This location is important in the movie because it is the final waterhole James Coburn must go to in order to get the army cache of gold. Here he is below searching in Waterhole #3:
The concrete foundations of the waterhole are still there:
This is in the Red Cliffs side of Red Rock Canyon which is east of the 14 HWY. You can see the rock formations in the background and compare to the above. Carroll O'Connor looks like he is about to get suckered here, but maybe not:
Here is the waterhole looking to the south:
A couple of things about this area. One, as I mentioned at the end of the video, There is a map called the Red Cliffs Nature Trail at the trailhead. It gives you the natural history of the area and shows you the short nature trail around this area. Even though I had a map it still was a bit hard to follow. You do have to go off the trail to find it, and one could go right past it because it is not totally obvious from the trail. BUT, of course, naturally, to everyone's delight, how could I make it more easy, blah, blah, blah...I list the gps coordinates at the top. Use 'em! ;)
I may do something more with the Red Cliffs area you see in the background in the future. It has been used a lot in movies. I remember back in the 1980's the heavy metal band W.A.S.P. used it for one of their music videos (song: Wild Child). You park pretty close to where they shot that video.
Finally, one unfortunate location that I really wanted to get a while back is at the very beginning of the movie. James Coburn gets into a gunfight there. It is just outside Lone Pine near the town of Dolemite. Unfortunately, it is now privately owned by a mining company, and they will keep you off of the area if you go there. I have seen the few remaining buildings as I have driven by. I know during the festival they went there, but I will probably not ever go there. Oh well, there are many other areas.
