Lone Pine to Victorville / Sawtooth Canyon

Driving from Lone Pine to Victorville, CA | Camping in Sawtooth Canyon | January 2025

On our last morning in the Alabama Hills, we woke up to colder temps, strong wind gusts rocking the van, and what looked like a lot more snow on the mountains — both the high Sierras and on the mountains to our East which were relatively shorter. Curtis had a meeting at noon, so we decided to enjoy one last morning here and leave after that was finished.

Once the meeting was over, we packed up, grabbed some snacks, and got on the road. Today we would be making our way South, heading towards Joshua Tree. While we were excited to spend more time in the desert and had several reasons to head this direction, we still did so with some reluctance, because we knew there were so many more beautiful places in the Sierras, both North on US-395 and on the other side of the mountains. We had traveled so far just to get to California, and we didn’t know when we’d be able to make it back to this area again. On one hand, we knew that it would only get colder and snowier the further North we went and that we wanted to be warm, but on the other we thought this could also be a great time of year to visit those areas because they’d be much less busy in the winter. Oh well, such is life on the road — even with all the time we have to travel, it’s still just never enough and there will always be more we want to do!

The winds were still gusting as we drove, but they didn’t cause us any issues. We noticed a lot of dust blowing in the wind and obscuring the mountains to the East. Today was the day that the fires in LA were starting, and while we had no plans to be in any of the red or orange flag areas, I still downloaded the Watch Duty app to track the different fires popping up and stay as alert as possible.

We drove South on 395 all the way to Victorville, where we did a few errands. We stopped at an Aldi for groceries and I was shocked by how cheap things were! Aldi has always been my favorite grocery store and I expected it to be relatively less expensive than other stores in the area, but I wasn’t expecting the prices to be so similar to the Aldi we had shopped at in Iowa a few weeks ago! Some produce was even cheaper because it was grown not far from there. Now I know, if we ever find ourselves having to move to California, as long as we have an Aldi nearby I think we would probably survive.

The driving and errands took a lot longer than we had expected, so when we left Victorville we only had 30 minutes left of daylight. The campsite we were aiming for was also 30 minutes away, so we drove straight there and enjoyed the sunset views from the road. We arrived at the BLM campground in Sawtooth Canyon right at dusk, and thankfully found many sites open. After choosing one, we quickly set up the van and Curtis took Charlotte on a walk while I made dinner. The winds were still raging, but the van wasn’t rocking as much thanks to the shelter the canyon provided.

The next morning was still windy, but being outside with enough layers on was tolerable. We took a walk around the large campground and admired the canyon views. Curtis had a meeting in the morning, and Charlotte and I enjoyed sunbathing at our campsite. When he was done with his work, we had lunch and then Curtis went out for a hike.

Curtis: As with most of my recent hikes, I was trying to go to a prominent peak – in this case the highest point in the range we were nestled in. From my Peakbagging app, it looked like it was about 3 km to the peak. Throw in switch-backing and route finding and I guessed it would be about 10 km round trip. I was starting rather late, but I figured that I could make it in time.

I followed an access road that lead straight up to the ridgeline which was convenient, then followed the ridge to the West. It was slow going as I was bushwhacking and the top of the ridge was very rocky, so I was staying to one side of the ridge and navigating between the boulders and cliffs; up and down, up and down.

I eventually made it to what I thought was one side of the main saddle, with my peak in the distance. I pulled up my app just to make sure, and saw that it still showed 4 km…? Confused I used my other phone, and it showed 2 miles. I looked at the topographic map, and then my surroundings and sure enough, the peak I thought was my highpoint was just a random subpeak and my summit goal was way in the distance. I think I had used one phone that was set to imperial units and saw 3 km, when it was actually 3 miles.

With the amount of time I had left, I decided to turn back around, but instead decided to follow the ravine back down. This was a minor risk as I didn’t know how steep it got, but figured I could always turn around. This ended up being lots of fun as the ravine did get narrow with steep slick rock canyons, but never so steep or high that I couldn’t slide, jump, or shimmy down. I wouldn’t necessarily call it canyoneering, but it was pretty close.

We stayed one more night here in Sawtooth Canyon, which turned out to be a great place to stay. We heard that it can get busy with climbers, but there was only one other camper here while we stayed. It’s a free, first come-first served campground with lots of spots, clean outhouses, and good cell reception when using our cell booster. If we had more time we wouldn’t have minded staying longer and hiking a little more, but after two nights it was time to keep heading South.