After climbing into our tents to escape the oncoming storm, wind gusts and rain continued in fits and spurts for the next several hours. Even with my tent now tied down, a stronger-than-normal gust lifted it - with me inside - six inches, a situation I was forced to remedy during a lull in the storm. Thankfully however, by midnight, things had significantly calmed down. Winds were in the much-more-reasonable 5mph range, and only intermittent sprinkles fell on our flies. This allowed everything to dry out reasonably well by morning - each of us glad that we weren't putting our…
6 CommentsTag: camping
After a long camp fire, sleep came easy on the edge of the field, 8,000 feet in the Flint Creek Range. And, with Mike @Digiratus and Zane @Speedytech7 tucked into the trees, there was plenty of time for me to send the flying camera up into the sky for an early morning flight before either of them got wise to my shenanigans. Turns out the meadow in which I'd taken up residence was a little more interesting than it looked from ground level. Fred Burr Lake was glassy as I searched for signs of fellow campers. I found none. Back…
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Having only gotten a few hours of shuteye before setting off on this adventure, the cool night air of western Montana - somewhere in the low 30s °F - made my cozy down comforters the perfect place to snuggle in for one of the best nights of sleep I've had in a long time. I'm not sure if I woke up at all through the night, only realizing when the sky was beginning to brighten that a thin layer of frost covered not only the exterior my tent, but also the top of my bedding. Knowing that I still had…
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Since my first fateful trip with "the guys" from TacomaWorld in 2017, we've tried our best to get together every summer for an adventure. That's not to say that things haven't changed as some of the young guns - once carefree as school let out for the summer - have grown into jobs and families, our two-week jaunts shifting to five days of paid time off, our summer outings shifting into fall. Still, our friendships have persisted - and grown - and this year we are heading back to where (for me) The De-Tour started it all: Montana. As always,…
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When you visit a place time after time, features that were once remarkable or breathtaking can start to seem normal or even become mundane. I don't think that's happened with me yet as I've visited over the years - or with my Dad over the decades that he's been enjoying this special place - but I still thought it'd be worthwhile to capture some of the landmarks that we enjoy when we're there. Some of these are large, others are small, and surely over the years every one of them will change or we'll find new perspectives from which to…
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There's no denying it - I'm getting older. Sure, there are the little things - injuries take a bit longer to heal, there's more than a bit of gray hair on my body, and I find myself saying things like, "I remember when candy bars used to cost 45¢." But surely the biggest indicator of my age is my resistance to change - a trait that I've called my own since I was twelve. Anyway, I'm that guy who is constantly looking to fix things that are broken. To make things I've come to love last just a little longer.…
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For the sixth time in as many years, I'm headed to a special spot in the Sierra of eastern California to enjoy a few days of wandering, chatting, and relaxation with my Dad. Having found this place more than 30 years ago, it's now the only place he camps anymore. If you recognize any of the places shown in the photos, please help to keep them special by not mentioning their names or locations. This year - like all the others - would be wonderful even if all we did was hang around camp and enjoy the world around us. In…
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With @mini.turbodb getting bigger, only two viable seats in the Tacoma, and having sold the family 4Runner, it's a lot harder to get the whole family out to our favorite camp site on a regular basis. Of course, with @mini.turbodb getting older, the thought of spending time in the woods - away from showers, mirrors, and technology - and having to put up with parents - peskier creatures than mosquitoes - isn't all that appealing anyway. And yet, several times over the last six months, she has mentioned the desire to try fishing for the first time. So, when @mrs.turbodb…
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Having gone to bed with smoke so thick that we could barely see the mountains a few hundred feet away, and wondering if the smart move would be to head home rather than push through the remainder of the Siskiyou Crest Adventure Trail, I let out an audible whoop as I unzipped the tent door to greet the morning light. Wilderness! We can see the wilderness! At some point during the night - I couldn't tell you when since I'd zipped up all the doors of the tent to keep as much of the smoke outside as possible - the…
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Perched along Whisky Ridge, we hoped that the cool breeze blowing through the tent would sweep away some of the smoky haze that had accumulated the previous afternoon. Alas, we had no such luck, evidenced by the orange glow extending far from the horizon as the sun worked its way into view. Even without an alarm, I seem to wake up a few minutes before sunrise when I'm out in the wild. Layers of light stretched into the distance. To the west, the moon was making its final descent towards the summit of Whisky Peak... ...chased from the sky by…
