Darwin Coso 5 acres

SOLD! 6-22-2020

5 acres in Inyo County and adjacent to public lands and China Lake Naval Base. Off-the-grid and remote.

APN: 035-230-26

$17,000 with built-in owner financing.

Terms: $1,000 down, $16,000 payable over 10 years at 6% comes to $177.63 per month. No pre-payment penalties, credit checks, or qualifying. All paperwork is done in house and you may take possession of property a few days after your down payment clears.

Good chance for anyone to get in on land ownership in a unique part of California.

We live in Mono County, the below photo shows part of Inyo County which neighbors us to the south. Here we are driving southbound on HWY 395 with the sierra nevada mountains to our right and the Alabama Hills in the foreground to the left.

Taking a break in Lone Pine at the Inter-agency Visitor's Center. Great place to get info and maps on the area and stock up on fresh water if you happen to be camping out. The exhibits inside are also worth checking out. Inyo Mountains in distance, we'll be heading up through them shortly.

About a half-hour from Lone Pine and right before Death Valley National Park we turn off HWY 190 at the Darwin marker.

Leaving pavement behind, we take Lucky Jim wash road south out of town. On the way back we stop and take some photos of Darwin, those are yet to come. The road is decent for all vehicle types.

Parked on the 5 acres, our son attempts to launch the drone for some overhead viewing.

The launch is successful but quickly terminated. Being so close to the military base the drone's operating system will not allow for further flight.

However we are able to snap a couple quick pictures. Below are the 5 acres and beyond.

Corner of the acreage, you can see the access road and corner stakes just uphill of the astro van.

More property corners.

Joshua Tree on property.

Corner post with neighbor far in distance.

Corner posts and astro van at other corner.

There is a thin strip of BLM land between this property and neighboring China Lake Naval Base (NAWS). This base occupies 3 counties, Inyo, Kern and San Bernadino and the following communities: Darwin, Trona, Inyokern, and Ridgecrest. It is the US Navy's largest single land holding (1,100,100 acres, more or less), and area larger than Rhode Island.

Access road on public side of NAWS, an additional route to get to property.

Looking back at property from NAWS.

Another shot of the flowering Joshua tree, and pods.

Standing near middle of property, southeastern view.

Southern neighbor, plenty of space as a buffer.

NAWS gate sign. (Darwin East Gate)

We leave as we are on a time schedule to view other properties but stop in Darwin at an art installation.

View from artist's property and looking out towards the 5 acres, which are 2-3 miles out. Noticed there were some interesting airbnb properties nearby, could might work right in for viewing the land.

Carved column.

Looks like a pile of cannonballs but may be milling balls used in the precious metal extraction process.

Overhead view from Inyo County's GIS website. You can visit it yourself and plug in the properties APN, 035-230-26. https://www.inyocounty.us/gis/GISPage_Data.htm (click on the upper left hand box)

Approximate location on Google Maps.

Property location on different Death Valley map. We have been all over the shown roads and recommend exploring China Gardens Spring, Darwin Falls, Osburne Cabin, and taking the back roads into Panamint Springs Resort although they aren't shown on this map. The red highlight shows the Death Valley boundary.

Same map but zoomed out a little bit and you can see how large the naval base is along with Death Valley. Death Valley is about 3 times the size.

This is my BLM land use map where all the land owners have their own color. Yellow is BLM, pink is naval base, white is private, purple is Death Valley, and blue are other state lands.

NAWS in its entirety, almost.