This is a special place to my Dad, one that he's been visiting for more than 30 years. As such, I've used names we've given to local landmarks or redacted the names of places that might be too revealing. If you recognize any of the places shown in the photos, please help to keep them special by not mentioning their names or locations. It is not often that I get to visit Dad's special little spot in the Sierra twice in one year, and I suppose that technically this year is no different, since we were foiled in our first…
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It's been another few months, and more than half a dozen trips! As usual, the Tacoma has performed well, though it's certainly starting to show its age in a few places... mostly having to do with the emissions system. Of course, these summer months - and trips - were also the only time of year that the Tacoma is at tome here in the Pacific Northwest, and as such, the best time to perform any preventative maintenance and modifications that will carry it through the winter and into next spring. As such, in addition to the items that I've mentioned…
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Several years ago, I installed Diode Dynamics SS3 fog lights into my Relentless bumper and they've been fantastic! At the time, I wired them into a three-position - single-pole double-throw (ON-OFF-ON) - switch that I installed in the driver side kick panel, where the three positions allowed me the ability to have the fog lights: ON - turn on directly | OFF - off | ON - turn on when the low beams were on. This was great until I decided to reuse the switch location for my ABS disable switch, which set me on the path to finding another…
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For a long time, I've wanted to disable the ABS on my 1st gen Tacoma. In fact, when I originally ordered the truck in late 1999, I explicitly ordered it - more than a month before I was going to take delivery, which was quite a bit of lead time in those days - with no ABS. Unfortunately, the day I went in to pick it up - after being assured the previous week that they'd have the truck I ordered on the lot - they still hadn't acquired a truck with the options I'd requested. Instead, they had a…
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After completing the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route, we're up to nine BDRs since we started running them in 2016. Through the running of each one, @mrs.turbodb and I are - as you can imagine - regularly comparing the current BDR to the past ones. Now that I've been writing down these thoughts for the last five or so, it seems like a good tradition to continue into the future. TL;DR - The Colorado BDR - especially the northern half - is a fast BDR with plenty of varied terrain, though none of it feels all that remote, largely because Coloradans…
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After grabbing lunch in Eagle, we hopped on the freeway - a slightly embarrassing experience, given that we were aired down and travelling rather slowly - for the six-mile stint back to Gypsum and the start of Stage 5. In fact, we'd be splitting off from the main route, which follows the highway for a stretch, opting instead to run the 15-mile "Harder Alternate," rejoining the main route at the Colorado Canyon Gorge. "No Jimmy, the fish wasn't 'this big,' it was only four fingers long." Gypsum, keeping it real. Stage 5 - Gypsum to Steamboat Springs North of Gypsum…
Continue readingGypsum to Steamboat Springs and WY - Pavement and Private Land | COBDR Stage 5 and 6
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Having finally reached the summit of Mt. Antero - a place so accessible and yet not included on the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) - we were headed into Buena Vista just before 11:00am in search of something to eat. We'd learned our lesson the previous morning - having arrived in Lake City before the traditional lunch hour, opting to skip lunch, and later regretting it - and @mrs.turbodb was working the airwaves to find a good spot to stop for lunch. Half a day later - having added a highlight that every BDR adventurer should enjoy as part of…
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As we cruised down the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains, I knew it was the perfect time to take a detour. As is common on a Backcountry Discovery Route, the Colorado BDR was designed to get us from point A to point B, but not necessarily by seeing the coolest things along the way. There are many reasons for that - which I won't get into here - but in this case, just south of the stage end at Buena Vista, there was a 14,000-foot-tall peak - Mt. Antero - that I'd been trying to reach the top of…
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One of the things we've learned about running a Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) is that trying to time a stage to a day - where the day ends at the designated end (and thus beginning) of a stage - is a bad idea, at least when you're trying to camp. This is obvious once it's realized, and it makes total sense for the dual-sport bikes that BDRs are designed for, since they often use towns as places to find a roof for the night, but for a truck - where the sleeping arrangements are in the bed - it's better…
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We headed out of Telluride just after 1:00pm, and I was worried. We'd finished the entire first stage of the Colorado Backcountry Discovery Route (COBDR) in half a day, and I knew that if we didn't slow down a bit, we'd find ourselves all the way through Stage 2 - and the Alpine Loop - before sunset. And that would be terrible, because I already knew where I wanted to camp for the night, and it wasn't past the Alpine Loop. In fact, it was only about halfway through! Luckily, speed is something I could control. Well, that and we could…
