It was a photo I found online of the Virginia May mine that sold me on a nine-mile long hike into a remote region of the Turtle Mountains. It's not like I really needed a reason to hike in the Turtles. Every time I've ventured beyond their wilderness boundary has been spectacular, my most recent memory being The Perfect Day for Something Stupid. It was the description that went along with the photo that really baffled me (highlight mine): The Virginia May Mine (also known as the Horn Mine) had been on my "To Do" list for years. It was…
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During the summer of 2020 - it is safe to say - the world had its hands full even before a fire began near Cima Dome on August 15. Caused by a lightning strike, it grew rapidly for the first 36 hours, aided by weather conditions and a lack of available firefighting resources. During this period the Dome Fire burned more than a quarter of the Cima Dome Joshua tree forest, one of the largest and densest populations of Joshua trees known in the world. By the time the fire was contained on August 24, there were no human injuries…
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Just as with the Dewey Mine, there's been a rock art site in the heart of the Mojave Preserve that I've known about for several years but have never visited. So, when Mike @mk5 and I were coordinating a couple days of Joshua Tree planting, I was thrilled when - along with all the meals he wanted to cook for @mrs.turbodb and me - he piped up with: Another thing that didn't occur to me until now... but given your interest in historic rock vandalism, perhaps we could track some down up there, as part of a planting hike? m(never-seen-rock-art)k5…
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I always look forward to winter. Not to the snow - though a day swishing down the slopes is always enjoyable - or for the cozy afternoons enjoying popcorn and a movie, but because they mean that it is time - once again - to explore the desert. Having wrapped up the last of the work on the Tacoma - a new 5th gear and some major repair work to the bed - while it was housed at home, the end of October meant that it was time for the long drive south to escape the cold, wet weather of…
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@mrs.tubodb had no idea what I was doing as I ran around outside the tent at 2:00am, but she knows I'm a little nuts, so after hearing me trip on a rock as I scurried to-and-fro, she confirmed that I was OK and fell back asleep. After about half an hour of stumbling, I too was back under the warm covers, where I stayed until well past sunrise, the camera I'd setup to capture the event mistakenly left on nighttime settings such that every photo of fantastic light on the mountain was both washed out and grainy. Amazing what Lightroom…
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When I first started exploring in the Tacoma, one of my buddies - Ben @m3bassman - mentioned nonchalantly that he had gotten out to camp at least once every calendar month of the year. That sounded amazing to me, and so for six years I repeatedly failed at actually accomplishing the same feat. Sure, there were some months where I'd get out two or three times, my annual average higher than the one-per-month I was after, but no matter how hard I tried, it seemed like I'd miss a month here or there for some lame reason. Finally - with…
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The rain that'd begun just as we were settling in for our post-sunrise, pre-breakfast nap only ended up lasting for about half an hour, a quarter of the time that our InAccuweather app suggested that water would be falling from the sky. And that meant we could stop - in the middle of the forest - for some sustenance. Breakfast time under nature's umbrella. After picking up a few aluminum cans that were strewn about, we figured that our proximity to Halfmoon Peak - and the fact that we could stay dry in the Tacoma, all the way to the…
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After a 12-mile hike through Tetrahedron Provincial Park, we'd planned only a single hike on the following day. That, and I'd also found a couple of extensive looking trail systems on Gaia, and figured that we could end up wasting away much of the day searching for overlooks as we wandered our way through the forest. It was 9:30am as we wound our way through the trees toward Mt. Richardson Provincial Park. Unsurprisingly in a region where logging is king, there were roads on the ground that were not on our maps. Newly graded and covered with bright 3-inch stone…
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Having had a successful first day on the Sunshine Coast, we hoped our second day would be one of the most dramatic - at least, from a view perspective - given the effort that was going to be necessary over the next several hours. With the amount of dew on the alders, the Tacoma started out the day with an organic carwash. Arrival at the trailhead. Our plan - a hike to the summit of Mt. Steele in Tetrahedron Provincial Park - entailed a 12+ mile (20km) hike along long-lost mining roads, through temperate rain forest, past a series of…
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A few minutes after setting off - just before 5:00am - I realized that we've been doing this whole exploration thing entirely wrong for the last eight years. That's because our first stop was only minutes from home, for half a dozen servings at our favorite healthy breakfast spot - Family Donut. Daily calorie allocation exceeded before sunrise. With a schedule to keep - we had a ferry to catch - we managed to eat only one donut each before climbing back into the Tacoma. And, with a strict "no eating messy food in the truck" policy - of which…
