I'm not sure "on Earth" is really true, and there isn't really a hill, anymore, but we'll get to that in a moment. Butte was by far the largest city - or town, if you ask @mrs.turbodb - that we'd pass through on the Montana Backcountry Discovery Route (MTBDR). Being the hub between Stage 2 and Stage 3 was nice, as it meant that anyone who had run into trouble on the first couple of stages could pop into a local auto parts store or shop to get those issues addressed, before tackling the final six stages. And the three…
16 CommentsCategory: Epic
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Virginia City - a self-described ghost town; full of living people. After surviving the sloppy descent into Virginia City, we wasted no time in fueling up and getting back on the road. We'd covered significantly less ground than we'd planned to on the first day of the Montana Backcountry Discovery Route (MTBDR), and @mrs.turbodb had informed me that we would need to cover 200 miles per day from here on out if we were going to complete the route in the time we'd allotted. That's a tall order - even for us - but we hoped that the long mid-summer…
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It's summer, and that means it's time for our annual run at another BDR (Backcountry Discovery Route). We've been doing these for a decade now, and - at least for the western states' routes - we're starting to run out of options! Luckily, the good folks over at RideBDR must have a sixth sense about these kinds of things, because just a few weeks before our departure, they released what they called the "final link in the Western BDR system," a 900-mile route from the southern border between Idaho and Montana to the Canadian border. Getting There As always, the…
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I have been sorely lacking in my rig reviews as of late. In fact, it's been nine months since my last look at what's been working well - and not so well - with the Tacoma, and so rather than just a few trips between this and the previous review, there are 14 trips! Three quarters of a year is a long time for things to get a little wonky out in the wild, and there were a few things that definitely needed some attention, though as usual there were no real major problems; the Tacoma continues to be an…
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Our tent is old. That's a good thing, I think. We've had it since we started this whole adventure thing, now almost exactly a decade ago. It's performed well during that time, and though I've often lusted after something GFC-ish, I can't say that the tent has ever let us down in any way that a much more expensive camper would have solved. In fact, there are really only three features I've found myself "missing" - if one can miss something they've never had - in well over 1,000 nights sleeping above the bed of the truck. A hardshell wedge…
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TL;DR - My 26-year-old door handle finally broke, and I've replaced it with a metal one.
There are so many things I've loved about my Tacoma since the first day I got it. Nowhere on that list has been any of the stock lighting. Over the years, I've taken care of the most prominent offenders. My first mod - back when the truck was still just a truck - was disabling the daytime running lights. Then, mostly to finish the "look" I was going for (I was explicitly trying to copy another truck I thought looked great at the time) I added Hellas to my front bumper. But it wasn't until I added fog lights -…
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There's no camp site more special than the one I visit with Dad every year in the Sierra. I've been going for a lot less time than he has - though he assures me that I'm gaining on him, as a percentage of my age to his - but we've both come to enjoy the time we spend there each summer. It was a shock then, when we found our favorite spot inaccessible last summer! With 459 trees down over the road - some of them more than 4 feet in diameter - there was no way we could clear…
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While Tacoma troubles may have prevented me reaching the summit of Waucoba Mountain on the first day of my trip, my failure to reach the top of Mt. Tom on the second day had me hoping for a bit of redemption. Luckily, I had a final day in my schedule before I had to head to the other side of the Sierra for a trip with Pops, so I decided to backtrack in the hopes of knocking one more summit off my list of Death Valley High Points. Wanting to get an early start, I arrived at the trailhead -…
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It was dark at 4:00am, but the moon was out and I could see just the hint of light on the horizon as I pulled on a sweatshirt and began folding up the tent. Camped at just under 7,400 feet, I'd gotten my first good night of sleep in three days, banking nearly ten hours of shut-eye as a cool Sierra breeze streamed down the canyon overnight. I'd need every minute of that recharge; the day was going to be a doozy. Not that I ever really stood any chance of keeping up with Matt @theesotericone. By 4:17am, I started…
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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. Surprisingly, it wasn't my flight on Frontier - which sported the Piper the Pelican livery - where the problems began. 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…
