Note: Several places in this story are redacted. If you recognize any of the places shown in the photos, please help to keep them special by not mentioning their names or locations. The last couple years have been tough on the forests of California. According to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 2020 saw more burned acreage - 4.4 million acres - than any recorded year in history. More than 2.5 million additional acres have already burned as of September 30, 2021. Two of these fires - the 2020 Fire, and the 2021 Dixie Fire -…
11 CommentsTag: camping
Having thoroughly enjoyed my time on Rady Creek FSR, I popped out at Trout Lake, just before 9:00am. As had been the case the last couple of days, BC-31 here was smoothly graded dirt, and driving was a breeze. I really wanted to get down to the lake - a few hundred meters to my west and maybe a hundred meters down - so when I saw an offshoot, I took it. As far as I could tell, the road I ended up on was the old highway to Galena Bay. Having fallen into disrepair since the new road -…
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Having thoroughly enjoyed American Creek, I found myself both excited and apprehensive about the next leg of my journey. I was excited because Rady Creek was the reason I'd headed to Canada in the first place. I was apprehensive - I suppose - because I really wanted it to live up to the image I'd formed in my mind about how great it was going to be. Looking back now, I was obviously over thinking things. I'd heard about Rady Creek from Mike @POSTacoMike, who'd posted a video to TacomaWorld of a trip he'd taken to this special place just a…
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It was 9:45am when I reached the bottom of the Lavina Lookout trail and turned the Tacoma north on the Balfour-Kaslo-Galena Bay Highway (BC-31) again. Almost immediately - and to my joyous surprise - the highway turned to well-graded dirt, alleviating any desire to air up. Dirt highways are definitely a little different than what I'm used to south of the border, but they sure do make travel more pleasant - at least in nice weather! Winding my way through the woods on BC-31. My route took me along the banks of the Lardeau River. Along the way, a little…
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For the last two years, I've been itching to get back into Canada. Covid-19 has - as we all know - had other plans for the world. Any other time, it wouldn't have been a bit deal, but recently a buddy Mike @POSTacoMike shared a trip he'd taken to Rady Creek - a trail that was scheduled to be deactivated (and made inaccessible to wheeled travel) by British Columbia's forestry ministry. Originally scheduled for deactivation on Aug. 1, 2021, I learned that a nearby fire had postponed the work until spring 2022, but of course, it wouldn't be long until…
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For the last week or so, I've had the itch. That's because - for the last couple of weeks - a family vacation to the Mt. Shasta area in California has kept us occupied and off the trail. Not that I'm complaining - we were duly pampered with fabulous food and plush accommodations - but once we got back, it seemed like a good idea to get out a little bit. @mrs.turbodb wasn't quite so enthusiastic as I was, but when she learned that it was u-pick peach season near one of our favorite camp sites on the east side…
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Having had my week-long trip to Idaho's Sawtooth Mountains cut short by smoke, I wasn't really sure what to do with myself. Then, I realized that the answer was in my own backyard - or at least nearby! We've been lucky so far this year to not have a ton of smoke in Western Washington, so what better place to go hang out than the forests around Mt. Rainier. Great weather and clear skies would make it the perfect place to just go hang out and enjoy the outdoors! So, after less than 24 hours at home - and luckily…
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It's been over a year since I was last in Idaho, and boy did I miss it! So, after spending a few weeks at home upon returning from the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route (NMBDR), and with @mrs.turbodb heading out on a camping trip with her dad, late July seemed like the perfect time for me to whip up a little something in the Sawtooths. The key word there being "seemed." I'd been collecting places to go - some of them from roads not travelled on earlier trips, others discovered online one way or the other, and one in particular…
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Stage 7 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Cuba to Colorado. We'd entered Cuba from the south on NM-550, and we exited the same direction - though on different pavement - for the first 20 miles of the stage. Cuba then, is a stop for fuel - and a good one at that, as the price is quite reasonable - but not much more than that, route wise, anyway. In 1769, Spanish Governor Pedro Fermin de Mendinueta made the San Joaquin del Nacimiento land grant to 35 pioneering families who had settled the headwaters of the Rio Puerco…
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Stage 6 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Grants to Cuba. It wasn't even 4:00pm when we headed out of Grants to kick off the sixth stage of our route. With only two stages remaining, it was looking like we'd complete the entire route in just under a week - hopefully giving us a day or two of leisurely making our way home, exploring along the way. The reasons we were watching our time was that the sunny days we'd enjoyed so far - even if they'd be hot - were about to change; a storm system was…
