Sidetrack Adventures

A dead-straight road slices 50 miles through the Mojave, eerily aligned toward Palmdale, its purpose unknown, its origin debated, and its silence unsettling.

Opened in 1933, the Ridge Route Alternate carved a scenic path through Piru Gorge, once a vital highway, now partly submerged beneath Pyramid Lake, its past hidden in the desert.

The Mojave Megaphone looms over the desert, a strange steel structure with no known origin. Was it for railroads, or something more mysterious?

Highway 395 winds through California’s remote northeast, where sparse towns and quiet landscapes reveal deep roots in the state’s pioneer past.

Once a lively Route 66 stop, Two Guns, Arizona is now a haunting ghost town, its ruins, abandoned zoo, and the eerie Apache Death Cave echoing its dark past.

The Appian Way, Rome’s “Queen of Roads,” began in 312 BC, an ancient highway of empire, lined with ruins and history, still echoing the footsteps of the past.

Once vital desert stops, Halloran Springs and Summit now lie abandoned, faded relics of old highways, forgotten stories, and hidden history along today’s Interstate 15.

Deep in Monitor Valley lies Nevada’s true center, a remote land of hot springs, wild horses, and forgotten roads where history and isolation quietly endure.

A lone phone booth in the Mojave became a global obsession, drawing callers to the desert, where abandoned mines and strange landscapes tell its story.

In WWII, Camp Bouse hid a secret mission in the Arizona desert, where soldiers tested a mysterious “Gizmo,” leaving behind traces of one of America’s most hidden camps.

Ortega Highway winds from San Juan Capistrano to Lake Elsinore, a scenic yet perilous route through mountains, waterfalls, and historic Southern California landmarks.

Cadiz Road once linked Los Angeles to Phoenix, but now lies nearly forgotten, its vanished towns and desert scars quietly marking a lost Mojave route.

Agua Caliente Road leads to Sundad, a mysterious Arizona ghost town, abandoned since the 1960s and now a canvas of desert rock art and unanswered questions.

Highway 395 winds through California’s Eastern Sierra, a road trip of ghost towns, ancient monuments, and strange stories that feel straight out of the Twilight Zone.

Biosphere 2 in Arizona tested human survival in a sealed, self-sustaining Earth, revealing the fragile complexity of life inside a miniature planet.

The Johnson Canyon Railroad and Tunnel, opened in 1882, braved Arizona’s rugged canyons, marked by shootouts, accidents, and one of the West’s most perilous rail lines.

Williamson Valley Road winds 70 miles through Arizona, tracing centuries of history- from Native trails to stagecoaches- past bridges, cemeteries, and timeless desert scenery.

Nine miles from Tombstone, Millville and Charleston once thrived on silver, then faded by 1889; today, one has marked ruins and the other lies hidden.

Near Tombstone lie the ruins of the Clanton Ranch- once the stronghold of the notorious Cochise County Cowboys, where outlaws and legends of the Old West collided.