Johnson Valley OHV Area
Cougar Buttes to Pioneer Town
Getting to Pioneer Town from Cougar Buttes and back is about a 100 mile round trip. I suggest staging at the Giant Rock 34.3328 -116.3887, this should cut about 30 miles off the trip. The Giant Rock is roughly seven stories high and covers almost 6,000 square feet. Some say it is the largest freestanding boulder in the world. The Giant Rock can be reached by by traveling south from Lucerne Valley on Hwy 247 to Reche Road in Landers, or traveling north from Yucca Valley on Hwy 247. Take Reche Road to Belfield Blvd, left on Belfield until the pavement ends. To your right will be the Integratron. Go past the property, turn right and then immediately bear left on the well-graded dirt road. The dirt road will follow the edge of the jumbo rock pile about two miles. Follow around the end of the rock pile until Giant Rock comes into view. Cellular service is available at the site.
I did this ride with a small group of buddies from the Southern California RZR and UTV Meetup. It took over 4 hours to get there from my home in the West San Fernando valley. Luckily I left very early and arrived around 8:30am. The 4 of us left Cougar Buttes on the long whooped out trails over to Soggy Dry Lake. The mountains around this area are well known for their nasty 4x4 rock climbing trails. It took us about 30 minutes to get out to Soggy Dry Lake and criss-crossed the hard flat lakebed. We headed South-West and eventually crossed Highway 247 and headed up Rattlesnake Canyon. The highway crossing to get to the RattleSnake Canyon Trail Head is .7 miles east of mile marker 27 off SR 247.
Getting to Pioneer Town from Cougar Buttes and back is about a 100 mile round trip. I suggest staging at the Giant Rock 34.3328 -116.3887, this should cut about 30 miles off the trip. The Giant Rock is roughly seven stories high and covers almost 6,000 square feet. Some say it is the largest freestanding boulder in the world. The Giant Rock can be reached by by traveling south from Lucerne Valley on Hwy 247 to Reche Road in Landers, or traveling north from Yucca Valley on Hwy 247. Take Reche Road to Belfield Blvd, left on Belfield until the pavement ends. To your right will be the Integratron. Go past the property, turn right and then immediately bear left on the well-graded dirt road. The dirt road will follow the edge of the jumbo rock pile about two miles. Follow around the end of the rock pile until Giant Rock comes into view. Cellular service is available at the site.
I did this ride with a small group of buddies from the Southern California RZR and UTV Meetup. It took over 4 hours to get there from my home in the West San Fernando valley. Luckily I left very early and arrived around 8:30am. The 4 of us left Cougar Buttes on the long whooped out trails over to Soggy Dry Lake. The mountains around this area are well known for their nasty 4x4 rock climbing trails. It took us about 30 minutes to get out to Soggy Dry Lake and criss-crossed the hard flat lakebed. We headed South-West and eventually crossed Highway 247 and headed up Rattlesnake Canyon. The highway crossing to get to the RattleSnake Canyon Trail Head is .7 miles east of mile marker 27 off SR 247.
The trail starts off in the high desert washes, passes through a fun rocky, canyon, by some yucca & Joshua trees with a mine site and optional short dry waterfall climb along the way. At the burns canyon intersection you can take 2n02 up to Big Bear. This section of the trail will have snow in the winter months. Once you get to the flat section with the man Joshua trees, be careful because there is usually traffic coming from the other direction.
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We took a short-cut and traveled about a mile on the paved road to Pioneer Town, I don't recommend this route since it is heavily traveled and is for licensed vehicles only. The restaurant / bar was packed because of an event they were having that Saturday so we only spent a short time there and then headed back crossing 247 and the Giant Rock on our return to Cougar Buttes. This is a fun ride but should be started closer to the crossing on highway 247 and the entrace to Rattlesnake Canyon..
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