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Stage 5 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Fence Lake to Grants. Within 5 minutes of arriving at Fence Lake, we were once again on our way. The highlight of our morning - and perhaps of the entire BDR - was just a couple hours ahead of us; lollygagging around here wasn't going to get us there any faster. We nearly passed by the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary, my sights so set on what I'd been looking forward to for days. It was only @mrs.turbodb's quick turn in her seat to read the - inexplicably one sided -…
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Stage 4 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Reserve to Fence Lake. I don't know if it was entirely due to our disappointment at lunch, but at least partially due to our disappointment in how our visit to Reserve turned out, we decided to forego purchasing fuel in town since we still had half a tank plus 11 gallons in the Military Scepter Jerry Cans. That was plenty to get us the 132 miles too Fence Lake - the end of the next stage - and really, it didn't matter since there was fuel some 75 miles away…
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Stage 3 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Truth or Consequences to Reserve. As we made our way through T-or-C, a huge mural of Geronimo caught our attention. Given that we were - essentially - travelling through Apache lands for much of this adventure, it seemed only appropriate to wait a few minutes for the rain to stop in order to capture the moment. Geronimo, of the Bedonkohe Apache tribe, and the last to surrender to the US Army in 1886. Whereas the first stage of the BDR had taken us a little over a day, the second…
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Stage 2 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Ruidoso to Truth or Consequences. We pulled out of Ruidoso a little after 6:30pm. This time of year, we weren't at any risk of not having enough light to find camp - the sun didn't set until 8:15pm - but we'd already had a long day and were looking forward to a good night rest. One of the things I do before going on any BDR is research the route a bit to find side trips that might offer a spectacular view, or an interesting attraction. One of our favorite…
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Stage 1 of the New Mexico Backcountry Discovery Route - Dell City, TX to Ruidoso. It was 4:30pm when we finally rolled into Dell City, TX - definitely not an early start to the first leg of the New Mexico BDR! It'd taken us two-and-a-half days to get here, but we'd had a blast finding a few more petroglyphs in Utah, and wandering our way through Carlsbad Caverns before setting off on our primary journey. It may appear that we've arrived to the wrong state, but of course we had to start in Texas to traverse the entirety of New…
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It was four years ago when we ran our first Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR) - or at least, we attempted to run a stage of the Oregon BDR and failed miserably. Later that same year, we successfully conquered the route, and since then we've tackled one BDR every summer - Washington, Idaho, and Nevada now under our belts. This year, we decided that New Mexico would be a good state to tackle on what has become a fun tradition. Starting in Dell City, Texas - finishing some 1,200 miles later in southeastern Colorado - the NMBDR is unlike any route…
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We got another good night of sleep on the edge of Bullet Canyon, and were up bright an early - or more correctly, dark and early - to start prepping for our long day. We were going to leave the truck and tent set up while we hiked - no need to pack all that away just to unpack again on our return - so we ate breakfast, made lunches, and filled every container we'd brought along with water. We were, after all, going to be hiking more than 17 miles - much of it in 90°F heat. About 3.5…
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Note: Visiting Butler Wash requires a pass. For more information, check out BLM Utah Cedar Mesa Permits and Passes Information. Our personal side canyon off of Butler Wash was the perfect place to spend the night, and though it was a bit warm - I think it only got down into the high 50s overnight - we were both extremely tired and so enjoyed the ten hours or so of horizontal existence immensely. Still, we knew that the best way to beat the heat of the day was to get going early, so when my alarm went off just before sunrise,…
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As we set off towards Utah, I mentioned to @mrs.turbodb that maybe we should have taken her car on this trip. After all, the entirety of our off-pavement driving was going to be all of about 30 miles. Most of our time would be spent on foot, hiking from ruin to pictograph, with the occasional petroglyph thrown in for good measure. It was going to be a blast! I'd gotten the crazy idea for this trip on my previous foray - Utah, Re-Ruined - when I'd naively assumed that I'd wrap up the ruins that Monte @Blackdawg had planned a few years…
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I can't say I was overjoyed when I heard @mrs.turbodb's alarm blaring away as she tried to find her phone in the mess of sheets to turn it off. It was 4:00am again, and just like the night before - a surprise, I know - the moon was still up. The winds had stopped only about 15 minutes before her alarm, and I think we were both in the middle of the best sleep we'd gotten all night. Except that now we were awake, and decided we might as well get out of the tent to take a look around.…
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