The Tacoma Needs a Jump, Jump | Sky High #1

The trip started off with a bang. It wasn't the kind of bang that's exciting and gets your blood flowing, rather, it was one of those bangs that generally indicates your day is about to change. In a bad way.

It started when I arrived at the storage location for the Tacoma. I called the after-hours security number, and Kevin picked up after a couple rings. He sounded surprised to hear me. "Uh, I'm not there right now, give me 10 minutes," he said.

Now, I'm no expert on the after-hours security industry, but I'd always assumed the defining feature of the job was being there, after hours. Kevin was redefining the role in real time. Somewhere out in the Vegas night, a man was doing literally anything other than securing the thing he was paid to secure, and I was standing in the dark appreciating the artistry of it.

There wasn't much I could do besides wait. Luckily, I had a hidden key on the Tacoma, so I set about stowing my stuff, so I'd be ready to go once he arrived.

Kevin showed up in under 5 minutes, and after a quick key-handoff, he headed back to his car, and I climbed into the driver's seat, ready for some In-N-Out before finding camp for the night.

I turned the key. Nothing. Not a click, no faint lights on the dash, nothing. Looking around, I noticed that my lights were on. Or at least the switch was; the lights were most definitely not.

Realizing that - if I didn't act fast - Kevin might be off to whatever it was he was doing when I called, I jumped out of the Tacoma and sprinted after his car as he was headed out of the lot. I explained the situation and asked if he had any idea - he didn't - when the Tacoma was staged for my arrival. Not that it would have mattered. Given how dead everything seemed, I suspected that it'd been several days earlier, giving the lights plenty of time to slowly drain every last electron from my $500 Northstar AGM battery.

With my battery so dead that it didn't even click when the key was turned, I was worried that it was beyond recovery. Getting it fixed would mean a major change to my itinerary since - instead of heading to the trailhead in the dark - I'd need to stay in Las Vegas until I could get a new battery in the morning. This would be a huge bummer, since it's rare that I find myself in the Death Valley area when there's no snow on Waucoba Mountain. So I hoped that once we got it jumped, the alternator would be able to resuscitate the battery.

I started by hooking up my Lithium jump pack and setting it to "boost." Nothing. I pulled out the jumper cables and gave it a try again, this time using Kevin's car for the boost. No better. We decided to let it charge for about five minutes, during which time the Lithium pack dropped from 100% to 42%.

Let me put that in perspective: this pack has resurrected a diesel v8. The kind of engine that laughs at jump packs. My little Tacoma battery ate 58% of it like an appetizer and was ready for dessert. This was the moment I should have accepted that the battery was not sick. It was dead, and I was performing CPR on a corpse. Instead, I crossed my fingers and turned the key.

Vrooooom! I thanked Kevin profusely. I hoped my troubles were over. I feared they were not.

Hungry, I headed towards In-N-Out. I figured that I could let the Tacoma do its thing - my $6.37/gal dino juice feeding the battery - while I fed my stomach. Then - after an hour of charging - I'd drive to a local parts store and try shutting it down. If I could start it again, I'd head off towards Death Valley; if it couldn't get it going, at least I'd be at the parts store when they opened in the morning.

Dinner was - as always - delicious. I ate more slowly than usual. Even though I had quite a bit of driving before I'd reach camp, I wanted the battery to get as much juice as possible. As I ate, I pulled out my phone. One of the great things about the LiFePO₄ battery system I installed is that - while being powered entirely by the LiFePO4 house battery - it monitors the voltage of the starting battery over time.

Sure enough, it showed that the starting battery had been drained over the course of several days while I'd been at home. But I knew that already. What I learned was that it'd drained the battery to just over 3V. I was pretty sure that meant I was screwed. Not that I know much of anything about the recoverability of an AGM battery, but I think anything below about 9V is toast time.

Climbing back into the driver's seat, I released the parking brake, pressed the clutch, and flicked on the lights as I pulled out of my spot. That combination - the lights drawing more juice and the clutch slowing the engine as I released it - was too much for my poor battery, and the truck stalled.

I turned the key. Nothing. Not even a click. Back to square one.

Luckily, there was a strapping young lad in one of the largest Ford pickups I've ever seen. I chose not to dwell on the irony of a Ford rescuing a Toyota, and with the combination of jumper cables and my Lithium jump pack, we the engine was back up and running. One thing was for sure: there was no way I was headed into the remote northern corner of Death Valley.

Fifteen minutes later, I was parked in the lot of the local BatteriesPlus. While you can no longer purchase a Northstar-branded AGM car battery, Northstar does continue to manufacture the house brand -X2Power - for BatteriesPlus, and I'd found that this particular location had one 24F in stock.

It was 2:15am when I unfolded the tent, shoved earplugs as close to my brain as possible, and climbed up the ladder. BatteriesPlus wouldn't open until 9:00am, but I was pretty sure I'd be awake well before that.

The following day...

It was hard enough sleeping in a parking lot shared with Home Depot and at the end of a freeway offramp during the night, but as light filtered from the horizon, it became nearly impossible. I putzed around for a bit and shot a text to Doug @DUGeFresh, who happened to also be going to Death Valley for the day. An hour later - as he was passing through Vegas - he pulled into the lot and we caught up for the better part of an hour. Super cool.

At 8:45am, the store opened. By five to nine, my battery swap was complete. Ten hours behind schedule - after provisioning for the next few days at the local Albertsons - I was on my way west. With a six-hour drive, I was reasonably certain there was no way to salvage my hike, but stubborn as always, I hoped for the best.

Waucoba Peak is not a long hike. At less than two miles one way, it's the kind of hike that should be fine to start at 4:00pm, even if it would be more pleasant in the cooler hours of the morning. The only real problem is that those two miles entail 3,565 feet of elevation gain. Really, it's more of a climb than a hike. Knowing what I had planned for the next morning - a 5:00am start to climb 6,500 feet to the top of Mt. Tom on the other side of Owens Valley - I reluctantly drove past the trailhead and continued into Bishop.

I was already exhausted from a couple nights of not-so-great sleep, and I wanted to be fresh for the big hike the next day. So, after a quick stop at Las Palmas for a tasty take-out carne asada, I pointed the Tacoma towards the Pine Creek trailhead that I planned to call home for the night.

After finding an out-of-the-way spot where I could set up the tent, and gathering up my gear so I was ready to go the next morning, I sent my little buddy up into the blue for a few minutes.

It's a good thing I didn't go for that hike. I hadn't taken many photos in the previous 24 hours, but as I backed them up onto my laptop, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open. In my condition, a 3,500-foot ascent over 1.75 miles would have been disastrous if not impossible. I climbed into the tent and before I could even read a full page on my Kindle, I was asleep.

 

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