Fissure mountain trail November4th

[RockyMtRebel]

Johnson Valley, California is in the desolate Mojave desert known for King of the Hammers (a huge off-roading race event that takes place every year). I am not into the desert racing scene or huge built buggies destroying parts on the most extreme rock crawling trails in the country. However, there are some lesser known and (somewhat) easier trails that take one to and from all the hardcore trails and Fissure mountain trail is one of them. It’s a grand tour of dried up desert lake terrain to rocky foothills and steep ups and downs up the surrounding mountains above Johnson Valley and Hammertown, as the Means lake camping area that becomes a city of 100,000+ King of the Hammer attendees sits far below.

Right now temps have cooled down and the weather is perfect for desert wheeling in the Mojave. My buddy Dave, who drives a 2017 2 door JK Willys that’s built up, and me met up last Friday and ran this awesome trail. Although it’s rated 4/6, I’ve driven a few trails and would probably rate this more like 5/7. We ran up to Means lake and then north along washes and east to where the trail finally starts up a rocky hill that we didn’t think was the trail until we turned off and realized we got off trail according to the gpx. It’s a steep rocky climb right away and there are a few sections I would rate as difficult within the first mile.

Once the trail gets up onto the ridge it descends and ascends for a few miles and some of the rocky sections have some technical shelves that could flop you if you’re not being careful. There is a memorial to a guy who died wheeling solo on this trail a few years back. The hardest part of the trail is the exit from the hills, extremely steep descent in very deep sand and rock obstacles everywhere….. so much fun!! Glad I didn’t go solo, spotting is required!

There was one drop where I took the drop into a steep hole and almost pooped my pants. One of the videos shows me spotting Dave around that hole so he wouldn’t flop over. The video of me is the first part of the exit obstacle that Dave does in the longest video! Enjoy 🤙🏽
If any of you make it out to Southern California let’s hit this trail 🌵