The pitter patter of rain continued on and off throughout the night as we slept along the edge of a mesa overlooking Capitol Reef and the Henry Mountains. We'd found this spot - a wide area that was once an old mining road clinging to the rocky slopes - the previous afternoon, but after a long day of driving, we hadn't investigated the road at all. Perched on the eastern edge of the site - as opposed to being nestled into the trees - sun hit my tent as soon as it crested the horizon. Knowing that I'd still have…
8 CommentsTag: copper mine
Just out of the park. Setup on an old mining road just east of Furnace Creek, our flight home was a little later than usual, so we planned to get a hike in before heading back to Las Vegas. This meant a third morning in a row of awake-before-sunrise, but with early sunsets and bedtimes around 7:30pm, we were still getting more sleep we generally get at home! It'd been a windy night, but our spot - between a hillside and a road berm - had been chosen carefully to reduce wind noise on the tent, and as we shoveled…
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At first glance, Greenwater Valley seems - especially compared to the other valleys of Death Valley National Park - downright boring. In fact, it is. Even its most-visited attraction - Dante's View - is what I would describe as "just OK," if someone asked my opinion, before volunteering several alternative views in the park that I feel are significantly more amazing. Thankfully, few people ask - and even fewer care - for my opinion, and the world continues to spin. Still, it was with great excitement that we entered the southern end of Greenwater Valley on the first evening of…
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Every time I visit Death Valley, I cover some amount of ground. I know this because I fill every daylight hour with hiking, driving, climbing, and poking my head into places that a younger, smarter me would certainly avoid. Somehow, though, at the end of each trip, I realize that my list of places to explore has inexplicably gotten longer. It happens without fail. Every. Single. Time. In 2018 - when @mrs.turbodb and I were exploring the Ibex Dunes and the talc mines near Saratoga and Ibex Spring - I noticed a little valley on the eastern flank of the…
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From the edge of the Racetrack, an old mining trail climbs to the stark heights of Ubehebe Peak, across rocky slopes sparkling with heavily varnished plutonic rocks. The summit views are awesome, encompassing the Racetrack's eerie mud flats on one side, Saline Valley's deep sink on the other, and many ranges all around. You might find it more difficult to leave than to get there. Hiking Death Valley Depending on who's telling it, Lippincott Pass is either a treacherous, near-death experience or a straightforward shortcut between Saline and Racetrack Valley's, hardly worth a second thought. For us, it has always…
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It was a photo I found online of the Virginia May mine that sold me on a nine-mile long hike into a remote region of the Turtle Mountains. It's not like I really needed a reason to hike in the Turtles. Every time I've ventured beyond their wilderness boundary has been spectacular, my most recent memory being The Perfect Day for Something Stupid. It was the description that went along with the photo that really baffled me (highlight mine): The Virginia May Mine (also known as the Horn Mine) had been on my "To Do" list for years. It was…
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I could have included this stuff in the main East Mojave Heritage Trail stories - and usually I would have - but they were already getting long. Plus, I know that most would prefer YouTube videos anyway. Not that there will be any YouTube videos here, if I just got your hopes up. Anyway, this is a mishmash story of a few things that weren't explicitly part of EMHT Segment 4, but that I experienced during that same span of time. The Copper Glint Mine As I was leaving Las Vegas - my body and the Tacoma both resupplied after…
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My plan - if one can ever really have a plan when out adventuring, was that this was going to be my last day on the East Mojave Heritage Trail. After nearly 10 days of travel, I had only 70 miles or so to complete Segment 4, and in an effort to ensure that I'd actually get through those 70 miles before dark, I was out of the tent nearly half an hour before the sun peeked over the horizon. With no shadows, the ambient light on the Turtle Mountains was something special. The main reason I was up so…
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After running the first two segments of the East Mojave Heritage Trail (EMHT) with Mike and Zane last month, and then returning for the third segment with @mrs.turbodb only a week later, it was less of a question of "where" and more a question of "when" my first trip of 2024 would take place. The "where" - of course - would be the final, fourth segment of the 770-mile long route, winding my way through the Mojave Trails National Monument and the Turtle Mountain Wilderness. Segment 1: Needles to Ivanpah - 173 miles Segment 2: Ivanpah to Rocky Ridge -199…
