 to get there, and either option takes you about 10+ miles out of the way. Third, the Bass Pro Store is a place that any one of us (or all of us) can visit on any given weekend, just by deciding to go. Rather than spending hours diverting routes and shopping/wandering around the store (which will likely mean we don't actually get on the road until after lunch), my vote would be to get on the road sooner and spend that time exploring places we don't nomrally have an opportunity to visit. That being said, I understand why everyone loves the store (it is a big kids' playground, after all) so feel free to call me crazy. If I had my choice, I'd say we should meet up at one of the gas stations off of Hwy 138 and the 15 in the Cajon Pass. There are also several fast food restaruants here, in case anyone wants to have a late breakfast.
Here's a few potential destinations with travel times, just to help us decide what's best. These are just observations and suggestions - if anyone is more familiar with any of these areas and routes (especially the locations of gas stations and eateries), please chime in with suggestions!
1) From the Cajon Pass/Bass Pro Shop area to Boron Prison is about an hour and 20 minutes with no traffic. Not sure how much time we'll spend here, but it looks like the kind of place we could easily spend an hour or two, especially the photographers among the group. It's US government property and there might be no tresspassing signs all over. People who have visited the site recently said (via the interwebs) that there are cameras and other monitoring equipment, so we might not make access at all. A bunch of dirtbag copper thieves have vandalized the site over the past few years, so it looks like they're cracking down on visitors. I don't think there are any locked gates or anything, but I guess we'll find out when we get to the entrance and see how comfortable we feel to proceed.
2) From Boron Prison to the town of Randsburg is about 30 minutes. From what I can tell online, Randsburg has a Saloon, General Store, and quite a few little cool shops and museums. We could go here or we could skip it, doesn't really matter. Seems like a semi-popular destination (especially among the off-roading crowd), so it might be worth at least taking a peek.
3) The city of Ridgecrest is 25 minutes north of Randsburg and has tons of gas stations and eateries (both fast food and restaurants/diners). This is probably our best bet for lunch, but it would take us too far north to take the "fun" way to the Trona Pinnacles, and it's about 15 minutes off of the shortest route to Panamint Springs, so we'd essentially be diverting to "go into town." If we do head into Ridgecrest, we can still quickly get to the Trona Pinnacles by traveling east on Highway 178 for for about 20 minutes to the dirt access road.
4) An alternate plan, if we can manage to get gas and food somewhere near the area of Randsburgh or Johannesburg, would be to take the long and "fun" way to the Pinnacles by taking Trona Road to Teagle Wash Road (which is a long dirt road) and cut through the Spangler Hills OHV area. This would be about 15 miles of dirt road driving and could take a little while. But it does look like there is some mild to moderate wheeling involved, and even some old railroad buildings to explore along the way. We would arrive at the Pinnacles from the south and travel through them before eventually coming out at Highway 178.
5) Whether we head into the Pinnacles from the north (Ridgecrest/easier/less time way) or south (skip Ridgecrest/longer time/more challenging way), we basically take the same route from there to the Panamint Springs Resort. It's about an hour and 30 mins from the Pinnacles to the Panamint Springs Resort.
6) There are several defunct and abandoned (or partially abandoned) towns on the stretch of road between the Trona Pinnacles and Panamint Springs Resort that are also worthy of exploration/photography, including Westend, South Trona, Argus, Trona and Pioneer Point. I think we'd be pressed for time once we got to this area, but it's something to consider if we want to skip something else. It looks like there are also some scattered gas stations and diners/eateries in the area, but it would be AFTER the Trona Pinnacles on our journey. If we end up having to skip the prision for access/tresspassing reasons, this could be another option.
So... if our objective is to get to the resort around 6:00 pm, my proposal would be to meet in the Cajon Pass and depart no later than 10:00 am, making sure everyone is gassed up and has a full belly. We'd drive straight to Boron Prison and spend an hour or more there, before departing and heading north. From there, we'd either stop at Randsburg or head straight into Ridgecrest - we can make that decision based on how we're doing on time and how hungry everyone is getting. From Ridgecrest, we'd head east to the Trona Pinnacles (the easy way) and spend a little time exploring and taking cool photos of our trucks looking like they're on Mars. From there, we'd depart and if there's time, we can cruise through some of the weird little towns (we actually already drive through them on the main highway) and arrive in Panamint Springs by 6:00 pm with plenty of time to eat dinner and settle in for the evening with the rest of the group as they arrive.
If we want to skip Randsburg and Ridgecrest and do some wheeling instead, we can find somewhere to get gas around Johannasburg and can spend the afternoon taking the dirt route through the Spangler Hills OHV park to the Trona Pinnacles. We'd have to eat lunch on the trail this way. This way will yield a lot of remote desert exploring, but I'm not too sure there's a whole lot to see out there (since it's all an open OHV park) so it's really more about the wheeling.
What are everyone's thoughts?
