Old Spanish Trail — Beaver Wash Dam National Conservation Area, UT
Posted by: 
Dunbar Loop
N 37° 04.201 W 113° 52.770
12S E 243998 N 4106518
As you pass the summit of Utah Hill heading south you'll find an expansive view of the northern edge of the Mojave Desert and you begin to wonder how travelers on the Old Spanish Trail prepared to cross the barren area before them.
Waymark Code: WM16W5G
Location: Utah, United States
Date Posted: 10/15/2022
Views: 1
Old Spanish Trail
1829 – 1848
The Old Spanish Trail followed routes long used by Native Americans traders and hunters. Northern New Mexico traders used this route as a pack trail to California between 1829 – 1848. Their mules carried woolen good from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. They returned herding highly prized California mules and horses. Many of Southern California’s future leaders traveled down “Utah Hill” in the mid-1800s.
Castle Cliff
Where the Mountains
Meet the Desert
Castle Cliff is where Mexican trade caravans from New Mexico left the mountains of the Great Basin and entered the Mojave Desert on their way to California. The relative certainties of the mountain travel were quickly replaced with new obstacles … a merciless sun, trackless waste of sands, and constant thirst that lay between them and their Los Angeles destination.
Returning caravans from California re-entered this mountain portal with depleted supplies and exhausted livestock. The caravans of horses and mules were a little more than a third of the way to New Mexico. Castle Cliff was the first indication that they just might make it home.