California - Afton Canyon

Along the (usually) dry Mojave River in the middle of the Mojave Desert, California, on its route between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. This was the original route between L.A. and Salt Lake City, built in 1905. Las Vegas as a city owes its founding to construction of the railroad; the railroad located a settlement there because of a large spring ("las vegas" = "the meadows" in Spanish), and the city now celebrates this as its founding. For the first couple of decades of existence Vegas was a little railroad town--only the construction of nearby Hoover (Boulder) Dam in the 1930s started its explosive growth in the 20th century. The Mojave rises in the San Bernardino Mountains east of L.A. and flows northeast out into the desert. The canyon is of disproportionate importance to wildlife because the shallow bedrock locally forces water to the surface. Vehicle traffic thru the canyon is now effectively blocked because of several deep fords--even with my Jeep I didn't try them!