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One of the very first trips we took was to run the original Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) in July 2017. In fact, we attempted a segment of the route in May on our way home from a trip to Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but lingering snow and dozens of down trees made progress painfully slow. We enjoyed it so much that every year since, we've picked another BDR to tick off the list. This year, Colorado is the name of the game, and it's one I've been looking forward to for quite some time. The route begins at…
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We had many miles - all on pavement - to cover after descending Redline FSR in British Columbia's Purcell Mountains. You see, it seems that in eastern BC, the highways run almost exclusively north-to-south, with only occasional drifts to the east or west. Since parallel roads never cross, it's only the rare instances where one highway drifts east as another drifts west that one can work their way horizontally across the province. Of course, it's not all bad. It's the spectacular mountains - often topped with glaciers - that prevent the easier east-west movement. Always a treat to wind our…
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Unlike the previous day when we'd returned from our hike at 6:00pm, we were back in the parking lot for The Lake of the Hanging Glacier a little after 2:00pm. That gave us plenty of time for a quick scrub-down with washcloths before climbing into the Tacoma for what would turn out to be the highlight of our entire trip! After a sunny morning, clouds were rolling in, but the sun still fought its way through to highlight Mt. Scarlett O'Hara from time to time. Our destination wasn't far away - less than ten miles, or however many kilometers that…
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We'd gotten up with the sun at the Farnham Emergency Hut and it wasn't yet 7:00am when we departed our 7,300-foot camp site for temporarily lower elevations. It was there - at 4,800 feet - that we'd disembark from our American Hiking Machine (the Tacoma) in favor of our own two legs, regaining all of the elevation we'd lost - and more - as we fought our way through the 10-mile trek to The Lake of the Hanging Glacier. A perfect day on Horsethief Creek. After hiking the Conrad Kain Hut during the afternoon heat of the previous day, temperatures…
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We arrived back at the Tacoma completely thrashed after hiking the Conrad Kain Hut in the Bugaboo Mountains. Still, we'd made it down the mountain in good time, giving ourselves a few hours to dash - madly - to the spot we hoped to camp for the night. Farnham. The last time we'd visited Farnham had been full of emotion. We'd made it over the sketchy bridge - adrenaline pumping - and up the narrow shelf road. We'd driven nearly to the edge of the glacier, and - gleefully - tasted a bit of the ancient ice. And - in…
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Having woken up at what @mrs.turbodb continued to remind me was 5:15am Real (Pacific) Time - and admittedly early given our long day of driving to reach British Columbia's Kootenays the previous evening - we completed our exploration of Doctor Creek FSR and rolled into Radium Hot Springs only a few minutes after 10:15am. Having enjoyed an ice cream at Screamers the last time we were through, this was high on our list of places to revisit, even if it meant a slightly later start to the hike we'd planned for the bulk of the day. Plus, ice cream is full…
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It's been almost a year since we last found ourselves north of the border, in the land of lakes and glaciers. Then, our final night necessitated a painful retreat as thunder and lightning exploded overhead and gale force winds whipped down off the glacial ridge. We were high in the Kootenays, beyond the deteriorating old bridge at Farnham, hoping the tent would remain attached to the Tacoma. Now, we're headed back. We'll work our way along the same road system, to similar elevations, and to the base of some familiar - and some new - glaciers. This time, we'll add…
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TL;DR - I've upgraded the wiring (Big 7) and alternator under the hood so that I can more quickly charge the new LiFePO4 electrical system that I recently installed.
Mo powa baby!
This is a special place to my Dad, one that he's been visiting for more than 30 years. As such, I've used names we've given to local landmarks or redacted the names of places that might be too revealing. If you recognize any of the places shown in the photos, please help to keep them special by not mentioning their names or locations. For the last eight years, I've spent a few days to a week with my Dad at his favorite camp site in the Sierra National Forest. We didn't think this year would be any different as we…
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Having slept well, we rose to foggy skies, dashing our hopes for nice morning views of the nearby mountains. This kind of weather was what we’d come to expect in Iceland - rain, fog, overcast, perpetual light, with occasional sunbreaks. It felt very familiar coming from the Pacific Northwest. It was time for breakfast! Dinner for breakfast! Specifically, Icelandic Frozen Dinner for breakfast! As we had eaten “lunch” the day before at 4:30pm, aware only of our stomachs and not the time, when it came time for dinner, surprisingly, we weren't that hungry for the frozen dinners we'd purchased in…
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