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| You are here: Home : Mountain Biking |
Last Updated on 02/17/2006 |
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Hesperia, CA to Juniper Flats
Loop through the Ord Mountains |
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Location: High Desert, Mojave Desert, Southern California
Region: Hesperia Region
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Total Distance: 23 Mi
Elevation Gain: 2,600 Ft
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Season: Sept-April
Type: Loop |
Start Elev: 3,120 Ft
Peak Elev: 4,560 Ft
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Total
Time: 2.33 hr
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| Driving Directions |
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You can park at Hesperia Lakes and ride from there. Take I-15 to Main St., go east about 8 miles to Hesperia Lakes on your left. |
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| Route |
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Ride north from Hesperia Lakes on Calpella Ave, make a right, follow this road to it's dirt end and drop down to the mojave river bed. Walk across the river and you will meet up with Deep Creek road on the other side. Go east along the bent section of Deep creek road and continue straight up the steep dirt road at the other side. After the steep hill, make a left onto the gas line road and follow it to the powerline road. Take the powerline road to Sagebrush Ave (the third gravel road you will cross) and make a left to Roundup Way. Ride about 3 miles on the dirt shoulder of Roundup Way. A few blocks after Roundup becomes unpaved is a road called Japutal Road. Make a right here straight into a stong headwind if you go on most any afternoon. You will pass a road on your right called Mountain View and the next road is called Valley View. Make a right at this deadend, approx 2000' south of Roundup Way. Follow this road up through the hills as it climbs with about a 7% grade. After some climbing you will come to a BLM gate, which was open with Route Open signs all along most of the trails out here (a few were Closed). Continue on this same road, called Juniper Flats Road on the USGS Apple Valley South 7.5' quad. The next feature you will pass is a large, shot up BLM sign about the Native American History of the area, says something about they didn't have supermarkets when they lived up there and they had to carry water for miles... kind of like it is today up there. At the sign, stay on the road on the left. Somewhere along the line you will come to another (open) BLM gate and pass through. It becomes evident why this area is called Juniper Flats. Shortly after the BLM sign you come to a fairly flat area with a bunch of Junipers and some red-brown clayey soil. There is an obvious road junction in the Flats area, take the road to the left which continues toward the powerlines in the distance... this is where you want to be. Continue past the Flats area and the road becomes narrower and rockier climb around a few more hills and soon you will be at the powerline road. You can make a right here and climb with the powerlines to about 4900 feet. What I did was continue on the same road past the powerlines to a not-recently-used weedy trail. I got on this thinking it was the solid road shown on the USGS quad. However, it deadends at a short bent wire fence. On the other side of this fence is the road you want to be on. Hop over the fence and get on the BLM road. I think to get to this, you should take the powerline road and it will probably intersect it instead of taking the weedy trail I took. This being the case, the USGS map would be a little bit off here for the present time. After the fence make a left onto the road heading south. After this point, there are many, many diverging roads that you will come to. For this portion, get the USGS map (7.5' Lake Arrowhead Quad) and know how to read it. What I remeber doing is taking J4 to J3 to J8. What you want to do here is look up at the powerlines (to the west) as they go over the high point of the ridge. Trace this ridge down (3 main bumps) to the south at a saddle. This saddle is where you want to end up, skirting around the high point on the ridge. Keep aiming toward this saddle taking J4 to J3 to J8. Once there the road splits up a few more times, just stay straight on the main path that hugs the north side of the main canyon wall. Follow this road down avoiding the side roads to the towers back to Deep Creek Road. Make a right and ride a few miles back to where you crossed and cross back over and back to Hesperia. |
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| Details |
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This is a nice ride, I'd take it again. It's all rideable, except the Mojave River bed. The descent along the powerline road is fast with an average grade of about 10%. Make sure your brakes are in good condition, you'll need to use them... often! The views on the descent, if you can manage some, are awesome. It is a steep dropoff to the north far down into the canyon below. It's a nice distance too, good intermediate level ride. I highly recommend, it was a fun ride. Watch for dogs at the residences when you first get onto Valley View (Juniper Flats) Road. |
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| Trail Condition |
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It's pretty good most of the way. Some rocky portions here and there but nothing really technical. Some steep/slow portions, but that's what granny gear is for. |
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| Forest Details |
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Lots of junipers at Juniper Flats. Saw a large owl fly right in front of me at the south end of Juniper Flats. |
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| Notes about this ride report |
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Max Speed: 33.4 mph
Average Speed: 9.7 mph, includes walking Mojave at 2.5 mph, had a strong headwind on all the climbs, the steepest ones I was doing at ~3.5 mph
Lowest Elevation: 2900'
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| Updates |
| Added on 02/17/2006 by TractorUp |
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Did the ride again today. Started at about 3:30pm and home just after dark. Made a wrong turn up in Juniper Flats... followed the main looking road to the right which dead ends at this mining area, a light colored rocky area against the hills. On the wrong road there a few large light colored boulders that indicate the wrong road. Went back and made the right onto the correct road, which was the left turn onto the lesser-traveled looking road. This is the right road. Then I tried to follow the path I remembered from the last time I did it. It was J4 to J8 to J3 and then down into the canyon back to Deep Creek Road.
Going out we took Rock Springs Rd instead of walking across the river, coming back we walked across the river.
Times/distances are elevated and slow cause I fogot to reset after riding around the block a few times.
Rode with Rom
Computer readings:
Avg speed: 10.77 mph
Max speed: 39.5 mph
Distance: 30.22 miles
Ride time: 2:49:51
Miles on new comp: 1454.60
Odometer: 10866 miles
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