It was dark at 4:00am, but the moon was out and I could see just the hint of light on the horizon as I pulled on a sweatshirt and began folding up the tent. Camped at just under 7,400 feet, I'd gotten my first good night of sleep in three days, banking nearly ten hours of shut-eye as a cool Sierra breeze streamed down the canyon overnight. I'd need every minute of that recharge; the day was going to be a doozy. Not that I ever really stood any chance of keeping up with Matt @theesotericone. By 4:17am, I started…
12 CommentsTag: aerial tramway
Energized after our morning climb up Striped Butte, we'd pretty much wrapped up everything I'd planned for our three days in Butte Valley. Still, a big part of a visit to this Shangri-La is the 4wd route through Mengel Pass and Goler Wash - both of which had been heavily impacted by storms in late 2025 - so exiting out to Panamint Valley would give us a chance to check out the road conditions as well as a couple other attractions that I was curious about along the way. Goodbye, Striped Butte, you were as mesmerizing as always! Making it…
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I was so excited to be camped in my favorite spot in all of Death Valley National Park - with an amazing view of Striped Butte - that I was ready to go even before our alarm went off in the morning. Is it time yet? Knowing that I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, I wiggled my way out of bed and down the ladder to grab my phone and a battery pack that I could use to set up a timelapse of sunrise in this special place. Good morning, Striped Butte. Like the feeling of relief that…
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We were parked on the alluvial fan of Warm Springs Canyon, which is a fancy way of saying we'd voluntarily set up camp at the mouth of a wind tunnel. A tunnel that - not long after we got settled in bed - was, predictably, performing flawlessly. Luckily, we'd oriented the tent in such a way that we were in no danger of it folding up with us inside, so after closing the door flap - to prevent direct hits from the oncoming blasts - we were rocked to sleep through the remainder of the night. We'd both wish we'd…
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Of all the hikes I'd planned for the few hours I'd be in the Funeral Mountains, my anticipation was highest for my journey to the King Midas gold mine. There isn't anything particularly special about the King Midas mine itself. It's not a very large mine. There aren't many artifacts left to investigate. Getting there is nearly impossible. Rather, it was the hike - climbing just more than 1,700 feet of elevation in a smidge over two miles - that had me excited to go. And I was excited about the hike mostly due to the King Midas being in…
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For the second time in as many trips, I'd been abandoned. This time, a trip to the Arizona Strip and North Rim of the Grand Canyon was on the books until life got in the way for a few buddies, and as they bowed out, so did @mrs.turbodb. This left me in a bit of a pickle, as I'd left the Tacoma in California at the end of my previous outing, and still needed to ferry it down to Las Vegas for the winter. So, it was back to the computer and a bit of time sorting through the many-lifetime's-worth…
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