Prologue For the first time in five years, the "annual" TacomaWorld trip has morphed into two trips. I suppose, technically, I should call it a trip-and-a-half, given the debacle that became Half a Trip in Montana, but I prefer to see the glass always full (there's always something in there)…
13 CommentsCategory: Trip Reports
All the trips - because every trip is an adventure!
Our exit from Big Rocks Wilderness after lunch on Thursday gave us only a few hours in the afternoon -- and a couple hours the following morning - before heading to Las Vegas for our $27 flights home on Spirit Airlines. How Spirit can provide flights for so little money…
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The Pahranagat Valley and its surrounding wilderness' have been my nemesis throughout 2023. I set out in January - nearly a year ago now - to follow the Pahranagat Trail in search of rock art that I'd discovered through the trip reports of other intrepid explorers. Ultimately - and luckily,…
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As was the warning that crackled over the military scanner for one of the most exhilarating moments of the trip, this story is a short one. - - - - - As you may recall, we'd camped as close as we could to a random point in the middle of…
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Moonlit headframe. We arrived at Nivloc at what appeared to be midnight but was - according to multiple timekeeping devices - only a bit before 8:30pm. Still, even under the bight-as-day moon, we knew better than to poke around this old ghost-town-mine-site in the dark, so we unfolded the tent,…
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Hoping to get some photos before the sun was up and the cabin-under-a-rock was lost to the shadows, I set my alarm for too-dark-o'clock, and hit the snooze button a couple of times before finally pulling on my pants and climbing down the ladder to a beautiful morning. Even before…
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One of the dots I'd hoped to connect on our trip through Nevada was hiking to the top of Boundary Peak in the White Mountains. Boundary is an interesting peak. Appropriately, it sits on a boundary - the state line between Nevada and California. At 13,147 feet, it's the highest…
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I don't know how cold it was when my alarm went off just before sunrise in the Tobin Range, but despite the fact that we were several thousand feet lower in elevation, it felt colder than waking up at the top of Lamoille Canyon. The fact that the entire tent…
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It was refreshing 6°F as we emerged from the tent on the first morning of our trip. Without a doubt, @mrs.turbodb's statement the previous afternoon as we pounded away the miles in the warmth of the Tacoma - "We're headed south to the Arctic" - was top of mind. I'd…
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After climbing into our tents to escape the oncoming storm, wind gusts and rain continued in fits and spurts for the next several hours. Even with my tent now tied down, a stronger-than-normal gust lifted it - with me inside - six inches, a situation I was forced to remedy…
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After a long camp fire, sleep came easy on the edge of the field, 8,000 feet in the Flint Creek Range. And, with Mike @Digiratus and Zane @Speedytech7 tucked into the trees, there was plenty of time for me to send the flying camera up into the sky for an…
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Having only gotten a few hours of shuteye before setting off on this adventure, the cool night air of western Montana - somewhere in the low 30s °F - made my cozy down comforters the perfect place to snuggle in for one of the best nights of sleep I've had…
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Since my first fateful trip with "the guys" from TacomaWorld in 2017, we've tried our best to get together every summer for an adventure. That's not to say that things haven't changed as some of the young guns - once carefree as school let out for the summer - have…
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When you visit a place time after time, features that were once remarkable or breathtaking can start to seem normal or even become mundane. I don't think that's happened with me yet as I've visited over the years - or with my Dad over the decades that he's been enjoying…
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There's no denying it - I'm getting older. Sure, there are the little things - injuries take a bit longer to heal, there's more than a bit of gray hair on my body, and I find myself saying things like, "I remember when candy bars used to cost 45¢." But…
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For the sixth time in as many years, I'm headed to a special spot in the Sierra of eastern California to enjoy a few days of wandering, chatting, and relaxation with my Dad. Having found this place more than 30 years ago, it's now the only place he camps anymore. If…
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With @mini.turbodb getting bigger, only two viable seats in the Tacoma, and having sold the family 4Runner, it's a lot harder to get the whole family out to our favorite camp site on a regular basis. Of course, with @mini.turbodb getting older, the thought of spending time in the woods…
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Having gone to bed with smoke so thick that we could barely see the mountains a few hundred feet away, and wondering if the smart move would be to head home rather than push through the remainder of the Siskiyou Crest Adventure Trail, I let out an audible whoop as…
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Perched along Whisky Ridge, we hoped that the cool breeze blowing through the tent would sweep away some of the smoky haze that had accumulated the previous afternoon. Alas, we had no such luck, evidenced by the orange glow extending far from the horizon as the sun worked its way…
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With much of our summer taken up with a kitchen remodel - perhaps a non-adventure story that I'll share some details of once we've completed it - and the Tacoma in Washington after we abandoned our non-refundable plane tickets after running the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route (UTBDR) in July, we…
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