...then things started to get interesting...

Left the "China Ranch" & continued on to Shoshone to fuel up. The pavement, while nice wasn't as appealing as the offroad scene out here...

Even the paved roads are nice...


But getting offroad is far better & there's plenty of opportunity to do that out here!






Now here is where things stated to get a little weird. After fueling up, the plan was to leave Shoshone & check out a route from there to Barstow. It would be possible to connect dirt nearly the entire distance by heading back out past Tecopa & hooking up with one of the washes that heads over to Dumont, but fuel was a concern as I didn't know how the route to Barstow would work out ... decided to simply shortcourse, by burning the first 15-20 miles of pavement over to Dumont before hooking up with the route.

Turns out this was the wise course of action...





The majestic Dumont Dunes in the distance...




Pulling off the highway is easy. Wide turn, there's even a stop sign & marker there. Can't miss it - just down the road from "Little Dumont". Pretty cool knowing this route saved a guy's family ... this crew was truly into hardcore trail exploration:



A short distance down this road is where things got weird...