Every year, during the month of October, a really great thing happens at Microsoft. Teams of all sizes - from just a few folks, to organizations thousands strong - rally around a common cause. Every year, that rallying cry gets stronger - millions of dollars stronger than just the year before. And every one of those millions is matched by the company - dollar for dollar, as high as it can go. Last year, over $163 million dollars and 760,000 volunteer hours were donated to various charities and causes that employees cared about. That is the power of the Microsoft…
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July 7, 2019. It rained on and off through the night, but it was warm enough that the tents dried off quickly each time it did. And of course, cloudy skies meant no sunrise - and for me, more sleep! Having circled the trucks in camp, things were reasonably peaceful save a single growl from Venice at some point during the night. The next morning, Kyle @KP907 noted that he'd seen a coyote just a couple hundred feet from camp - the likely impetuous for the verbal warning. The on-again-off-again rain continued as breakfasts were prepared, and we all took…
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July 6, 2019. I went to bed hoping that our position on the ridge would result in some stupendous sunrise photos, but as morning rolled around, it was clear that ridges around us had been inappropriately placed by the Earth, and that all I was going to get was a little bit of orange on the horizon and a view of Croesus Peak out the window. Thanks a lot, Earth. Like the previous morning, our plan was to meet another truck before setting out on our next adventure, but this morning we were set to meet much earlier in Stanley…
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July 5, 2019. For most of us, the night passed peacefully. It was reasonably warm and calm, the creek flowing through the meadow gurgling rather than rushing by. I mean, there was that one UTV that revved its way by camp around 1:00am, but what can you expect on the 4th of July, really? Unfortunately for Mikey @pizzaviolence however, the action in his tent more than made up for the rest of us. Riggs, who'd been feeling a bit under the weather the previous day had an accident around 2:00am. Luckily, according to Mikey, it was mostly contained to the…
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July 4, 2019. We always seem to get our trucks reasonably level when we're out in the woods, but something about the level driveway we'd parked in made for an extremely easy night sleep. Or maybe we were just tired from our previous three days - gallivanting around the southeast parts of Idaho. At any rate, we were up late (for us) when Ben @m3bassman opened the garage door at 8:00am - our planned departure time giving us plenty of time to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get the tent put away. In fact, it was still a few minutes…
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July 3, 2019. Hoping for a colorful sunrise framed by City of Rocks' formations, I was up early - right around 5:00am - greeted by clouds on the horizon and a showing that was at best, "meh." You can't win them all, and I was quickly back to bed for a couple more hours of sleep. Still, we were up earlier than we'd been the previous mornings - because we had no idea how long today's adventures into the Sawtooth National Forest would take - and we figured it would be a good idea to evacuate our adopted camp site…
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There's nothing better than a night with temps in the high 40's a light breeze, and a river gurgling along below camp. Coupled with our position at the bottom of a valley, there was no reason to get up for sunrise, and it was nearly 8:00am before we finally poked our heads out of the tent to take in our beautiful surroundings - the creek below, the hot springs to the west, and pinnacles to the east. And, we did it mostly because we knew that it wasn't going to be long before it got even hotter than the previous…
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The day started out just like any other. Well, any other where the previous included a 12-hour drive from home to the starting point of our next adventure. So let's back up for a moment... We'd arrived at Bruneau Canyon Overlook just after 10:00pm the day before - our drive from home behind us, capped off by dinner with Ben @m3bassman, Kirsten, Mikey @pizzaviolence, and Amber at their local taco joint - Enrique's - a place they'd recommended a year before when we spent Two-and-a-Half Days in Idaho. Having grown up in California and with a few great taco trucks at…
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May 26, 2019. Parked in the wrong spot to catch sunrise, I slept in until the oh-so-late hour of 6:15am. But then, as I looked out the tent door, I noticed the fog over the valley and couldn't help myself but to get up and take a closer look. And then, it was back to bed. Not because it wasn't a beautiful morning - in fact, the clouds had mostly vanished and the blue sky was spectacular - but because it was cold! 34°F according to my phone - not something I wanted to hang around in for a couple hours…
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An astute reader may recall that we'd headed east a few days before Memorial Day - not just to explore Hells Canyon, but to meet up with Mike @Digiratus, Monte @Blackdawg, and Devin @MissBlackdawg. At least, those were the folks we knew; we were also rendezvousing with @BabyTaco Gage and his wife, and a couple of their friends - long overdue if you ask me. From our current location at Hells Canyon Dam, it was some 5 hours north to Lewiston, ID, where we'd all planned to meet for lunch, so we were up early - for sunrise if it'd…
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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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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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With all the recent work on the 4Runner, I wasn't the only one who wanted to put it all to the test. Upon seeing the storage/sleeping platform, @mini.turbodb had declared, "We need to go camping right away!" I don't know if she's been well-trained or it was just a wrinkle in the space-time continuum, but it was music to my ears. So, we found the first weekend that we possibly could and scheduled a single night camping trip to one of our favorite "quick getaway" spots outside Leavenworth, WA. And then we watched the weather. As the weekend drew near,…
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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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