May 24, 2019. We once again slept well - the rushing river providing a nice white noise through the dry night. In a canyon, I knew there was no rush to get up for the sunrise, and it was late (for us) before we even considered pulling ourselves out of bed. One of the great things about this particular camp site was that it happened to be across the Imnaha River from a trailhead that had the potential to be quite amazing - a trail that followed the river downstream to its confluence with the Snake - the same confluence…
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Get out, go big, an explore. This is the stuff we live for!
May 23, 2019. (still) Had we blinked as we passed through Imnaha, we might have missed it as we set out down Lower Imnaha Road. The first six miles of this road are paved, but we'd been warned by 100 Hikes / Travel Guide: Eastern Oregon that beyond that point we were in for a whole different experience... At this point the Lower Imnaha Road suddenly becomes a rutted, steep one-lane dirt road strewn with rocks. Turn back if you don’t like the first 100 yards, because this typifies the 25.4 miles ahead. Vehicles must be driven so slowly on this rugged…
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It was a chilly night at 5300', but our strategic position behind the ridge line meant that we were unaffected by the bulk of the wind - a knit cap enough to keep me cozy, and @mrs.turbodb wanting only for her earplugs in the morning when the birds started singing. And it was early when they did - sunrise was at 5:07am, and the first light on the horizon started well before 4:30am, spreading across the sky in its glorious trek. Eventually, there was enough light to illuminate Imnaha Canyon below us - the hills and valleys unfolding into the…
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Summer in the Pacific Northwest is hard to beat. So, I wouldn't blame you for wondering why - with a week of sun and 75°F in store before Memorial Day - we were headed for the inclement weather of the Oregon-Idaho border and Hells Canyon. So let's start there. In what I believe to be a tradition that I've stumbled into, Monte @Blackdawg and Mike @Digiratus generally get together for a trip every Memorial Day, and this year the plan was go meet up in Lewiston, ID for a few days of puttering around and enjoying ourselves in the outdoors.…
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The wind that had been relentless the day before died down over the next several hours, resulting in the most pleasant night of the trip. Oriented just so, there was no need to get up in the morning to enjoy the sunrise either - something I'm sure I'll forget by the next time we go out. A full day ahead, we didn't linger long under the covers, both of us out of the tent by 6:30am - our long shadows playing across the playa, Steens Mountain towering to our west - so we could get breakfast eaten and the tent…
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April 26, 2019. I don't know what the deal is exactly, but it seems that last year was a year of trips with rain and snow, and this year - at least so far - it's all about the wind. It was so windy through the night that at some point I closed the door to the tent just to give us a bit of a reprieve from the insidious cold that kept pushing it's way under our comforters. As the sun rose, so did the wind speeds - clouds zooming across the sky, Earth's natural kaleidoscope. I popped out…
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April 25, 2019. It'd been several weeks since my last trip and as usual that meant I had a bad case of the shakes. Spring is such a frustrating time from an adventure perspective - the weather seems so nice, and yet everywhere interesting is still covered in snow. And, the winter staple - the desert - is getting hot. You can imagine my delight when a check of the weather showed that the Alvord Desert - a place we'd visited for the first time last October - was going to have weather in the mid-70's. From my perspective, we hadn't…
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I was sure to get up early for our last morning in Utah - our location on the top of a plateau ideal for capturing the sunrise over Bears Ears. As it does, the light started subtly, working it's way to brilliant oranges and pinks above the horizon - one of the best sunrises we'd had all trip. But, that was seriously misleading. Behind me to the south west, a south westerly breeze was pushing clouds on the horizon closer. They were far enough away that I didn't even take notice as I climbed back into my tent to enjoy…
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March 28, 2019. It was a chilly night - at least compared to the last - our tents covered in a layer of frozen dew when I awoke in the morning. A quick glance out the window was enough for me to realize that no spectacular sunrise would be visible from our location, so I pulled out my Kindle and finished reading whatever action-thriller I'd been in the middle of at the time. That didn't take long - there hadn't been much left, so I pulled on a couple layers of clothes and climbed into the truck to finish writing…
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March 27, 2019. Unlike basically every other night where wind and snow were possible in the forecast, this night turned out to be just as pleasant as the last , and when my alarm went off for sunrise, I was well-rested and ready to see what the day had in store. I wasn't disappointed. And, I was lucky. After snapping a few photos around camp, a high cloud cover began to develop, and I took the cue to climb back into bed for a couple more hours of shut-eye. That turned out to be a great thing since - as…