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Putting Bannister House behind us for the time being, we continued our trek through Grand Gulch towards Pollys Canyon. There wasn't a chance we'd make it all the way in a single day - that would be backpacking insanity - but we still wanted to get a few more miles under our belt before calling it quits for the day. In fact, we were hoping to get to the Big Pour - where I'd heard from the BLM that there was some "doesn't look great" water, since it's always nice to have plenty of water for dinner, a face wash…
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Last year, we got our second taste of Grand Gulch, and even before we returned home, I knew I wanted to hike the whole thing. Not all at once - I'm insane, but not that insane - but over the course of several trips. Almost immediately we knocked out a big chunk of the route when we took @mini.turbodb on her first ever - and still only - backpacking trip, putting a serious dent in the northern half of the Gulch in the process. Note: she has not - to date - requested a repeat performance. She does still speak…
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Having had a wonderful three days in Butte Valley and the Panamint Mountains, our flight out of Las Vegas wasn't until 8:00pm, which afforded us an unusual opportunity: a leisurely morning in camp and plenty of time to work our way east. Knowing this, we'd also planned to take care of a few items we'd deferred on the last several trips - washing the Tacoma, vacuuming the interior of the cab, unloading all of the recycling that'd been piling up in the Trasharoo since December - all things that needed doing, but "eventually." Anyway, things were going to plan as…
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Energized after our morning climb up Striped Butte, we'd pretty much wrapped up everything I'd planned for our three days in Butte Valley. Still, a big part of a visit to this Shangri-La is the 4wd route through Mengel Pass and Goler Wash - both of which had been heavily impacted by storms in late 2025 - so exiting out to Panamint Valley would give us a chance to check out the road conditions as well as a couple other attractions that I was curious about along the way. Goodbye, Striped Butte, you were as mesmerizing as always! Making it…
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Good morning, Striped Butte. Unlike the previous morning - where I'd been so excited to be in Butte Valley that I'd woken up nearly an hour before sunrise - I was able to sleep in a little later on our second morning. But not much. The reason was right out the tent window. There was - so to speak - an elephant in the valley. An elephant known as Striped Butte. For all my love of this place, we'd never climbed its imposing slopes, and I knew that if we didn't climb them today, it could be years before we'd…
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I was so excited to be camped in my favorite spot in all of Death Valley National Park - with an amazing view of Striped Butte - that I was ready to go even before our alarm went off in the morning. Is it time yet? Knowing that I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, I wiggled my way out of bed and down the ladder to grab my phone and a battery pack that I could use to set up a timelapse of sunrise in this special place. Good morning, Striped Butte. Like the feeling of relief that…
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We were parked on the alluvial fan of Warm Springs Canyon, which is a fancy way of saying we'd voluntarily set up camp at the mouth of a wind tunnel. A tunnel that - not long after we got settled in bed - was, predictably, performing flawlessly. Luckily, we'd oriented the tent in such a way that we were in no danger of it folding up with us inside, so after closing the door flap - to prevent direct hits from the oncoming blasts - we were rocked to sleep through the remainder of the night. We'd both wish we'd…
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Ever since our very first trip to Death Valley - when we passed through Butte Valley for a single night - I've loved this little pocket of paradise in the Panamint Mountains. While many seem to take joy in the cabins sprinkled around its perimeter, the highlight - for me - has always been a pile of granite boulders with the most fabulous view of Striped Butte. I am not the first to enjoy this place; it has certainly been a resting point for thousands of years. Still, I've never spent more than a few daylight hours in this wonderful…
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After two days and more than 25 miles backpacking across Grand Canyon Esplanade, where temperatures exceeded 95°F, we were ready for something a little less strenuous. And cooler. What better way to get both of those things than wandering - or in our case, hobbling - into a lava tube that's often sporting a little ice in the back corners, even on the hottest of days! Having made the decision to high-tail it out of camp in search of a soft bed, warm shower, and nachos at one of our favorite eateries, we had several hours of wheeled travel ahead…
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