For the third morning in a row, I woke up along Steel Pass Road. Unlike the previous days, the Tacoma was the only vehicle in sight, and I was alone in the desert. I'd hoped for a repeat of the clear skies I'd had the previous morning, but the nicely tinted clouds were a reasonable substitute. Today was going to be the day that I summited Waucoba Mountain - the high point of the Inyo Mountains - but I'd gotten a glimpse of it from Saline Peak the previous morning and it was covered in snow that looked to be…
38 CommentsTag: North Pass
It was 2:00am when the light pitter patter of rain woke both @mrs.turbodb and me from our cozy sleep in the mouth of canyon on the eastern escarpment of the Inyo Mountains. "Guess I waited too long to go pee," she said. "Me too," I replied. It was the first time - in more than 80 nights in the park - I've ever experienced rain at night in Death Valley. Of course, while the whole bathroom thing was inconvenient, my biggest hope was that the rain would tail off reasonably quickly, allowing the tent to dry off before we had…
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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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