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With much of our summer taken up with a kitchen remodel - perhaps a non-adventure story that I'll share some details of once we've completed it - and the Tacoma in Washington after we abandoned our non-refundable plane tickets after running the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route (UTBDR) in July, we were looking for somewhere a little closer to home as we started feel the antsy urge to escape to the outdoors. Not having had the time to plan a route - a process I enjoy, but that can consume nearly as much time as a trip itself - it dawned…
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After completing the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route, we're up to seven BDRs since we started running them seven years ago in 2016. Through the running of each one, @mrs.turbodb and I are - as you can imagine - regularly comparing the current BDR to the past ones. I finally started writing some of these comparisons down, and - of course - I now feel obligated to carry on that tradition into the future. TL;DR - The Utah BDR really is an iconic route. While it largely hugs the eastern side of the state, there is great variety in the terrain,…
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The final stage of the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route. Doesn't start in Utah; doesn't reach the Idaho border. It was a balmy 83°F as we wrapped up lunch under a shady tree in Evanston, Wyoming, ready to start the last stage of the Utah BDR. As we did, a rider on a dual sport BMW rode by, his head on a swivel as he saw the Tacoma and pulled into the lot. "I live just up the road, you guys are welcome to come over for dinner and a shower if you'd like," he said. We politely declined, but still…
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Stage 5 of the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route was the greenest of them all, through the Uinta Mountains. It took us longer to find a lunch spot than we expected, swarms of mosquitoes attacking us as soon as we ventured into the shade along the side of Currant Creek. While the pesky little buggers didn't seem to phase the deet-drenched RVers, we prefer almost anything else - wind, rain, and cold - over those damn blood suckers, and so we pushed on to higher ground before breaking out the sandwiches that @mrs.turbodb has prepped before leaving camp just before sunrise.…
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Stage 4 of the Utah Backcountry Discovery Route - through Nine Mile Canyon (sort of), and through the Uinta Mountains to ... Wyoming? Shortly after 6:00pm, we pulled out of the Chevron station on the outskirts of Wellington on our way to Nine Mile Canyon. We were surprised when we discovered that Nine Mile Canyon was on the Utah BDR because when we'd visited - a little more than a year earlier - we'd spent an entire day in the canyon, completely overdosed on rock art, and still hadn't seen but a fraction of what it has to offer. How…
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Stage 3 of the UTBDR - from Moab to the Book Cliffs to the San Rafael Swell. Pulling away from Dewey Bridge a little after 6:30pm, we'd already been on the road for 12 hours and we were spent. Unfortunately - as long as we wanted to continuing making forward progress on the route - there was no real elevation to be found until the beginning of the following stage, and we knew there was no way we could make it that far, even if we drove long into the darkness. So, we resolved to keep an eye out for…
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Lockhart Basin in our rearview mirror, it was time for the main Stage 2 route through the La Sal Mountains. Having wrapped up our brief time in town with a quick meal and a refreshingly cold Coke - kept icy cold in my favorite stainless steel vacuum cup - and chocolate frosty from Wendy's - it was time to find some respite from the heat. A hotel room - with a shower - for instance. Sure, it wasn't triple digits anymore, but no one wants to sleep in this, either. Alas, there was no hotel room in our future, though…
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Before running the official stage 2 route, we were headed to the alternate (red), a more difficult trail through Lockhart Basin. Of all the stages on the Utah BDR, I was most looking forward to the expert route through Lockhart Basin. This stretch of road piqued my interest for a couple reasons: first, it skirts along the edge of Canyonlands National Park, an area that never ceases to amaze me, no matter which district I happen to be visiting at any given time. Second, it was a segment of the M~U~D trip that Monte @Blackdawg and Mike @Digiratus ran back…
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The first stage of the UTBDR meanders - like the San Juan River - through some of Utah's most recognizable landscape. It's hard to say that it was way too early when my alarm went off at the base of Mexican Hat, but it's safe to say that we'd gotten way too little sleep given our arrival at this place only three hours earlier. Still, with daytime temperatures in the triple digits, we were no dummies - though one might argue otherwise given our voluntary arrival to such conditions - and planned to get as many miles in while it was still…
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A few months ago, I headed to Nevada in search of several rock art sites along the Pahranagat Trail. After starting out with a bang in Arrow Canyon, my search in the South Pahroc Wilderness was a total flop, as I didn't find any rock art at all! After popping into the local BLM office for some tips - which they couldn't share - I aborted my plan altogether for an alternate, ultimately amazing, itinerary. Returning home, I had a "brilliant*" idea. Like many other Americans, I watch and read a bit of news here and there, and one of…
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