As I mentioned in the first post, I have organized this trip report a bit differently than most. Some of the hiking locations have little or no reporting on the internet and I feel they should remain that way; as such, locations will be redacted and/or not mentioned, and the…
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After another evening spent around Mike @Digiratus propane fire pit, we'd all climbed into our tents to clear skies and very light breeze. Thousands of feet above, however, things must have been different. Climbing down my ladder, a dark sky lent a dramatic air to our own little slice of…
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I've found no place in all my exploration of Death Valley National Park that I like more than waking up to a view of Striped Butte. You can imagine then - sleeping in our tents less than a mile away - that I had more than one alarm set in…
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The 20-hour drive home - that concluded our Lowest Peak in the Park - aka Into the Owlsheads trip - gave me a lot of time to think. The trip had been brilliant, with some predictable highlights, and some unexpected surprises. And I have to admit that joking around as we climbed…
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We arrived at Alabama Hills and started looking for somewhere to call home at 8:30pm on a Saturday night - surely not an ideal time to show up at such a popular location. Tired from our hike to - and through - Military Canyon earlier in the day, the first…
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Perched on my little knoll in the middle of the road, I was happy that the night passed mostly windlessly so I could get some much needed sleep after the last couple of nights where I got almost none. Having gone to bed with clouds in the sky, but with…
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We had unfinished business in Utah, after our Ruining Around Utah trip back in spring of 2019. An unseasonably wet winter that year meant that the higher elevation roads were still impassable due to snow, so one of our primary goals - the Lewis Lodge ruins - remained just out…
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Having weathered some significant winds on our last couple of trips to Eastern Nevada (Mid-Winter Mojave) and the Mojave Preserve (Short Days and Long Hikes), the gusty winds that kicked up around 2:00am didn't bother me in the least - even as they blew directly in the door of the…
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Having gotten to bed early, the only thing that made getting up difficult was the cold. I quickly fumbled to silence my alarm - which was blaring some obnoxious ringtone that I was sure must have awoken all of my camping companions - before pulling on every layer of clothing…
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It was 10:00am and I found myself wondering - did I really just blow up my rear diff? Seriously? While I'm all alone and have to meet Ben and Will in an hour and a half? What am I going to do? So let's rewind and figure out just exactly…
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I'd been home less than a week after Tragedies in the Tablelands, and I still had the itch to get out and see everything I'd planned before things went all wonky. Even as we'd been driving home from that trip, I was ordering a new camera and lenses, and I…
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High up on a ridge in the Funeral Mountains, we'd gone to bed with a gentle breeze blowing through the tent. It'd been chilly, given the time of year and our 4800' elevation, but not too bad - until midnight anyway, when the wind picked up. With gusts up to…
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I don't know whether it's an "oh, duh!" moment, or "can you believe it?" situation, but less than two weeks after returning from our Death Valley trip along the Nadeau Trail, we were headed back for more! I was jazzed, and - a little surprisingly to me - so was…
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Even with earplugs, sleep was hard to come by with 20mph winds buffeting the tent and shaking the truck. That meant that as the light outside started to change, we were both already awake and it was no trouble at all to hop out of the tent to capture what…
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Before heading to bed, Monte (@Blackdawg) tried his best to prep us for what lay ahead. "It's a long hike." he said. "We can make it 10 miles or even 14, depending on the route we take. But don't worry, it's mostly flat." Well, it wasn't mostly flat - except…
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We slept well through the night - my only complaint really being that at 55º-60ºF, it was too warm and I woke up a bit sweaty somewhere around 2:00am. It was a simple enough fix to remove one of the comforters from my side, and I quickly fell back asleep…
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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…
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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…
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