Having gotten horizontal before just after 6:00pm the previous evening, I figured it wouldn't be hard to get up by 5:00am and hoof it a few miles up the North Fork of Trail Canyon - to Aguereberry Point - in order to capture some sunrise photos. Right. Fumbling frantically for the "turn off you stupid thing," button when my alarm went off, we proceeded to sleep another two hours until our internal alarms - err, bladders - just couldn't take it anymore. With 13 hours of sleep we were doing a great job wasting precious daylight and falling even further…
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There are several places that I've wanted to check out in Death Valley for quite some time, but that haven't fit into the route or schedule for previous trips. Hoping to knock off a bunch of those places that I've "left behind," I set about planning a route that would take us along West Side Road and the eastern escarpment of the Panamint Mountains. From there, we'd repeatedly climb into the canyons, exploring the mines, narrow passages, and vistas that each had to share. It would - I thought - be a lot like our trip along the Nadeau Trail,…
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December 31, 2022. Another year in the books. Unlike previous years, there weren't any big changes to the way I planned for trips or the gear that I brought along. Rather, it was a year of small tweaks, with most of my energy going towards exploring and enjoying myself in the outdoors. Taken with the Rig Reviews, this series of posts give a good sense of what's working and what's not with the setup. So, without further ado, let's dig into what's on and in the truck at the end of 2022! Additions for 2022 are marked in red. Items…
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December 18, 2022. The final three months of 2022 have seen several more trips and the Tacoma has weathered them well (as usual). Interestingly, while the set of trips is large, the actual driving for these trips has been relatively small: Olympic Peninsula Passages (Sep 2022) Lake Hopping the Eastern Sierra (Oct 2022) Hart Homesteads (Nov 2022) Highway Hikes [on CA-190] (Nov 2022) Panamint City via Surprise Canyon (Nov 2022) Inyo East (Dec 2022) The Olympic Peninsula - while large - is located in our home state, eliminating the long drives to-and-from that have become so common. The Highway Hikes and Panamint City trips in Death…
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It was 2:00am when the light pitter patter of rain woke both @mrs.turbodb and me from our cozy sleep in the mouth of canyon on the eastern escarpment of the Inyo Mountains. "Guess I waited too long to go pee," she said. "Me too," I replied. It was the first time - in more than 80 nights in the park - I've ever experienced rain at night in Death Valley. Of course, while the whole bathroom thing was inconvenient, my biggest hope was that the rain would tail off reasonably quickly, allowing the tent to dry off before we had…
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Nestled into the mouth of an unnamed canyon of the eastern Inyo Mountains, sleep came quickly after climbing into the tent a little after 8:00pm. For five hours, everything was great - temperatures were perfect, in the low 40s °F, a gentle breeze cascaded down the canyon, and clear skies eliminated any anxiety about putting the tent away wet in the morning. Then, as if to remind us that conditions should never be taken for granted in the desert, the wind picked up. As though a switch had been flipped, gusts up to 40mph seemed to appear out of nowhere.…
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We wrapped up our long drive south as we turned onto CA-168 from Big Pine. My plan - crazy as it seems now - had been to get all the way to our first trailhead prior to calling it a day, but given that it was already 3:00am and the trip over North Pass and into Saline Valley would take another 90 minutes, it seemed prudent to find camp rather than risk needing to do so in the much colder elevations should the pass be... impassable. There was no getting up at sunrise. Nestled in a small side canyon and…
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My night on a concrete floor in Panamint City was the worst camping experience of my adult life. Really, there was nothing redeeming about any aspect of it, so entertain me while I complain momentarily, completely aware that this is all my own fault! The sleeping bag was a disaster. In fairness to @mrs.turbodb - who warned me of this when I borrowed the bag from her - the fact that I could barely fit my shoulders into the bag, much less adjust my body at all once I was mummified, was super uncomfortable. Add to the fact that it…
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For more than a year I've been trying to get to Panamint City. Despite requiring a 5.5-mile (one way) hike with more than 3,700 feet of elevation gain, trekking to-and-from this ghost town high on the western slopes of the Panamint Mountains isn't the issue. Rather, the problem presents itself once one has arrived: there is so much to explore - more than 10 miles of trail and another 5,000 feet of elevation - that there is no way to accomplish the round-trip in a single day. At least, not for this human. And this is where I should share…
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We've reached the end of the year again, a good time to look back at the last 12 months, contemplating everything that's happened and - as always - overanalyze it. Trips: 19 | Tent nights: 74 | Total photos: 4636 This year, looking through my favorite photos, I realized that more and more, I enjoy photos that don't contain the Tacoma. I don't know why this is exactly, and I don't expect that there will be fewer Tacoma shots in the future - it is the roaming gnome of my adventures - but I find it to be an interesting…
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Love this thing!
TL;DR - I don't ever really mention them, but my Canon R6 and lenses are doing great.
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These are the best fuel canisters out there. They are hard to get in the United States, but if you can, you should.
TL;DR - I've begun to carry three, 20L Scepter military jerry cans full of fuel and despite the extra weight, it's been great.
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Is this cavity ever dry? In real life?
TL;DR - The seal in the transmission that accepts the input shaft from the transmission is leaking and needs to be replaced.
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Caked dust - a telltale sign of a slow leak.
TL;DR - the form in place gasket (FIPG) used to seal the carrier to the rear axle housing is leaking just a tad and needs replacing.
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The detail of our location using BCN (left) and Gaia (right).
TL;DR - For years I've used Backcountry Navigator. After checking out Gaia on our last trip, I'm considering a switch.
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End of the road.
TL;DR - The zipper finally failed catastrophically. Both CVT and YKK had amazing customer service and solved the problem in different ways.
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That's not right either. After running on this for two miles or so at 65mph, even though it looks pretty normal, the tire is toast.
TL;DR - I got my third Cooper ST/Maxx flat ever, all on the same set (my fourth) of tires. I still think they are one of the best tires out there.
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Older SPC UCAs with SpecRide bushings vs. newer arms with the X-Axis joint.
TL;DR - I no longer recommend SPC upper control arms (UCAs) if they contain X-Axis bushings.
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The full report, minus my deets.
TL;DR - I had my first oil analysis done, and with 235K miles on the Tacoma, it came back great.
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It was shortly after 2:00pm when I arrived at the trailhead for my next destination. Literally parked along the shoulder of CA-190, anyone driving by might surely wonder, "why is a person parked here?" I know I was wondering why a white Tacoma was parked in the same spot, almost exactly one year earlier. Like the time of day, to the casual observer, there's nothing remotely remarkable about this place - though with a little knowledge, both the time and place become noteworthy. The time, because I had only a little over two hours - before sunset - to complete…
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