150 Miles in the Desert, Alone and Without a Map

What would it be like to drive your car across a desert? Oh, there's some really deep sand here. And what if you were alone? Okay, it's happened. I'm lost. And what if you didn't have a map? None of my directions are making any sense. That's exactly what I'm about to attempt. And no, I don't recommend trying this at home. 2.3 kilometers, road splits, stay straight. I'm about to drive the infamous 4x4 only Mojave Road across the Mojave Desert. This might just be one of the scariest things I've ever done in the truck. There's no water along the route, no services, no gas stations, no towns. Once you get here, you're on your own. And I decided to do it without a map because, oh, I don't know, it just felt more adventurous that way. 24.8, 24.3. So I guess the main question here is, can I make it to the other side of the desert in one piece and without getting lost? But first, a little luxury. I forgot. I literally bought a pair of barefoot sandals, which I now call my restaurant shoes. I got them with the sole purpose of being allowed in restaurants and cafes in the US. Social acceptance, here we come. Now, I'm going to tell you a quirky little fact. I have never had a strawberry milkshake, and it is my intention to have one right here at this diner. This kitschy, cheesy, Americana kind of America is what I love. What I love about this country. Oh my god, this is like paradise. So Elvis is silent. I think he might be out of order, so I don't know my future. He won't tell it to me, so I guess I just gotta get out there and do it. Hello. Hi. What can I get for you? I'd love to get a strawberry milkshake. Yep, it's a thumbs up from both of us. Thank you very much. Okay, there's just one more thing that I need to do before I get going. It's kind of warm, so I'm gonna try and find my shorts. This is the advantage, one of many advantages of living in your truck, is that you always have your entire wardrobe right there. Here's one disadvantage. I kind of wish I had kept going with yoga. God, get on. Yes, they're on. Thank you very much. Okay, time to go. So I'm about to cross the desert without a map, but not without preparation. I've written down a set of pretty detailed cues based on online GPX tracks for the route. So, okay, we are in Ievo and now 18 kilometers on the highway. Get off at the exit at kilometer 18. These cues should guide me through every turn, every landmark, every campsite, mile after mile. Let's see how that goes for me. Just kidding. We're actually going that way. Here's a little lowdown on the iconic Mojave Road that I'm attempting to follow across the desert without a map. It's 4x4 only, completely off-road, and leads through some of the most inhospitable lands in the United States. Oh, there's some really deep sand here. I'm still not in low gears. I'm still in high gears. I think I've just got a lot of momentum. I'm just gonna try not to stop. The trail starts near the town of Barstow in Southern California, runs across the Mojave National Preserve, and ends 150 miles later near Fort Mojave in Arizona. The Mojave Road runs right next to the town of Baker, which is one of the hottest populated places on earth. The top temperature ever recorded here was 57 degrees Celsius or 134 Fahrenheit. So yeah, it gets hot, which is why I came here in spring and not the summer. It's hot. Okay, I think it's time to deflate my tires. So I aired down my tires, which is great, but I also accidentally spilled some water everywhere. And this is what happened. This is what happens to paper when you spill water all over it. Driving into a desert, it's hard not to feel that you're entering something deeply unknown. It's a little bit terrifying and always so exciting. I love this truck. I just love this truck so much. It's pretty amazing to think that the Mojave Road, or at least these general trails, have been used by the indigenous people of these lands for transport and communications for thousands of years. The various tribes who lived here were partially nomadic and lived off the land all the way back to the times when streams and rivers populated the area. 24.8. 24.3. I'm off by half a kilometre, which is quite significant. Let me correct that. Stay here and come here forever. This morning starts off pretty exciting because the very first thing that I'm going to do today is cross two water crossings. I had a general idea of what to expect from these water crossings, but given that the water levels vary, I was really hoping that today they would be in my favour. Okay, here we go. First water crossing. This is the shallow one. Done. But what's coming up is going to be much harder. There's one more problem before I get to the next river crossing, and that is the approach to the river crossing, which is right here. And it doesn't look like much from here, but it's actually really steep. Much more steep than what I'm comfortable with, being alone in my truck, which is really top-heavy. So I decided to drive back and seek advice from other campers in the area about the approach. Good, I'm a little bit worried about that drop before the water crossing. Oh, going that way? Going that way. I just turned around to turn back around. Oh, you want to follow us here? Yeah. That would be great. Thank you. Yay. That