July 31, 2017. The wind having woken us up a few times throughout the night, we were up at sunrise above Summer Lake. The smoke was still light as we rolled out of bed and made breakfast - just cereal and blueberries this morning - and packed up camp for an early start - our goal was to make it from Summer Lake to Riley by 7pm. After a few final pictures, we were on our way. As we traversed the northern half of Winter Ridge, a small detour took us to the top of a peak to some of…
Leave a CommentMonth: July 2017
July 30, 2017. After a long day, we'd fallen asleep quickly and slept soundly by Moonlight Mine at the top of Crane Mountain. Morning light brought a bit more time to explore the mine and make breakfast out of the fridge - scrambled eggs, spicy sausage, toast and strawberries - delicious, and ready for @mrs.turbodb when she climbed down from the tent at 7:45am. The anti-condensation mat worked fantastimagically, and there was very little condensation under the mattress - the only morning we'd have any. Even with the condensation, it was on the floor of the tent, away from the…
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Back in May, we'd attempted to run the northern 40% of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, from Seneca to the Washington border. A day in, we chose a more reasonable goal: Seneca to Unity. And at day three, we called it quits - less than 50 miles from our start point. So you can imagine that we were excited for a second chance. Redemption as it were. In the month leading up to the trip, we got ready. Alcan leaf springs, a new HAM radio, and an ARB fridge were going to make us more capable, safer, and well fed.…
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July 23, 2017. Ham radio is for old guys. I must be getting old. As the truck has gotten more capable, and as we’ve started doing longer and more remote trips, I’ve started carrying more tools, extra parts, etc. in order to make (minor) road repairs - hopefully enough to limp back to civilization. But in the back of my mind there is always a little voice that’s been saying, “What happens if you’re many miles out?” I knew I needed some sort of ability to communicate. I considered getting an inReach device a SPOT tracker, or some other ePRB/PLB,…
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July 22, 2017. It was July 8, 2017. I know because I will always remember the day @mrs.turbodb said, "You should just get a fridge for the truck." We'd just returned from our week-long trip to Canada with the little kiddo, where we'd pre-prepared and frozen many of our meals, using our crappy 48qt cooler to keep everything chilly. Of course, even sandwiched in the middle of our gear and under the CVT, we had to get ice every day (does Canada not have block ice?) - which meant staying relatively near civilization. So when we started talking about our…
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July 15, 2017. The truck has always had a bit of rake, with the rear being ~2-3” higher than the front. And I like it that way - it looks good. Until the constant weight of the bed rack and CVT, the combination of stock leafs, Deaver AALs, and air shocks that I installed as part of the suspension overhaul were working reasonably OK. “OK” because I’ve never been able to get the air shocks to hold pressure - they lose about 10lbs a day, so I’m constantly filling them (which is easier with the ARB compressor installed). But with…
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June 30 - July 7, 2017. June 29, 11pm: we finally decided to head to Canada for a week of camping. We’d leave the next morning at 7am sharp. It was going to be awesome! But let’s rewind… We’ve been wanting to go to some of Canada’s National Parks for a while. So, in late 2016 when we discovered that Canada was celebrating their 150th anniversary by giving away free access to their national parks for 2017, we jumped on the opportunity to get a pass, and we started working out plans to hit Banff and Jasper during the summer.…
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