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I don't know if it was the coldest night of the trip from an absolute perspective, but when I climbed out of my tent, it was the only morning I found the rainfly - and the cab of the Tacoma - covered in a layer of frost. Luckily, as the final full day of our trip, we'd decided that no matter where we were, it was where we were going to cook our shared breakfast. And that meant we'd have a couple extra hours for our tents to defrost. While I waited for Mike @Digiratus and Zane @Speedytech7 to wake…
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Camped at 2,250 feet above sea level, the entirety of the night was quite a bit warmer than the previous two evenings at more than 5,500 feet, and it was so nice to open up all the windows and doors on the tent so that whenever I'd wake up through the night, I can take a quick glance at the surroundings and admire them under the moonlight. Morning brought more clouds than on previous mornings, but with a clear eastern horizon, more clouds just meant more color! After three days of doing it, getting out of camp early was now…
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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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We didn't plan to go to the Mojave. In fact, I've felt as though - over the last year - I've spent too much time in California, and I've had an urge to find myself back in places like Utah and Colorado. Alas, with a fantastic trip planned to hike the canyons of the Grand Gulch and Cedar Mesa, the weather did not cooperate. Snow - and lots of it - blanketed southeast Utah; rain spread across much of the lowland south. And so, at the last minute, I whipped up an itinerary to the only place I could find with clear skies: the…
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After a very pleasant night - temps in the low 40s °F, only a slight breeze - on the southern edge of Pinto Basin, I was up bright and early to make the 12-mile drive back to the intersection of Pinto Basin, Old Dale, and Black Eagle Mine Roads. I'd gotten out of camp just before sunset, knowing that I had a full day ahead, and knowing - even if I didn't admit it to myself - that each of my dozen or so stops would take longer than I imagined. As I sped across Pinto Valley, the sun crested…
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We wrapped up our long drive south as we turned onto CA-168 from Big Pine. My plan - crazy as it seems now - had been to get all the way to our first trailhead prior to calling it a day, but given that it was already 3:00am and the trip over North Pass and into Saline Valley would take another 90 minutes, it seemed prudent to find camp rather than risk needing to do so in the much colder elevations should the pass be... impassable. There was no getting up at sunrise. Nestled in a small side canyon and…
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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 15mph, the 32ºF air meant that wool caps, burrowing, and earplugs were in order as the tent buffeted around us for the remainder of the night. The silver lining in it all, were the clouds that were blown in, and as I climbed out of the tent just after 6:00am,…
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It was still a little before 2:00pm when we started back down the canyon towards the last segment of the Nadeau Trail - the segment that would lead us to the Modoc Mine. This mine was the reason that Remi Nadeau had built this trail - the ore from this area valuable enough to warrant the construction of a road that shaved precious miles off of the previous routes. In April 1875, a new silver bonanza was set off on the eastern slope of the Argus Range overlooking Panamint Valley. Prospector B. E. Ball discovered there an enormous lode assaying…
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Having gone to bed early - partly because sunset was at quarter-to-five, but mostly because we're old-and-boring - I'd mentioned to @mrs.turbodb that we should also get up early because while the Nadeau Trail might only be 27 miles long, all of our side trips would mean a couple more packed days of adventure. I'm not sure she ever agreed, but I set my alarm for 5:00am regardless. There was no color in the sky when I awoke, but the breeze was warm and inviting, so I climbed out of the tent and waited. Slowly, color. And a little more -…
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You might expect that we were out of the house early for the ~18 hour drive from the Seattle area to Death Valley, but you'd be wrong. It was 8:00am when we pulled out of the driveway, and pointed the truck south towards our destination. Before long, the city gave way to open space, the golden glow in stark contrast to the cloudy skies we were leaving behind. That wasn't all we were leaving behind - not by a long shot. It was Wednesday, November 4, 2020 - one day after a rather interesting election for our country. We'd purposefully…
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When I'd marked the spot we camped in Valley Wells, I hadn't really done any research on it. I knew it was on a road that would take us to the Copper World Mine, and I'd seen what looked like some ruins during my route planning in Google Earth, but that was the extent of my research. Shoot, I didn't even know that it was called Valley Wells! What I did know when we went to bed though was that we were well positioned for a colorful sunrise - if some clouds showed up overnight. Lucky for us, they did,…
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