Camp Iron Mountain - A WWII Site in the California Desert

today we're in a remote part of california in the middle of the desert and we're going to be visiting camp iron mountain which is the best preserved of patton's desert training center camps and is located somewhere out there behind us speaking of how remote camp iron mountain is and definitely was even more so in 1942 when it was built we've been on the loneliest road in america and highway 62 once you get past joshua tree is probably lonelier than that we saw very few cars on our way out here [Music] right off highway 62 there is a plaque dedicated to the men and women who served at camp iron mountain and it gives a little bit of the backstory of camp iron mountain but the actual camp is actually a little bit into the desert here if you walk over here [Music] we have a a road and this road leads right out to where the camp was now i don't have a four wheel drive vehicle so hopefully our car makes it down this road and we get there in one piece but we're gonna drive down here see if we can check out the camp itself if not we'll walk and still check it out anyway [Music] so we've made it to the end of the drivable portion of the road the road does continue on behind us but there is a gate here preventing any cars from driving out here and driving over the remnants of camp iron mountain so we're gonna walk the rest of the way as far as the road to get out here we have a standard car it was passable with a standard car it did get a little sandy at some points but nothing too bad i wouldn't definitely not try it if the weather was if the weather was bad if there was any rain or anything i don't think the car would have made it then but a perfect day like today no issues whatsoever so we're gonna head through this turnstile gate a barbed wire fence all around and it looks like there may have been a sign here at one point but whatever was here is gone now [Music] so we're walking up the road right now and because nobody's been able to drive on this road for years it doesn't look like much of a road if you didn't know road was here uh you think you're just like walking in a wash or something but if you take a look at it from overhead you can definitely make out a road was once here and i could kind of see a fenced off area [Applause] maybe about 500 meters or so up ahead so looks like we're still headed the right way though walking down the road you can see where the road was once outlined with rocks so we've made it to the camp and you can see improvements that the soldiers made when the camp was active all these rocks here and planters in the middle when the camp was active they had 15 shower buildings 26 latrines 113 wooden tent frames an amphitheater a 4 000 gallon water tank tower and two 3 000 gallon water tank towers camp iron mountain was built in april 1942 in order to train troops to do battle in north africa during world war ii stationed here were the second armored division under general george s patton and the 80th division so walking around out here when you look at this from above like on google maps on a satellite view or drone footage it's uh it's easy to see all the roads out here but when you're on the ground the roads aren't quite as obvious as they appear from above looks like there's a road right here behind me barely noticeable out here but sure enough there's this is a major intersection here at camp iron mountain so let's keep looking around we're almost to that fenced off area which is i believe is the sand table showing the entire desert training center that was built during world war ii and they put a fence around it to preserve it so we'll take a look at that and then there's a few chapels that still remain out here and we'll see if we can find them i thought they'd be pretty obvious where they are at since we're out in the middle of a flat desert but i'm not seeing anything yet but we'll keep looking around and see if we can find them [Music] so right behind me in this fenced off area is a giant relief map showing the entire desert training center now the desert training center had 11 different camps over multiple states and we've done videos on some of the camps in arizona and california before but this map would show the entire desert training center and it's used for officers to kind of show troop movements and do some planning and the army still uses things like this today when i was in the army you know 20 years ago we use sand tables all the time and so this is a pretty giant one though showing the entire desert training center and there used to be a stand where they can get higher up and look down upon the map but that's long gone obviously you can see the wooden legs from it over on the other side but yeah here's the uh big relief map there is a fence around it to protect it um it is pretty fragile but let's take a look closer look at that and then we'll explore the camp some more i still haven't found those chapels uh but they're around here somewhere [Music] it's pretty cool walking around here the camp is definitely a lot bigger than i thought i know that the looking at a satellite image that the catholic chapel that we're heading to is off in this direction over here uh somewhere way out there but every once in a while you're walking you're like man am i still on the camp and you'll come across an area like this here where it's um paths you can see where soldiers built rock line paths and they're still here after 80 years and so let's keep heading out towards the chapel and if you do come out here just bear in mind this place is a remote as you can see looking around there is nothing around out here at all aside from us right now but yeah let's keep headed towards the chapel we'll take a look at it and see what else we come across on the way out there [Music] so as we're filming this we're coming upon the 80th anniversary of camp iron mountain being built now camp iron mountain was only around for about two years it closed in 1944 but there were thousands of soldiers that came through here that all went to fight in north africa and europe during world war ii and i just can't imagine you know coming from iowa or kansas back east somewhere and getting thrown out into the california desert and this must have been quite a shock for them to come out here and it's just amazing what they went through in order to get ready uh to go fight and just being around two years i mean it changed this desert landscape forever i mean there are just paths everywhere i mean look right behind me this path here is actually paved with rocks so i mean this must have been going somewhere fairly important because most of the paths are just dirt but this one is actually paved uh so probably a chow hall or something but yeah this is just amazing just walking around here and just seeing how big it is i mean looking at it on google maps and stuff you really don't get a scope of how large camp iron mountain was the uh sand table that we were at you can't even see it now from how far i've walked it's way off in the distance over there and we still haven't gotten to the catholic chapel which is kind of on one end of the uh one end of the camp so we're still walking that way still coming across tons and tons of walkways