THE MOJAVE ROAD RUN
Ferocious winds ripped across the undulating plains of the Mojave Desert, battering our brave little overland convoy. We had been battling scorching heat, freezing mountain air, and 60-mph gusts for the past 150 miles—all of which we’d attacked off-road. With my 2020 Jeep Gladiator Rubicon assaulted by this insistent blast for hours on end, I had long since passed the point of exhaustion.
Ahead of us, a sea of greens, blues, and yellows emerged from the bland desert scrub, welcoming our weary eyes. The Mojave River, fed by record winter rains, flowed mightily. On the other side, the end. Pavement. A warm hotel bed.
I pulled up to the water’s lapping edge, said a prayer, and started inching my trusty Jeep forward.
Forward into the Past
About 30 hours prior, filled with gas station burritos and optimism, we were ready to pit the Gladiator, 2019 Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 AEV Bison, and 2019 Toyota Tacoma TRD Pro against one of the most spectacular overlanding trails in America: the Mojave Road.
The Mojave Road is the closest we’ll get to a time machine in our lifetimes. The “road” is essentially an old footpath that linked the Mojave tribe’s homeland near modern Fort Mohave, Arizona, to the Serrano, Cahuilla, and Tongva tribes in California’s San Bernardino Valley, just outside Los Angeles. To distill hundreds of years of history into a sentence, with Mojave assistance, the trail later allowed Spaniards, Mexicans, and others to explore and migrate across the Southwest.
Today, the road’s 150-ish miles of rock, sand dunes, mountain passes, and salt flats still look much like what our forebears would have experienced hundreds of years ago. That’s what makes it one of the best overlanding trails in the country.
The Colorado ZR2 Bison, Gladiator Rubicon, and Tacoma TRD Pro are among the most capable factory off-road pickup trucks ever developed. All offer V-6s (308, 285, and 278 hp, respectively) paired with automatic transmissions (eight speeds for the Americans, six speeds for
