Home / Mojave Preserve and Desert bikepacking trips / 2008: Mojave National Preserve Mountain-Bike Camping and Hike / Day 5: Late-morning walk to Coyote Springs, Mojave National Preserve 14
I wake up hot in the tent from the morning sun, peel off my sleeping bag and open the windows at 8h30. A lot of flies and a few yellow jackets are buzzing around my tent, especially when I'm boiling water for coffee and soup, so I have to keep the screens closed.
Breakfast is instant miso soup with dulse, two cups of coffee, granola, tamari almonds and dried apricots. Not much different there!
Before setting out on my longer afternoon hike to Bighorn Basin, I walk over to Coyote Springs, a half mile up the road from my campsite, to explore a little.
- The road to Coyote Springs from my campsite is really sandy in places
- Along the road, I see a few butterflies of a sort that I haven't seen yet on this trip
- 1/3 mile up the main road, I turn down the short road that dead-ends at Coyote Springs
- The road ends at a cul-de-sac and a campsite overlooking Coyote Springs
- I begin my walk through the Coyote Springs area and come across these two dry cisterns
- Ah, water at Coyote Springs!
- Butterflies like this moist sand along the edge of the drying-up creek bed
- I walk upstream to see if there's any more water here at Coyote Springs
- Desert dudleya growing in the rocks not far from the creek bed
- This area is almost dry right now, but is apparently a large pool of water during the wetter months
- Pool of water at Coyote Springs
- One flower that I'm surprised to find here at Coyote Springs is blue-eyed grass (sisyrinchium bellum)
- I climb up an adjacent boulder pile at Coyote Springs to start my walk back to the tent 1/2 mile down the road
- I arrive back at my tent and prepare my backpack for the afternoon hike up to an old mine in the Bighorn Basin area