Jawbone Canyon OHV Area, California

01What is Jawbone Canyon?

Jawbone Canyon’s open area is public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management for off-highway riding. BLM describes it as offering cross-country play, trail riding and advanced technical hill climbs.¹ Friends of Jawbone, a nonprofit that promotes recreation in the area,³ puts the open area at more than 7,000 acres, starting beside Jawbone Station on Highway 14 and running about five miles west, with sand washes, steep hill climbs and miles of novice trails.⁴

The land is not all federal. The state’s Onyx Ranch State Vehicular Recreation Area is laid out in a checkerboard among the BLM land here, reached from the same Jawbone Canyon Road at Highway 14.¹² Beyond the open area, BLM says, there are hundreds of miles of trail riding.¹ There is no entry fee.¹

02Where is Jawbone Canyon, and how do you get there?

Jawbone Canyon Road leaves Highway 14 about 20 miles north of the Highway 14 and Highway 58 junction in Mojave: a left turn when driving north, a right turn when driving south.¹ Jawbone Station, the visitor center, is at 28111 Jawbone Canyon Road.² From California City’s City Hall it is about 16 miles by road, around half an hour.²² Other roads and distances are on getting here.

BLM says most of the camping and staging sites inside the open area can be reached in a two-wheel-drive vehicle towing a trailer.¹ Friends of Jawbone advises checking road conditions and watching for flash floods, and staying with your vehicle if you are stranded.⁸

03Where can you ride?

Inside the open area, riding is allowed everywhere.⁴ Outside it the rules change sharply. In the Jawbone-Butterbredt Area of Critical Environmental Concern beyond the open area, motor vehicles are restricted to a designated network of roads and trails marked with brown markers, and cross-country travel is prohibited. BLM is explicit: every other trail is closed, even if you do not see a red closed sign.¹

• Paved roads and publicly maintained dirt roads are open only to vehicles registered for the highway. A green- or red-sticker vehicle may cross them but may not ride on or alongside them.⁶
• Wilderness areas are closed to all motor vehicles.⁶
• In this region, Friends of Jawbone lists only Jawbone Canyon, Dove Springs and Spangler Hills as open areas where cross-country riding is allowed.⁶

04Is Jawbone Canyon open in 2026?

A federal court order requires BLM to close desert tortoise and Lane Mountain milk-vetch critical habitat in the western Mojave to off-highway recreation. Since 24 March 2026, and until further notice, every route in that habitat has been closed to OHV recreation, and BLM counts street-legal vehicles used for recreation as OHV recreation.⁹ BLM names Jawbone Canyon and Dove Springs among the designated riding areas that remain accessible.⁹

The closures are nearby, though. Friends of Jawbone lists the closed routes in the greater Jawbone region as those in the Rand Mountains, the Red Mountain area, Cuddeback Lake and the Kramer Hills.¹⁰ The federal government has appealed the order.¹¹

05What do you need to ride: stickers, permits and equipment

• Registration. Any vehicle that is not street legal needs a California green or red sticker; California residents register with the DMV.¹ Since 1 January 2025, red-sticker and green-sticker vehicles are equally valid year-round in areas designated for OHV use.¹³
• Visiting from another state. If your OHV is not registered in your home state, you need a California nonresident OHV permit, which BLM says can be bought at Jawbone Station.¹ The state lists the fee as $30.¹⁴
• Equipment. An approved muffler, brakes and a spark arrester.¹
• ATVs. Riders under 14 must be supervised by a parent or guardian; every ATV rider must wear an approved helmet; no passengers.¹
• Prohibited in the open area: glass containers, empty or not; firewood with nails, screws or other metal, including pallets; fireworks; and riding under the influence of alcohol or drugs.¹

06Jawbone Station visitor center

Jawbone Station is on Highway 14 at Jawbone Canyon Road, about 20 miles north of Mojave. It has information, maps and books for riders, hikers, cyclists, horse riders and tourists, and there is a free primitive campground across Jawbone Road from it.⁵ BLM lists it as its Jawbone Canyon visitor center;² Friends of Jawbone provides major support for its day-to-day operation.³ Free California Campfire Permits are issued there,⁷ and so are nonresident OHV permits.¹ BLM lists its hours as 8:30am to 4pm every day, closed for lunch from 1pm to 1:30pm; the number is (760) 373-1146.²

Also on Highway 14 at Jawbone Canyon, OpenStreetMap maps the Jawbone Canyon Store, with fuel and a convenience store; confirm it is open before you rely on it.²³ Other places to buy fuel and food on the way are in food and fuel near California City.

07Can you camp at Jawbone Canyon?

The whole OHV area and the public land around it is open to primitive camping, with numerous camping and staging sites in the canyon, and a 14-day stay limit.¹ Friends of Jawbone sets out the general BLM rule as up to 14 days on one site in any 28-day period, after which you move 25 miles, and notes that you may not camp within 200 yards of a water source or on land under an active mining claim.⁷

08What is the black pipe?

About three miles west of Jawbone Station, Jawbone Canyon Road passes the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The riveted iron “black pipe” is a siphon on the original aqueduct, built between 1908 and 1913,¹⁷ and both that aqueduct and the second, completed in 1970, can be seen from the road.¹⁸ The Center for Land Use Interpretation describes the Jawbone pipe as the largest of the aqueduct’s pressurised sections, 8,095 feet long with an 850-foot drop, and notes that it burst in freezing weather in 1988.¹⁹ William Mulholland, the aqueduct’s chief engineer, called this section the Jawbone Siphon.²⁰

09Butterbredt Spring

In the wider Jawbone/Butterbredt Recreation Management Area, Butterbredt Spring holds water for desert wildlife and for waterfowl migrating in spring and autumn. The land at the spring is private, vehicle travel and hunting there are restricted, and the Audubon Society has established it as a wildlife sanctuary with the landowner.²¹