makes me feel a lot better. Ever since Odyssey nearly flipped over in Mexico a few months back, I've been really scared of steep off-road tracks. I think that's one fear I need to work on. Okay, he's just stopped. I'm assuming he's putting his car in low gears. Oh, he tipped. He tipped. I f***ing hate tipping. This might just be one of the scariest things I've ever done in the truck. But there's no other way, so... Easy does it. Let's go, buddy. I'm doing it. Oh my god, I'm doing it. Oh my god, it's going down. Oh my god, it's so f***ing steep. Thanks, man. Holy crap, that was so scary. Oh my god. Thank you. Well, here is the second water crossing. I kind of want to see how deep it is before we go in. So Juk is already checking the depth because that's what he does. Good boy. How deep is it? Can you get through it? It's up to my knees. Okay, buddy. You're gonna go? We're gonna go? Let's go. Yes, you definitely get a high from chasing thrills, but highs don't last. What does last is knowing that you've just unlocked a new level of skill or insight or learning. However small it may feel in the moment, don't dismiss it. This is the famous Mojave Road mailbox. It's been here for 40 years, and in those 40 years, nobody has picked up the mail. You can probably see why. Of course, in places like this, the tradition is to leave a sticker. Nice. Well, in this country, everything is just a little bit quirky and a little bit extra. So even on the Mojave Road in the middle of the desert, someone has built a monument to frogs. Okay, just checking my queue sheet to make sure that I'm on track, and I think I am. So I've got another eight kilometers to go until my campsite. Hey, you guys, just wanted to jump on here real quick, and I know this is probably a bit of a shock. I do, in fact, have a forehead underneath all that French. Anyway, the reason why I'm jumping on here is to let you know that there is a new series of videos out on my Patreon, which is my subscription-only page. Link in the description box below. So I actually did this adventure in April. This series is called The Rector's Commentary, and it basically involves me taking you behind the scenes of every single video that I make here on YouTube going forward, including this Mojave Road video. Recently, I've kind of developed a slightly different formula. Basically, we sit down together, watch, re-watch the video together, and I tell you some of the anecdotes that didn't make the final cut, some of the behind-the-scenes. Seeing it on camera does not do it justice at all. How I felt in certain moments while making the video really put me in kind of panic mode a little bit. It's all in there. It's basically like an exclusive insider speak into everything that goes into making a YouTube video with the YouTuber that made it. I think it's a really nice way to connect on a more personal level, a little bit more fun, a little bit more informal. So if you want to check it out, go over to my Patreon page. This is the link. I'll see you there. All right, back to the video. I don't know this just yet, but tomorrow I'll get lost in this desert. But for now, things have been going according to plan. I was relishing the solitude, the quietness, the vastness of everything out here. Just being able to focus on one mission, getting across the desert and finding a spot for the night. Simple. Oh, starving girl. So, you know, this desert crossing that I'm on right now, I mean, it's a big adventure, but it's not like huge. It's not massive, right? It's only a few days and it's pretty accessible. But it's so wild how your perspective on things like this changes when you don't have a map with you, when you don't have Google Maps to guide you. Like, I always use Google Maps pretty much everywhere I go. And it always makes me feel like I'm an autopilot. Like, I never have to think about where I'm going because I know that Google Maps will always show me the way. So now, you know, driving across the desert with no maps and just queues, I found myself so connected to my environment. So mindful of every single turn, of every single landmark. Everything. Just so connected, so grounded, so alive, actually. And it's such a beautiful way of just adding that extra, like, level of challenge to anything. Anything, really. So there was definitely a couple of moments today where I felt like maybe I had taken the wrong turn or where the distances were, like, no longer adding up. And I thought, oh my gosh, what if I'm lost? Maybe I'm lost. And what do I do now? In the end, it was all fine. And I ended up exactly where I was meant to end up. But there's that little, little, like, rush of adrenaline every single time because there is no Google Maps to tell me, you know, how to get back on the right track. And I love that. I just really love that. It's been so much fun. Woke up at 5.45 this morning. Who wakes up before 6 without an alarm clock of their own volition? Need coffee. What are you doing? Where are you going with that, huh? Where are you going with that? Where are you taking that thing? Huh? Buddy, where are you taking that thing? Buddy, did you hide it? As much as I love this boy with all my heart, there's one thing that Vjok does which is equal parts hilarious and annoying as heck. So I get him these, like, really fancy, like, dehydrated cow's ears and pig's legs and feet and things like that. Just, like, really fancy dehydrated snacks that he can have on the road because I don't have a freezer for bones. Where is it? Buddy, where is it? Come on, where is it? There's no trace of it. It's there, but there's no trace. Buddy, hey, look, get it. Where bone? And what he does with them often is when we're out in a place like this and there's nothing around and we'll never come back here, he'll just take his really expensive $10 cow ear and bury it somewhere for later, you know? Good boy. And now he's going to move it somewhere else because he has seen, he now knows that I have seen it. Dude, I'm going to find it. You know I'm going to find it. I'm going to take it. He's gone so far in the bushes. Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. Buddy, drop it. Yes, good boy. I'm sorry, but I'm confiscating this. So one of the great things about camping solo is that you get to wear the same clothes for days on end and it really doesn't matter because nobody's there to see it. Today is a long day. 80 kilometers, 50 miles, something like that. Reset odometer and then follow the road northeast. So doing a road trip like this without a map, without GPS, just with cue sheets means that every time there's a little intersection, no matter how small, you're kind of like, oh, wait, let me stop. Let me look at the map. I mean, the cue sheet and figure out exactly where I'm going. Am I supposed to turn? Am I supposed to keep going straight? In this instance, I've got 2.3 kilometers road splits. Stay straight. Perfect. Basically, what this forces you to do is be really, really on it. Like be really invested in your surroundings. Be really watchful and aware, which is kind of cool because, you know, I think it's very easy to kind of just put on Google Maps and all GPX tracks and just follow them. You know, just looking at your phone more than the road. So this is quite nice for a change. I'm loving it. After all that single track over the last two days, this stretch of road felt like a highway. So comfortable, so luxurious, which really just goes to show that everything is relative. But this feeling wasn't going to last long. Somewhere here, I followed my cue sheet, made a turn to the right and slowly realized that I am lost. OK, it's happened. I'm lost. Because none of my directions have been making any sense for the last 20 minutes, maybe. I've written down, oh, there's a right turn here. Go straight. There have been no right turns. I've just been on a really small road. I don't know how I got here. Make a random turn and keep going. I mean, eventually I'll get spat out somewhere, right? When it's just you out there trying to get out of trouble, you feel this rush of calm drive to action. I mean, you have to. You have to stay calm because panic will only make things worse. Yeah, I'm pretty certain that this is not the Mojave Road because I know from looking at my compass, which is one luxury that I've allowed myself, that I'm going north and the Mojave Road goes east. So I'm just going to keep driving a little bit further and see if there's a road that turns east somewhere. And if there is, I'll take it. And I hope that it's the right way. Oh, this is getting fun. So I drove around the real back roads, turned around a couple of times, wondered what the heck I'm doing and hoped that this road would be the one. I don't know this yet, but somewhere along this route, most likely on day three, I damaged Odyssey, my truck, in a couple of places. More to come at the end of the video. Okay, I finally found a mile marker which has a little symbol on it. So let's see if the symbol says Mojave Road Trail. Nah, it says nothing. I mean, I might as well check out all my notes because I'm completely on the fly. Like at least 10 miles, 15. Oh, there is a detour here, which is great. So I'm just going to follow it. I know that I have to go east, slightly south in order to get out of the desert. Eventually, after wriggling my way down a network of dirt tracks, I found myself on a track heading east. And after seeing some other trucks approaching, I realized I must be on the right path. I found the Mojave Road again. As soon as I knew I was back on the Mojave Road, the last 20 miles went by in a flash. I just focused on enjoying the moment. Oh, this is where my Mojave Desert adventure ends. I love doing this without a map. It challenged me. It made me feel all the feels. It made me nervous, made me excited. I loved it. So here's what happened to Odyssey, my truck, along the Mojave Road. And I only noticed it after getting off the trail. Number one, serious tire damage. This girl is going to need an expensive new tire. Number two, a leak. Most likely coming from a hub seal. She's going to have to spend some time at the mechanics. And in the meantime, I've decided to rent a very American vehicle. I literally cannot believe I'm allowed to drive this thing. But that's all coming up in the next episode of Expedition Wild USA. All right, I'm so hot. And I think Vilka is super hot too. So we're going to go to the Colorado River and have a little dip. Come on, buddy. Good boy. He's like, why am I not moving? Oh my God, I'm so drenched. I'm so wet. I could sit here for hours. Hey, buddy. How are you doing?