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Bobby Jo camp couldn't have provided a more pleasant place for us to sleep for the night - temperatures just right and only a light breeze to keep the air moving around within the tent. Having hit the sack relatively early, I'd been sure to set my alarm for sunrise - hopeful for just a few clouds, I was keen to catch the needles silhouetted in the morning light. As I climbed up onto one of the house-sized rocks around camp, it was clear that we were going to have a great day, but I wasn't sure what sunrise would…
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Before heading to bed, Monte (@Blackdawg) tried his best to prep us for what lay ahead. "It's a long hike." he said. "We can make it 10 miles or even 14, depending on the route we take. But don't worry, it's mostly flat." Well, it wasn't mostly flat - except maybe on his computer screen. But of course, I'm getting ahead of myself. Nestled in our little alcove on BLM land just west of Canyonlands National Park, it was obvious when we went to bed that there wasn't going to be any spectacular sunrise - the landscape just didn't lend…
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Just before our two trips to Anza-Borrego, Monte @Blackdawg reached out to see if we were interested in a late-March trip to Canyonlands and some hiking of a few nearby slot canyons - perhaps even some that we'd attempted in our F.U.Rain trip last year. Not really realizing how close it was (5 days) to the completion of our trip, and definitely not realizing the work that would need to be done to the truck between trips, I responded in the only way I knew how. Interested.turbodb As it turned out, it was a mad dash between trips. I had…
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Hills of the Moon Wash turned out to be a great place to spend the night - the the air was calm, just a light breeze that kept us cool and comfortable through the night. The surrounding hills also afforded plenty of privacy, and afforded us a bit of relief from the bright moon, once it got below their ridge lines. Of course, the hills - and lack of any clouds in the sky - also meant that we weren't going to see the horizon at sunrise, instead settling for the orange glow that accompanies the waking of a new…
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The night was one of the most pleasant we've spent in the tent - no wind to speak of, which meant that all the windows were down and the nearly full moon illuminated the rocky landscape around us until it set along the western horizon around 3:00am. Knowing that this could be a great place to catch sunrise, I'd set my alarm for 6:30am to make sure that I didn't miss it - so when I woke up just a few minutes before it went off, I decided I might as well get myself going. After all, I could see…
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For 10 days, we lived our normal lives. As it were, a cold existence in the Pacific Northwest. We'd left with snow on the ground, and we returned to a few small patches remaining. And then it snowed the first night we were home. Needless to say, we missed the southern California weather! But, extremely happy with our decision to double-up on the adventure, we knew that it wouldn't be long before we hopped back on a plane that would take us away from the clouds and back to the "weather's-so-nice-our-airport-doesn't-need-a-roof" Palm Springs airport. As we drove back to Anza-Borrego, it…
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March 3, 2019. Having gone to bed with the wind howling, it only got worse as the night progressed. Having experienced these extremely strong winds in the CVT a few times now, and knowing that the ladder side of the tent was well-weighed down, I knew that the tent would be OK; my stress level lower than it had been the first couple times we'd been in this situation. With earplugs in, we slept reasonably well through the night, though we were awoken for a few of the more violent gusts. In the morning, I'd tell @mrs.turbodb that a constant…
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We slept well through the night, our location mostly sheltered from the strong winds. What little wind made it to the tent was easily quieted by ear plugs, making for a peaceful night sleep. Most of the night passed uneventfully - a fact we were happy for given the weather report we'd seen the day before. We were right on the edge of a weather system - areas to the west expecting rain all day, areas to the east predicted to be dry. But then, around 5:00am, a pitter-patter on the rain fly - we hadn't escaped the rain fully.…
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We slept well through the night - my only complaint really being that at 55º-60ºF, it was too warm and I woke up a bit sweaty somewhere around 2:00am. It was a simple enough fix to remove one of the comforters from my side, and I quickly fell back asleep until my sunrise alarm went off way too early. I wasn't sure exactly when sunrise was going to be, so I'd set the alarm for 5:15am. Turns out that 5:45am would have been a better time to catch the morning color. Perhaps a bit out of character, @mrs.turbodb was keen…
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Oh man, was this going to be fun. A trip like no other (so far). A trip with a twist. A trip that was actually two. Let me explain. For a while now, Anza Borrego Desert State Park in California has been on my list of places to explore. Like Death Valley - which we've visited quite a bit and recently hiked for three days - it's a great place to visit during the winter because temperatures in the summer can get rather unbearable - so much so that certain roads in the park are closed from mid-June to September. The…
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