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It was 8:40am when we finished airing up at the Rady Creek FSR (Forest Service Road) trailhead. Still reasonably early, we weren't in any rush as far as our daily itinerary was concerned, but I knew that it took about 45 minutes to reach the Galena Bay ferry - departing for Shelter Bay at 9:30am - from our current location, so we zipped along at a good pace on our way toward the terminal. The N52010 Fire smoldered at the base of Mt. Murray in the Lardeau Range as we passed by. Terminal - in the case of Galena Bay…
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In all my exploring, there are few places that I've returned to for a third time. Off the top of my head, I can list only a few: a special little spot in the California Sierra where my Dad and I meet each year, the Alvord Playa in southeast Oregon, and Butte Valley in my favorite National Park. I first visited Rady back in September of 2021 after hearing about it from Mike @POSTacoMike and watching a video that Shaun put together about the deactivation of the road that climbed high into the Kootenays of British Columbia. At the time,…
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I'm not a huge fan of airing up tires, so once we've aired down on a trip, I generally try to stay aired down until the trip is over and we're pounding pavement towards home. Today though, we had 350 miles of pavement - and a ferry to catch - between Lillooet and our next item on the agenda along Upper Arrow Lake, so we took the time to run the ARB compressor and get the new Kenda Klever RTs up to full pressure before speeding along at 100 mph. Err, km/h, which is basically the same, right? Just outside of…
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One of the greatest things about the Pacific Northwest are the summers. While many months of the year are cool, wet, and gray, summers are defined by blue skies, pleasantly warm temperatures, and lush landscapes - the perfect combination for adventures into the unknown. Looking for the perfect getaway, wildfires blazing from Oregon to Montana made our usual spots a little less appealing. Widening our search area, I wondered if Canada - which I've visited a few times, but @mrs.turbodb has never explored in the Tacoma - could be the perfect solution. And so, we're headed into British Columbia, to…
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After climbing into our tents under smoky skies, we awoke to a morning that was much brighter - and much bluer - than I think any of us expected. No one mentioned it - we're all too superstitious for that - but I'm sure this raised our spirits dramatically, as it meant that we wouldn't be going home until the next morning. One of the camera-shy marmots I've ever encountered. For now though, our focus was elsewhere. Today, Mike was one of the first out of his tent, the potatoes that he contributes to the group breakfast requiring more prep…
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It rained on and off regularly during our night at Pear Lake, with gusty winds buffeting the tent and making me glad that I'd tied down the ladder to keep the entire contraption from folding up on me while I slept. With earplugs in and knowing that the tent would have plenty of time to dry out in the morning, I slept well, the patter of rain on the roof a soothing - rather than worrying - sound. There were still a few clouds in the sky when I awoke for the first time, about 40 minutes before sunrise. When…
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For being a fallback location - and but for some flies the previous afternoon - our night at Long Branch Lake was hard to beat. Overnight, temperatures dropped down into a pleasant range for sleeping, and our sheltered location along the edge of the glassy lake meant that we didn't descend our ladders until nearly an hour after sunrise. Good morning, mountains. In fact, a few of us had awoken earlier - when it sounded like one of the dogs was out playing in the lake - but only Ben's van was positioned to witness a cow Moose slosh across…
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I spent an extremely pleasant - if a little windy at times - night on the ridge. Luckily, years of ignoring my parents' advice to use hearing protection when woodworking, preceded by the fact that I was once - a very long time ago - a youngster who listened to music with the volume turned to teenager, relieved me of the worst of it. Oh, and the earplugs I had handy in the tent probably helped a bit too. At any rate, I slept through all of the noise with no problem, waking only once - about half an hour…
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Have you felt it? You know, the feeling that the universe is a little "off" recently? As far as I can tell, it's the only explanation, really, for how this trip got underway. No other phenomenon would explain Monte @Blackdawg showing up before me to kick off an adventure. I say this because Monte is notorious for showing up late. Even on The De-Tour - the first trip I ever attended with this group of guys I now call good friends - Monte's was the last truck to pull into the parking lot at our meet-up point. The Re-Tour was…
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Four years ago, the Creek Fire roared through the swath of the Sierra National Forest where a fabulous camp site - nestled into the granite domes alongside - sits unobtrusively, a gem for those who find it. That fire changed many things about the landscape. Much of the undergrowth was incinerated, trees were burned completely or to slender black trunks reaching to the sky, scores of animals were caught in the blaze or forced to leave the area afterwards in order to find food and shelter. Still, only a year after the destruction, life was coming back. Now, four years…
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