I'm up early this morning to have breakfast at the Nipton café and pack up the tent

I slept well last night, except for the feeling that I was about to be run over by a train that passed through Nipton at 1h. The odour of the leach field under the boards by tent tent is fairly strong this morning.

I walk over to the Nipton café and Bill cooks me another tasty omelet with Asian vegetables and shrimp

Breakfast is long and relaxing and I have two cups of decent, but not espresso, coffee. Bill and I chat a lot. I'm the only diner on this quiet Tuesday morning.

In front of the Nipton store is a Mojave National Preserve information kiosk; the Preserve begins just beyond the train tracks

The pass straight ahead in the distance is the top of Morning Star Mine Road near Cima, my route today out of Ivanpah Valley, and it's also the way I came here two days ago.

I take a another shower before leaving Nipton (probably my last one for a week) and brush my teeth

The Nipton shower building is baking hot inside and today's sweat has already begun. It's already 83 degrees, but this is actually a reasonable temperature for the Ivanpah Valley in June. It was hotter here a couple of weeks ago.

After filling up my water supply and stopping at the store for a cold iced tea, I'm on my way down Nipton Road just after noon

I hang out at the store a bit before leaving, chatting with the clerk and a customer. I'll ride seven miles across Ivanpah Valley, slightly downhill, then turn left on Ivanpah Road just before I reach the mountains ahead.

I turn south on Ivanpah Road and am welcomed by this flash-flood warning sign

I have just over three miles of almost-flat road ahead of me, so I had better enjoy it while I have it!

Also near the beginning of Ivanpah Road is one of those "entering Mojave National Preserve" monuments

Crap, I have a really strong headwind, which I have had in this area on previous Mojave National Preserve trips. It feels uphill already, even though I haven't even started the day's climb yet!

I reach the junction of Morning Star Mine Road and turn right

Great views from here across Ivanpah Valley to the New York Mountains, which I need to revisit one day.

OK, the long, slow, dreaded climb up Morning Star Mine Road is officially on

I've been at it for about half an hour now. It's not steep at a grade of one-to-two percent, but the relentless headwind and the heavy bike make for slow meditation as I move upward against gravity.

Morning Star Mine Road rises over 11.5 miles from 2750 feet elevation to about 4285 feet

Morning Star Mine Road is a lot of fun to ride down, but is somewhat boring in the uphill direction. With a speed limit of 55 miles per hour, traffic on this road is fast and demands that a bicyclist remain attentive.

After almost two hours of climbing, I reach the corral, my favourite landmark (one of the only ones) on Morning Star Mine Road

I took a short break earlier, and now it's time for another. I'm having some heartburn (maybe I shouldn't have put so much hot sauce on my omelet this morning), but I eat half a chocolate-mint Clif bar anyway because I need the sugar and caffeine.

I go for a walk around the Morning Star Mine Road corral to cool down a little

After 940 feet of elevation gain and 8.5 miles of slow uphill, I'm about 2/3 up the hill. The faint coolness in the wind at this elevation feels great and efficiently converts my generous sweat into salt residue. But my water is hot.

Behind the Morning Star Mine Road corral is a dirt road that crosses the fan to the base of the New York Mountains

This road might be a good route earlier in the year when there's still a chance of getting some water over there at Garvanza Spring at the base of the New York Mountains.

Onward and upward on the final three miles of climbing of Morning Star Mine Road

I'm ready to tackle this hill, this headwind, this heartburn. Intermittent crosswinds are mildly destabilizing, but still better than the headwind. The grade is a tad steeper here, mostly three-to-four percent, and occasionally five.

I divert my attention away from the climb by staring off into the distance at the Butcher Knife Canyon area of the Mid Hills

I camped two nights near Butcher Knife Canyon during last year's Mojave National Preserve trip and really enjoyed that area. Howe Spring, which I visited last week, is on the...

Finally I've made it to the top of Morning Star Mine Road

The road bears left here at the summit, then I'll have 3.5 miles of almost-flat downhill before I reach the Cima store. I've never been up the dirt roads that depart here to my right, one of which leads to the old Billy Boy Mine site.

Two miles before the Cima store, Morning Star Road passes under one of the big power lines that cross the Mojave Desert

I could shave a few miles off my trip by taking the shortcut road that follows the power lines up to Cima Road, like I did during my 2006 Mojave National Preserve trip, but I want to see if the Cima store is open.

Oh well, Cima store is closed, but I wasn't really expecting it to be open

Cima store isn't supposed to be open after 16h, but when I passed by here last year one day around 17h, it was open. One never knows what to expect here, so I'm carrying enough water such that I won't die of thirst if the store is closed.