Summary: We went to the old Nelson Landing Site.

Saturday, February 23rd: We left Prescott and drove to Searchlight, Nevada to meet up with the Mohave Outback Explorers (MOE) on Sunday. This is a group out of Kingman, associated with the Desert Explorers. Their schedule was to leave Kingman at 7:30 a.m. and stop in Searchlight at about 9:00 a.m. at a casino for coffee, breakfast, etc. We originally were going to go back to Parker with the Roamer on Saturday, stay Saturday night and then drive just the Jeep to Searchlight. Since we already were settled in the Roamer, we decided to drive directly from Prescott to Searchlight (200 miles). We camped at the Cal-Nev-Ari Campground ($18/night, full hookups) on Hwy 95, 12 miles south of Searchlight. We called our MOE contact, Dick, and made arrangements for the group to chatter on the CB as they went by the campground. We'd just fall in behind them and follow them to Searchlight. We figured we had Dick's cell phone number if that didn't work.

Sunday, February 24th: We were ready and waiting for the MOE group about 8:30 a.m. We started hearing them talking on the CB, so we made contact. We watched them go by and fell in behind them. It was just a few miles to Searchlight. We stopped at the casino for breakfast and were able to meet several of the group. There were 11 vehicles, so there were quite a few people. We never did get to meet everybody and may not remember the names of the people that we did meet. We did meet the MOE group leader, Dan (Dick was sick and didn't make it). We also met the historians leading the group, Gail and Donna. They live in Nelson (just a few miles from Eldorado Canyon Mine) and also met the group in Searchlight.

After a great breakfast, we lined up in a caravan and took off for the El Dorado Canyon trail. There was a large variety of vehicles in our caravan; Toyota trucks and TJs, a Dodge Durango, a Ford Bronco and other Jeeps.

We went north on Hwy 95 and turned east on the Old Mail Road. This is the trail used to bring mail into Searchlight. We went by Knob Hill where the locals used to hide Easter eggs for the kids to hunt. There was evidence of the local gold mines all along the trail. Gail and Donna told us how the most recent mining done in the area was "the mining of investor's pockets". The desert scenery was spectacular this time of year and with the recent rains. The desert was green and in places there were yellow buttercups and purple verbenas.

We "noodled" around on some back roads and then followed a power line road that runs from Davis Dam. The trail was "easy" for us with our newly modified Jeep. The trail took us over a large mountain and at the top were awesome views of the desert, Lake Mohave and the mountains. It was a lot of fun following the twisting and turning shelf road over and through the mountain. As we went higher in elevation, there were lots of chollas covering the hillside. It was awesome!!!

After about 30 miles we stopped for lunch at the old Nelson Landing site. Steamboats ran the Colorado River for over 40 years and this was where they docked to unload the mining equipment and to pick up the gold to be shipped to San Fransciso. Spanish explorers were in this area as early as the 1700s.There is a lot of history here!!!