With a long trip ahead of us, we were up early - everyone climbing down ladders around 8:00am, and ready to head down the mountain by 8:30am. We'd survived the night without getting hit by lightning, and even the rain had stopped sometime in the wee hours of the morning, making it easier to put everything away (still wet, but at least not in the rain). As we headed down Rimrock Road towards Fruita where we'd refuel and part ways, there was only one more obstacle for us to maneuver - the ticket station at the entrance to Colorado National…
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We slept soundly through the night, but when I woke up in the morning, I was immediately out of bed to take advantage of what I knew would be some very cool light before the sun got too high in the sky. As it turned out, I'd be extra glad to have gotten up, because the early morning light was soon going to be a torrential lightning storm. But, for now, it was purples. And oranges. I don't know what we did to deserve this, but whatever it was, I'm sure we'd all sign up again. And then, as the…
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Parked at the head of Gemini Bridges, we expected to be woken early by Jeepers, but we weren't. The first set headed up around 9:00am, moving slowly. For good reason too - they were Jeeps, and so a bit fragile. As usual, we'd ended up in a beautiful spot. Out on a ledge, it was hard to spot even from the trail, but was flat with great views and morning sun. Having gotten in late the night before, we hadn't aired down yet, so in addition to putting away the tents, we took a few minutes to complete a task…
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During the night, the rain stopped, and by morning, though the ground was still wet, the sun was doing it's best to paint the landscape a brilliant orange. In combination with some straggling dark clouds, it made for cool light - perfect for adventure. Our camp site really was amazing - as was my view out my tent door. I'd won the tent-positioning jackpot! With motivation like that, I was out of the tent in a hurry. It's not often that you can climb up, directly above your rigs to get a view from above, which is what we had…
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It was a wonderful night. There was no rain, no snow, and no ice on our tents as the sun rose into the sky. Having seen our campsite the night before, this morning was more about getting new perspectives and enjoying the sounds of the world waking up around us. I headed up onto the rock outcropping south east of our camp and waited for Mike, Monte, and Devin to get up and meet the day. Mike was first out to make his hearty breakfast - two cups of coffee, followed shortly by Monte and Devin who munched on a…
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Derp would never see the sand dunes, even though it turned out we were camped at the base of one nearly 200-feet high. Having set three sequential alarms "just in case," when his first alarm went off at 4:00am, he bucked his usual trend and got up and out of camp relatively quickly. It was still dark, but we could hear him reving along the muddy roads for a good 20-30 minutes, so we were pretty sure he made it out alright. Back to sleep for a few hours, when I woke again at 7:00am, it was cold. 24-degrees cold.…
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The rain we'd known was coming did in fact come, but it passed by 7:00am the next morning as the sun and blue sky revealed themselves through the clouds. In what was becoming a ritual, I got up and explored the area around our camp before the rest of the crew got out of bed. It was always exciting to see where we'd ended up the night before! In the distance, some abandoned structures dotted the badlands - not part of the ghost town of Gebo, but likely mines abandoned long ago. Closer to camp, evidence of the high winds…
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We woke up in Monte's driveway without having been rained on at all the previous night. Glorious. Ben and Kirsten had taken off early - around 7 - since they had a long drive in front of them before work the next day, and we got word from Glenn (who'd stayed at a Super8) that he too was taking off, and that Derp could keep those gas cans…but not more excuses for showing up without extra fuel. Ready for some downtime, the rest of us took it easy, happy for both the break in the weather and the mud-free ground.…
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Amazingly, Ben wasn't the first one up. Glenn was, to clean off his tent. Snow had continued through the night, and we had a good 3-4 inches covering everything. It was pretty, but cold. As we got up and took stock of the situation, Ben made an off-the-cuff remark that it was too bad it wasn't sunny, because he and Kirsten had been planning on making breakfast for everyone if it had been. And then, like magic, the sun started to peek through. We all smiled and turned to Ben. He mumbled something under his breath and went to talk…
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It was 5:22am when Mark rolled in, and curled up in his passenger seat for a couple hours of sleep - that is, until Ben found him around 8 and he headed back into town for coffee and some crazy energy drink - the breakfast of 25-year-olds! The rest of us stirred late - again, hoping the rain would stop, and then accepting our muddy fate - exiting our tents to perhaps our least beautiful camp site yet. And smallest - separated into the green team and red team the night before. As we were getting ready to go, Mark…
