Stage 1 - Pahrump to Oatman Like many of the medium-sized towns along the NVBDR, Pahrump has - I assume - grown since the route was created. As such, some of the roads that were once dirt have been paved, and we found ourselves on pavement for longer than we expected as we made our way south out of town, passing cross streets and developments that weren't even on our map. Eventually though we reached dirt, and thus began one of the least enjoyable segments of the entire BDR. (How's that for a glowing endorsement for the area south of…
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All the trips - because every trip is an adventure!
Stage 2 - Gold Point to Pahrump As you may recall from the previous story, we left off in Gold Point - so far, our favorite sort-of-ghost-town of the trip, and I promised two naked ladies and a penguin in the desert. I should warn you now - I probably oversold it. But anyway, let's get started. A little before 11:00am, we pulled out of Gold Point, excited for the next segment of our adventure, and happy to be back in the truck and out of the already 94°F heat that was getting oppressive in the desert. In the distance,…
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Stage 3 - Tonopah to Gold Point As we exited Tonopah, @mrs.turbodb and I were more than a little curious about the route we'd take to Goldfield. We've driven the 27 mile stretch of US-95 more than a few times on our trips down and back from Death Valley and it just doesn't seem like there's much out there in the way of dirt roads and alternate routes. And as it turns out, we were right! For the first 10 miles or so, we simply travelled the old (but still paved) US-95 that apparently works its way south just to…
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Stage 4 - Austin to Tonopah. Our fuel tank once again topped off, we immediately climbed out of Austin and into the mountains to the south. We didn't have far to go though - just outside this historic little town is a the craziest little castle tower - Stokes Castle. Built on the mountainside overlooking the Reese River Valley, the three-story castle was built in 1897 by Anton Stokes - a wealthy mine owner and builder of the Nevada Central Railway. Constructed of native granite slabs, it was made to resemble a villa that Stokes had admired outside of Rome.…
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Stage 5 - Elko to Austin It was just after 5:00pm as we rolled out of Elko after fueling up. This, technically, had been the end of our first stage - but with several hours of daylight left and dirt roads calling our name, we felt no need to call end our adventure early! On that note - something @mrs.turbodb and I find interesting about the Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) stages is that they all start and end in towns. This - to me - doesn't make any sense. I mean sure, it's easier to map from one town to…
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Introduction It seems that every year for the last several years, we've run a BDR - a Backcountry Discovery Route - during the summer. This year, as we were in the middle of our adventure, I wondered aloud to @mrs.turbodb - "How'd we get started with these anyway?" A bit of pondering and theorizing and we determined that it was really just dumb luck. Well, not luck so much as misfortune. See, back in 2017, we'd gone camping with my Dad and Uncle down to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Actually, it was the same trip where we'd…
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The next couple of days flew by faster than I think any of us expected - or wanted. We shouldn't have been surprised, really, because that always seems to happen when you're somewhere fun and surrounded by people whose company is enjoyable. And while the weather got a little more overcast - and a little cooler - they were still pleasant and went a little something like this... I'd set my alarm for right around sunrise. Actually no, it was well before sunrise - maybe 45 minutes or so - when I'd climb out of bed, grab the camera and…
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Prologue This was a trip I'd been waiting for. Well, not this trip exactly, but a trip to this location - - in the Sierra National Forest. See, after our last trip there, Pops and I regularly chatted about our next chance to visit this special place - we'd planned for it to happen in early July, but we'd both been keeping an eye on snow levels and road-and-forest status since January. At that time, COVID-19 wasn't something we were concerned about at all, but as winter turned to spring... and as the snow levels dropped, the closed status of…
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Any other year, a trip to Icicle Creek near Leavenworth, WA in early June would be our second or third visit of the season. But with everything going on this year, the Forest Service delayed opening of the road - generally used to access campgrounds and trailheads until after Memorial Day weekend. In fact, even as we visited, all of the developed campgrounds and several of the trailhead parking lots were still closed to encourage social distancing and prevent the spread of the virus. Still, as we drove up Icicle Creek Road, we found ourselves happy to be able to…
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With canyon walls around us, and clouds in the sky, I didn't even set my alarm when we went to bed - so sure was I that sunrise would be a non-event. But, as often happens, my internal alarm woke me at just the right time. A quick peek out the tent door, and it was apparent that somewhere - just out of sight - was orange. Though it was chilly, I climbed out of bed and realized that I might actually have a shot if I climbed to the top of the canyon wall. Time wasn't on my side…
