It was a chilly night at 5300', but our strategic position behind the ridge line meant that we were unaffected by the bulk of the wind - a knit cap enough to keep me cozy, and @mrs.turbodb wanting only for her earplugs in the morning when the birds started singing. And it was early when they did - sunrise was at 5:07am, and the first light on the horizon started well before 4:30am, spreading across the sky in its glorious trek. Eventually, there was enough light to illuminate Imnaha Canyon below us - the hills and valleys unfolding into the…
Leave a CommentTag: fire lookout
Summer in the Pacific Northwest is hard to beat. So, I wouldn't blame you for wondering why - with a week of sun and 75°F in store before Memorial Day - we were headed for the inclement weather of the Oregon-Idaho border and Hells Canyon. So let's start there. In what I believe to be a tradition that I've stumbled into, Monte @Blackdawg and Mike @Digiratus generally get together for a trip every Memorial Day, and this year the plan was go meet up in Lewiston, ID for a few days of puttering around and enjoying ourselves in the outdoors.…
Leave a Comment
It was a breezy (but dry!) night on the edge of the canyon, the updrafts from the walls constantly buffeting the fabric of the tent. Little did we know that we were in for much, much worse! But, we're getting ahead of ourselves. The breeze did help to clear out the clouds a bit by early morning, and knowing that we could have a spectacular view, I'd set my alarm for "before sunrise" - to try and catch that orange glow that I love on the horizon. I'd also put the camera in the tent with me, so it was…
1 Comment
Having camping in a deep valley and stayed up late, I once again found myself sleeping in the next morning - no sunrise to coax me out of bed before dawn. When I'd pulled into the site the night before, I'd worried that we'd have absolutely no view - a shame since Sunlight Basin is so pretty in the morning light. As it turns out however, it was the lack of visibility in complete darkness that made me think that - because our site was quite beautiful - sun filtering through the trees, creek rushing by in the background, and…
Leave a Comment
It was a peaceful night in the valley along the Nez Perce Trail. A bit chilly maybe, but not too bad and the relatively narrow valley meant there was no pressing need to get up early for sunrise - something I missed, but could also get used to...the extra couple hours of warm sleep a nice change! Eventually of course, I roused myself and exited the tent to check out camp and the morning light. Definitely interesting to see our different truck setups as well. Given the location, camp was pretty underwhelming so I immediately set out to explore the…
2 Comments
August 24, 2018. How does that saying go? "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, ..." If you've been a reader of previous trip reports, you may recall one of the craziest trips to date - The De-Tour - which occurred almost exactly one year ago. That trip was a great one for many reasons, but it had gone nothing like we'd expected - snowing or raining every day - eventually forcing us to abandon our Tour of Montana and Wyoming for what we hoped were clearer skies, in Utah. ...where it also rained on us. Even so,…
Leave a Comment
July 3-4, 2018. A bit windy when we'd arrived, by morning the wind had died down and Seafoam lake was a glassy surface. We'd slept soundly - warm in our respective beds (in fact, everyone but me was still asleep when I looked out the window and noticed that the cloud pattern could be an interesting one for sunrise. Hoping for the best, I donned my clothes and grabbed the camera - no time to spare now, the light was starting to work it's early morning magic. But really, I had absolutely no idea what was in store over the…
Leave a Comment
July 1-2, 2018. The previous 17 hours had been a whirlwind, but we were on our way. Headed east this time, towards Idaho - to a ridge above Garden Valley, where we were set to meet up with Ben @m3bassman, Kirsten, and their pups as well as @pizzaviolence and his family (at this point unknown to us). But we're getting a bit ahead of ourselves. What about those 17 hours? You see, 17 hours earlier we'd pulled into the driveway after completing the WABDR - a week of adventure that would not normally be quickly forgotten. But things were not…
3 Comments
June 28-29, 2018. Our campsite above Lake Chelan worked out well through the night, the small bluff sheltering us from the wind until it died down in the early morning hours, and no traffic on the nearby road. In fact, the site worked so well that none of us woke before sunrise, instead the warm sun hitting the tent was what finally roused us from our sleep. As usual, we spent a bit of time exploring the area with @mini.turbodb and stumbled upon a fenced-off area that appeared to contain some sort of well. We never figured out exactly what…
9 Comments
June 27, 2018. As we awoke the next morning, everyone was well rested and happy that we'd gotten only a short burst of light rain; and that the morning was shaping up to be a beautiful one - hopefully indicative of the entire day ahead. The first order of business was something that @mini.turbodb had been asking for since we arrived in this "not the best camp site" - go explore the narrow trail that headed up the downhill side of the saddle. This of course was the motorcycle route of the WABDR, but that meant little to her -…
Leave a Comment
June 26, 2018. The wind that rocked us to sleep in the CVT kept blowing through the night, perhaps the most continuously windy night we've spent six feet off the ground. Nestled under the covers we were cozy and warm, and it was a struggle to pull myself out at 5:30am to capture sunrise. But there's only one sunrise each day and it's not every day that you're parked on the edge of a ridge with Mt. Rainier in the distance, so pull myself out I did. I wasn't disappointed. Of course, I was up well before the rest of…
8 Comments
May 26, 2018. We survived the night, the lightning storm and associated rain passing both east and west of our perch atop Monument Peak. As has become a habit, I was up early - I knew our location and the clouds in the sky could make for a spectacular morning. The sun did not disappoint. As high as we were, it wasn't long before the sun was over the horizon and illuminating the truck and lookout; the storm obviously a thing of the past, a beautiful day in the works for our adventure. We ate breakfast and enjoyed our surroundings…
2 Comments
May 24, 2018. Eastward to Adventure! We were packed and ready to go by 8:00am Thursday, having been looking forward to a Memorial Day trip with Mike (@Digiratus), Monte (@Blackdawg) and Devin (@MissBlackdawg) for the better part of a month. Still early in the season, we weren't sure what we'd find from a snow perspective, but we had a couple extra days to explore before everyone else showed up, and we had plenty of routes and re-routes to keep us busy! The drive east was mostly uneventful and one of our easiest to date - get on I-90 and keep driving.…
Leave a Comment
August 3, 2017. Mornings were becoming routine. Beautiful sunrise, tasty breakfast. Such a tough life. Of course, we suffered through it as we talked about the day ahead. While the previous day had been one of our longest (distance-wise at 180+ miles), today was going to be one of our shortest - only 110 miles or so, since we'd tackled 20 already after hitting Granite early - ending near a small town that even the locals (when we stopped for gas) - had never heard of: Kamela, Oregon. There's a spicy sausage in that breakfast sandwich. Yum yum! And then…
Leave a Comment