Flickr/bdearth
The Bradshaw Trail’s remote Colorado Desert
Seventy miles of dirt, no gas stations, no cell service, and mountains that change color as the sun moves across the sky.
The Bradshaw Trail cuts through the Colorado Desert of southeastern Riverside County, and it does not apologize for its remoteness. Stage coaches ran this route 160 years ago, carrying miners toward Arizona gold fields.
Now it carries four-wheel-drive rigs, rock hunters, and anyone willing to trade pavement for something harder to find. The trail doesn’t hide what it is.
Wikimedia Commons/blmcalifornia
William Bradshaw’s road changed the West in 1862
Before William Bradshaw arrived, the Cahuilla, Halchidhoma, and Maricopa peoples had already mapped this desert by its springs…