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As the third rain shower of the night hit camp, we all decided it was time for bed, and the fire got put away as we retired to our respective perches to the pitter patter of raindrops - which, along with the nearby gurgling of the creek, lulled us to sleep. It rained on and off through the first half of the night, but by morning the rain had passed and the skies were mostly clear - a great way to start the day. In a depression and with clouds still on the eastern horizon, there was no point in…
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By some stroke of luck, our hope - that it wouldn't rain any more after we climbed into our tents - was realized and then some. A strong breeze blew all night, not only keeping the tents free of any dew, but also helping to dry out the roads - at least a smidge. This morning in camp was a reunion of sorts. For all of us obviously, since it was our first real group trip of the year (though I'd seen Ben and Kirsten in Death Valley for a single day a few months earlier) - but mainly for…
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We'd just been to the Owyhee area, but when the opportunity presented itself to get together with Mike @Digiratus, Zane @Speedytech7, Ben @m3bassman and Kirsten for Memorial Day, we knew we had to go back - the lure of getting together to enjoy the outdoors with friends, greater than the desire to explore somewhere new. Plus, even though we were in the same general area, we were able to come up with an itinerary that wouldn't exactly repeat what we'd done just a few weeks before. That is, if all went according to plan. Like all trips, this one wouldn't…
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Where did we leave off? Oh yes, ...as we pulled out our Kindle Paperwhites and snuggled down in the comforters, I looked at @mrs.turbodb and mentioned to her that if the cloud cover brought rain during the night, we should probably get ourselves out of bed and make a run for the plateau - so we weren't stuck here should the road become impassable. We dozed off around 8:30pm and slept soundly until 12:04am - when the pitter-patter of rain on the tent awoke me from my sleep... Not the least bit thrilled with the situation, I shook @mrs.turbodb awake.…
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It was nearing 9:00am when we pulled out of our sheltered camp spot on the southern edge of the Jordan Craters lava flow. As we started back on the windy road to the south, @mrs.turbodb suggested an addition to the day's itinerary - a visit to a small ghost town in the Idaho uplands: Silver City. It'd mean adding a few hours to our day, but with our only plan being the southernly drive to Three Forks Hot Springs, I figured it was totally achievable. So, instead of south, we headed east - back into the Owyhee Uplands, though along…
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Refueled and windows cleaned, we left Jordan Valley, Oregon - heading west on on Highway 95. Our destination was Jordan Craters - a 3,200 year young lava flow - one of the youngest on the continent. We'd visited Coffeepot Crater - a large, breached cinder cone that is the source of the most recent flows - nearly four years earlier on our very first trip to the Owyhee Canyonlands, and this time we were headed for the opposite side of the 29 square mile flow. There were a couple places along the south side of the flow that I'd spotted…
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In all of our trips to the Owyhee area, we've only ever really explored the western half - the Owyhee Canyonlands. Of course, there's some really cool stuff there - Three Forks, Coffepot Crater, the Honeycombs, Snively Hot Springs, and Juniper Gulch - but the Owyhee area is quite a lot larger than its Oregon acreage. With this trip, we were going to change all that - and then some! Our plan - at least at the beginning - was to hit up the Owyhee Uplands Backcountry Byway, a ~100 mile journey from Grand View, Idaho to Jordan Valley, Oregon,…
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The day started off like so many others in the last several weeks - we woke up in our own beds. We didn't wake up early... or late, it was just the normal time. And, we knew - or at least, I thought we knew - what we were going to do today: like the days before, we were going to shelter in place! Now, that wasn't all bad. See, yesterday @mini.turbdb and I had - unless you talk to her, in which case she would say she had - made up a batch of cinnamon rolls, which we were…
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Even with earplugs, sleep was hard to come by with 20mph winds buffeting the tent and shaking the truck. That meant that as the light outside started to change, we were both already awake and it was no trouble at all to hop out of the tent to capture what turned out to be a colorful - if distant - sunrise! With this being our last morning to explore - a 20-hour drive home mandating that we leave the area by mid-day, we promptly retreated back under our comforters for a few minutes to soak up a little more warmth…
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As you may recall, we'd just cancelled our flight home due to the unknowns of Covid-19, but were still in exploration mode as we entered the Valley of Fire State Park in southeastern Nevada. Our trip to the Valley of Fire was somewhat opportunistic to say the least. A year before this trip ever even crossed my mind, I'd seen a photo on Flickr that had caught my eye. Sharp as ever, I completely forgot to save the photo or a link to the photo , but - luckily for me - the photo had been geotagged and I'd saved…
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