2021-09-30, 08:28 AM
Went in there back in April. Against advice here, we drove a Subaru in from the pavement west of Daylight, passing Monarch Canyon crossing. We got to a spot where the road makes a sharp right turn to the west and then a hairpin and steep climb to the east. There's a big step up there that will stop most sedans and we had to back down to the hairpin to park, and walked from there.
Walking from there, in 1 1/4 miles there is a junction in an open area at about 4360 ft where, on foot, one turns right. The road is running E/W at this point, and I believe the road coming in to that junction from the E is the one you to which you refer. There was much more sign of vehicles there, and we saw at least one, I can't recall if it was a sedan but it was definitely not a monster rock crawler, that had come in that way.
That's the way I would go next time... But we still had a great day; we day hiked down to the Big Bell mine, going down by the old haul road, and back up via the much much nicer constructed miners' trail.
Walking from there, in 1 1/4 miles there is a junction in an open area at about 4360 ft where, on foot, one turns right. The road is running E/W at this point, and I believe the road coming in to that junction from the E is the one you to which you refer. There was much more sign of vehicles there, and we saw at least one, I can't recall if it was a sedan but it was definitely not a monster rock crawler, that had come in that way.
That's the way I would go next time... But we still had a great day; we day hiked down to the Big Bell mine, going down by the old haul road, and back up via the much much nicer constructed miners' trail.