slgwv's photos with the keyword: Mojave River

Not in flood today! ;) But at least there's some water-- Flowing toward Barstow, CA, and points east. This is from the bridge on the way to the new exurban development of Silver Lakes. A rather improbable place for waterfront development--the houses front on two small artificial lakes.

Flotsam piled against a mesquite, when the Mojave River was carrying considerably more water than it is now-- Mojave Desert, California.

A piece of bent and twisted railroad track, swept away in a flood down the normally dry Mojave River. Here the watercourse is opening out from Afton Canyon into the Soda Lake Basin, the nominal sump of the river. Occasionally floods such as this will turn a large part of the basin into a temporary lake. The dark green shrubs along the wash are mesquite.

Mojave River, in Afton Canyon, Mojave desert, California. Even tho the river is usually dry thru here, the shallow bedrock locally forces water to the surface, where it is of disproportionate importance to wildlife. The area also illustrates the hodgepodge of Hispanic, Native American, and Anglo-Celtic-North European names so typical of California and the US West generally. "Mojave" is a Hispanicized spelling of the local Native American tribe. "Afton" canyon obviously has little to do with the original river in Scotland; evidently it was named after a nearby, now-deserted watering stop on the Union Pacific Railroad. Per Wikipedia, FWIW, Robert Burns's poem led to a number of places being named "Afton" in the US.

Some historical background that may be of interest: This is the original route of the Los Angeles & Salt Lake Railroad, built in 1905, between those cities. Las Vegas, Nevada, owes its existence as a city to this construction; in 1905, lots were platted and sold along the railroad line at what's now the intersection of Fremont and Main streets. Las Vegas now counts this as its founding, and even had a centennial celebration in 2005. Previously Las Vegas ("The Meadows" in Spanish, due to a large spring) had only been a stop on the Old Spanish Trail and counted only a handful of inhabitants at a couple of ranches. The railroad located a station there because of the spring, which furnished water for the locomotives. So, Las Vegas began its existence as a little railroad town! It remained so until the 1930s, when the construction of Hoover (Boulder) Dam on the Colorado River started its explosive growth in the 20th century. The Mojave River flows thru Afton Canyon, and usually has surface water here because the shallow bedrock forces it to the surface. It's thus an unexpected oasis in the desert. The Mojave rises in the San Bernadino Mountains on the eastern margin of the Los Angeles basin.

About to cross the Mojave River; which actually has surface water thru here.