planters where they would uh plant or they would put rocks around the plants i don't know if they planted anything themselves or just put rocks around the plants that were already out here but yeah this is just amazing to walk around and just take a look and just think of you know how many people walk the same path and you know what they did after they left here [Music] because most of the buildings were just tense there isn't much in the way of any remnants of any buildings or anything still out here aside from the chapels that i mentioned earlier that we still haven't found yet but occasionally you'll come across some things like some wires down here i'm not sure how well you can see this but this wires going through the ground i'm not sure if that's original to the camp or if that's something that showed up here much later on there's a few other remnants here and there mostly just the walkways everywhere but a few cans and stuff like that once again i don't know if they're original to the camp or if they ended up here much later now it's kind of amazing i'm a big history buff big world war ii buff and it's kind of amazing to think you could be standing in the same place that general patton was once standing walking around i mentioned there were 11 desert training center camps general patton's headquarters was actually at camp young which we did a video on the general patton museum before and that's the that was pretty close to camp young but i'm sure patton showed up here to inspect his troops so we could be standing in a place right now where general patton once stood which is pretty cool to think about check out this area right here with all these planters [Music] so i'm finally almost to the chapel i can see it just a few hundred feet away but i came across something interesting out here if you take a look at this looks like there is a rain gauge out here that they're using to measure the rainfall out in the area i'm not sure how often it's checked it probably doesn't need to be checked that often there's not very much rain uh but yeah we found a rain gauge hidden out in the middle of nowhere here so we finally made it to the catholic chapel which is right behind me we'll take a look at it here in just a second and this is definitely on the edge of the camp right here is the fence for the camp uh to stop any cars from driving up so uh yeah we're right on the edge we walked quite a ways to get here much further than expected uh but yeah let's take a look at the catholic chapel um this is the better preserved of the two chapels i'm still not sure where the protestant chapel is if i can't find it i'll show a picture of it but yeah let's take a look at the catholic chapel so here it is the catholic chapel there used to be a cross on the top but that's long gone but this is one of the only remaining structures still out here at camp iron mountain let's take a closer look you can see it was built by the soldiers with rocks they use quartz for the cross in the middle and this looks pretty cool with the mountains in the background get a look at it from the side here now there's no cemetery or anything out here i'm not sure if any soldiers actually died at camp iron mountain during world war ii uh but if they did they wouldn't have been buried out here there's no cemetery out here here's a look at it from the back now there's a replica of this chapel at the patton museum over in cheroko summit [Music] taking a look at the cement here to see if anyone etched their name in the cement when this was built but i don't see anything usually on a military base you're not going to get away with that you etch your name in the cement everybody's gonna know who did it [Music] but yeah this is really cool and what an amazing view in the background and here's the view from the chapel those cars way off in the distance that's highway 62 and on the other side of highway 62 is where camp granite was that was another camp for the desert training center so i imagine from here you could have actually seen camp granite but that's on the other side of 62 and it's not as well preserved there's not as much there to see and here's a look back over camp iron mountain and you can't even see the sand table from here all right now that we found the chapel we're going to start heading back towards the center of camp see if there's anything else we could find out here any other interesting sights to see and just keep taking a look around see what else there is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] when we were at the wire earlier i mentioned finding various objects around and not being sure if they're from the time of the camp or if they were brought here later on just near here i found some old rusted nails and right here there's an old rusted out metal can now i don't know if that's from the time of the camp or if that was added here later on but you do find objects here and there like this around the camp but there really isn't that many of them take a look at this path right behind me it's amazing that this has been here 80 years out in the middle of the desert unoccupied and it still looks like a pretty good path at least part of it does walking around here even though you know you're walking on one of the main roads of the camp sometimes you start to really question if you're still walking on a road or not because the bushes after 80 years are starting to take back their roads and you kind of have to look around and you'll come across a rock walkway like right over here and you know okay okay so i'm still i'm still in the right place i'm still walking around the camp and i see the sand table so we know we're back towards where we started here and so let's look around one last time see what we can find and our camera batteries are starting to get a little a little bit low so uh we'll have to hurry and see what we can find i guess in this area here there's lots of piles of rocks and i'm not sure what this would have been a lot of rocks piled up here and it goes off into the distance that way [Music] so walking around exploring we've had no luck finding the other chapel we probably should have looked at a map in advance before coming out here to see where it was but we didn't so we've had no luck finding it here's a picture somebody else took of it as you can see it's not as high profile as the catholic chapel but it's still pretty cool it is out here somewhere i'm just not exactly sure where [Music] [Music] it's really fun to walk around and explore camp iron mountain there's so much history here and just to take it all in but unfortunately for today further exploration has been vetoed so we're gonna head back to the car get into the air conditioning get something nice to drink and then head off on our next adventure thank you so much for watching if you enjoyed the video please give it a thumbs up consider subscribing and we'll see you next week

Channel: Sidetrack Adventures

Views: 124,700

Keywords: Camp Iron Mountain, Iron Mountain, Highway 62, State Route 62, Joshua Tree attractions, Twentynine Palms attractions, Desert Training Center, WWII sites, General Patton, Patton training center, world war ii, mojave desert

Id: BBxu2LMrCSg

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 16 2022