Cerro Gordo
The ghost town of Cerro Gordo was the main destination on our MeetUp Camp & Ride in June 2018. We camped just South of Lone Pine at the Boulder Creek RV Resort. They are very OHV friendly and it was a great location for our rides. I posted all the GPS files in the Maps & GPS Tracks section of this website. We left the staging area around 9:30am and headed out across the Owens Dry Lake Mitigation Project towards the Inyo Mountains. It is interesting navigating the many turn required to get across the lake but Lori did a great job leading us. As we approached the base of the Inyo Mountains we made a left turn onto a rarely used dirt road. This took us to the Swansea–Cerro Gordo Road. This route is much more difficult than the return route but well worth the effort. I would rate it upper intermediate for SxS's and advanced for 2-wheel drive sport quads. It climbs up the canyon and has several rocky sections that require that you climb up over 6" to 9" rock surfaces. There is a downhill section that is mostly shale and is quite slippery. There are also several steep uphill climbs. As you near Cerro Gordo there is a section that is a very narrow shelf with steep drop-offs on the right. I took this section very slow since I was towing a quad that had a broken chain. But we all arrived safe.
The ghost town of Cerro Gordo was the main destination on our MeetUp Camp & Ride in June 2018. We camped just South of Lone Pine at the Boulder Creek RV Resort. They are very OHV friendly and it was a great location for our rides. I posted all the GPS files in the Maps & GPS Tracks section of this website. We left the staging area around 9:30am and headed out across the Owens Dry Lake Mitigation Project towards the Inyo Mountains. It is interesting navigating the many turn required to get across the lake but Lori did a great job leading us. As we approached the base of the Inyo Mountains we made a left turn onto a rarely used dirt road. This took us to the Swansea–Cerro Gordo Road. This route is much more difficult than the return route but well worth the effort. I would rate it upper intermediate for SxS's and advanced for 2-wheel drive sport quads. It climbs up the canyon and has several rocky sections that require that you climb up over 6" to 9" rock surfaces. There is a downhill section that is mostly shale and is quite slippery. There are also several steep uphill climbs. As you near Cerro Gordo there is a section that is a very narrow shelf with steep drop-offs on the right. I took this section very slow since I was towing a quad that had a broken chain. But we all arrived safe.
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On the way up the canyon, Lori took us off onto a side trail that would be very hard to see if you didn't know it was there. This took us across a valley and up to a ridge were we got an up close introduction to the Saline Valley Salt Tramway. This is an amazing engineering accomplishment and is very cool to visit. We were high up on a ridge and could see the salt lake down in Saline Valley. You can see many of the remaining tramway structures as you travel up the Swansea-Cerro Gordo trail.
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It takes several hours to navigate this route from the Owens Valley floor to Cerro Gordo but the scenery and challenging terrain make it worth the effort. We passed other cool things to see along the way including several more tram structures and the Salt Tram Transfer Station. After arriving at Cerro Gordo we got the grand tour from Robert who is the caretaker of the town. It is best if you visit the Cerro Gordo website in advance to book a tour. You can also download the required waiver form from the website. The tour is interesting and allows for some time to stretch the legs and use the many out houses. Many of the buildings are open and Robert allows visitors to touch and pickup many of the old artifacts. We spent about an hour taking the tour of Cerro Gordo then we mounted up and took the much faster, much easier way back down the mountain using the county maintained Cerro Gordo Road.
Many of us decided to head into Lone Pine and have dinner at the Pizza Factory. We also thought it would be cool to take the short ride from the RV Park over to the Alabama Hills and do some night riding. We meet up around 7:30pm and I led the way over to the Alabama Hills. For more information on this area check out my Adventure page for the Alabama Hills and the Reward Mine. Also be sure to check out my other adventure videos on my YouTube Channel...Barrys ATV Adventures. You can watch the video of the Cerro Gordo Adventure below. You can also see more photos here.