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For those of us that awoke to the pitter-patter of rain at 1:30am, our weather-contentment from the night before was short-lived. For everyone else…ok, there was no one else. We waited for the rain to slow before getting up the next morning - even Ben and I getting up a couple hours later than usual, at 9:30. But, eventually we realized that it wasn't going to stop, so we tumbled down our ladders and got to breaking camp. Oh, and Mike started the only real "breakfast" of the morning, …which was warm by lunch. It was at this point that…
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September 20, 2017. Most of us were awoken at 2:00am by Mike's radio blasting when Ben calling over the ham radio to see if anyone was around. I say "most" because Mike slept right through it! Of course, no one was getting out of their tent and into the snow to reply so Ben had to make do with the description of the camp site that Monte had communicated the evening before. Oh, and there was that "sign" that he'd written in the snow on the road. Hours ago, as it continued to come down. So when Ben and Kirsten…
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August 4, 2017. Somehow, we were ahead of schedule. Having made it 15 or so miles past Kamela the evening before, that meant we had only about 85 miles to the end of the OBDR for our final day. That was fine with us because we woke up to pea-soup levels of smoke - enough to completely obscure Summerville in the valley below our middle-of-the-road camp. We rolled out of camp early, heading down our ridge on our way through the last of the Blue Mountains on our way to Walla Walla. Travel today would be on the easy side…
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August 3, 2017. Mornings were becoming routine. Beautiful sunrise, tasty breakfast. Such a tough life. Of course, we suffered through it as we talked about the day ahead. While the previous day had been one of our longest (distance-wise at 180+ miles), today was going to be one of our shortest - only 110 miles or so, since we'd tackled 20 already after hitting Granite early - ending near a small town that even the locals (when we stopped for gas) - had never heard of: Kamela, Oregon. There's a spicy sausage in that breakfast sandwich. Yum yum! And then…
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August 2, 2017. Having gotten in late, we woke up a little later - you know, 6:30am - the morning of Day 5. The day was full of anticipation for us, since this was the leg that had bested us in May, so we were immediately out of bed and exploring Frazier Lookout. Turns out that it's been closed (too dangerous) since 2007, but that didn't stop me from climbing up a couple of levels to check out the view. We also explored the super-sketchy lookout house, which was still in reasonable condition on the outside (save some broken windows)…
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August 1, 2017. We slept soundly through the calm night and woke up just as the sun was painting the sky the next morning. Well rested, we were excited for the coming day of travel - the plan was to reach Seneca, the town where we'd set off on what turned out to be Mission Impossible: OBDR, back in May. Once again, we enjoyed a hot breakfast before packing up and heading out; we were on the road by 7:45am. The OBDR wasn't far from our camp site, and by 8:00am we were through the first gate and making our…
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July 31, 2017. The wind having woken us up a few times throughout the night, we were up at sunrise above Summer Lake. The smoke was still light as we rolled out of bed and made breakfast - just cereal and blueberries this morning - and packed up camp for an early start - our goal was to make it from Summer Lake to Riley by 7pm. After a few final pictures, we were on our way. As we traversed the northern half of Winter Ridge, a small detour took us to the top of a peak to some of…
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July 30, 2017. After a long day, we'd fallen asleep quickly and slept soundly by Moonlight Mine at the top of Crane Mountain. Morning light brought a bit more time to explore the mine and make breakfast out of the fridge - scrambled eggs, spicy sausage, toast and strawberries - delicious, and ready for @mrs.turbodb when she climbed down from the tent at 7:45am. The anti-condensation mat worked fantastimagically, and there was very little condensation under the mattress - the only morning we'd have any. Even with the condensation, it was on the floor of the tent, away from the…
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Back in May, we'd attempted to run the northern 40% of the Oregon Backcountry Discovery Route, from Seneca to the Washington border. A day in, we chose a more reasonable goal: Seneca to Unity. And at day three, we called it quits - less than 50 miles from our start point. So you can imagine that we were excited for a second chance. Redemption as it were. In the month leading up to the trip, we got ready. Alcan leaf springs, a new HAM radio, and an ARB fridge were going to make us more capable, safer, and well fed.…
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Oregon-bound Chapter 3: Mission Impossible: Oregon's Backcountry Discovery Route May 11-15, 2017. Day 1: Thursday, May 11. Parting ways with Pops and my Uncle, our plan was to run the OBDR from Seneca, OR to Walla Walla, WA, and then the WABDR from the border up to Cle Elum - approximately 1000 miles of remote back roads in four days. We knew it'd be a lot of driving, but we've driven a lot for other trips. We were sure we could do it - it's not like we'd be going 10 mph the whole time. At least we were right…
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