Mojave River

Mojave River
Mojave River at Afton Canyon, March 2010
Country	United States
State	California
Tributaries
- left	Oro Grande Wash, Fremont Wash, Buckhorn Wash, Manix Wash
- right	Bell Mountain Wash, Stoddard Wash, Daggett Wash
Cities	Hesperia, Apple Valley, Victorville, Barstow
Source	Confluence of West Fork Mojave River and Deep Creek
- location	Mojave River Forks Reservoir, San Bernardino Mountains
- elevation	2,986 ft (910 m)
- coordinates	34°20′29″N 117°14′14″W / 34.34139°N 117.23722°W / 34.34139; -117.23722
Mouth	Soda Lake
- location	Baker, Mojave Desert
- elevation	935 ft (285 m)
- coordinates	35°06′20″N 116°03′53″W / 35.10556°N 116.06472°W / 35.10556; -116.06472Coordinates: 35°06′20″N 116°03′53″W / 35.10556°N 116.06472°W / 35.10556; -116.06472
Length	110 mi (177 km)
Basin	4,580 sq mi (11,862 km2)
Discharge	for Lower Narrows, near Victorville
- average	65.7 cu ft/s (2 m3/s)
- max	70,600 cu ft/s (1,999 m3/s)
- min	0 cu ft/s (0 m3/s)
Map of the Mojave River watershed

The Mojave River is an intermittent river in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains and the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of its flow is underground, while its surface channels remain dry most of the time, with the exception of the headwaters and several bedrock gorges in the lower reaches.

A desert branch of the Serrano Native Americans called the Vanyume or Beñemé, as Father Garcés called them, lived beyond and along much of the length of the Mojave River, from east of Barstow to at least the Victorville region, and perhaps even farther upstream to the south, for up to 8,000 years. The Mohave's trail, later the European immigrants' Mojave Road, ran west from their villages on the Colorado River to Soda Lake, then paralleled the river from its mouth on the lake to the Cajon Pass. Native Americans used this trade route where water could easily be found en route to the coast. Garcés explored the length of the Mojave River in early 1776. He called the river Arroyo de los Mártires ("river of the martyrs") on March 9, 1776 but later Spaniards called it Río de las Ánimas ("spirit river or river of the (lost) souls"). In 1826 Jedediah Smith was the first American of European origin to travel overland to California by following the Mojave Indian Trail. He called this the Inconstant River.

A pack horse and livestock trail, the Old Spanish Trail, established by Antonio Armijo in 1829 between New Mexico and El Pueblo de Los Ángeles, joined the Mojave River at its mouth near what is now Soda Lake. It followed the river to where the trail reached the foot of the mountains at Summit Valley and turned westward to pass over Cajon Pass and descend into the coastal valleys of southern Alta California. In 1830, Wolfskill and Yount pioneered what became the Main Route of the Old Spanish Trail, which followed a different route than Armijo, farther south just west of the Colorado River and then followed Jedediah Smith's path on the old Mohave Trail west to the Mojave River mouth at Soda Lake, to meet with Armijo's route coming south from Salt Spring.