Having spent a bit of time dealing with the rear e-locker, we were running about two hours "behind schedule" as we barreled west along UT-163 towards Monument Valley. In reality, I'd somehow significantly underestimated the number of miles between Comb Ridge and the Muddy Mountains where we planned to setup camp for the night, so we were running more like five hours later than planned. That meant we'd need to alter our itinerary a bit - eating dinner rather than lunch in St. George, as well as finding a nearby spot to camp so we could complete our final hike…
10 CommentsTag: sunstar
As temperatures have started to rise across the west, areas that were covered in snow or otherwise too cold to wander during the winter are once again opening up. And, while I have an endless list of desert destinations to explore, it's always an exciting time to venture beyond the confines of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts that we've recently called home. And so, we're headed to Utah. There, San Rafael Swell and Cedar Mesa will be our destinations. Like the desert, an infinite number of days could be consumed savoring the sandstone formations, deep canyons, and Native American Indian…
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We'd wrapped up the Arizona Backcountry Discovery Route (AZBDR) in record time, a full day faster than even our most ambitious estimates. On the one hand, it was nice to relax a bit, knowing that we had plenty of time to make it from the Arizona-Utah border near Kanab to our flight out of Las Vegas. On the other, now we were faced with figuring out what to do with our spare time; I hadn't researched any backup plans should a situation like this occur! After a bit of "we could do this," and "we could go see that," we…
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Driving Forever I don't know how we ever did it. Or why. Time after time, for five full years, we would spend nearly 24 hours in the Tacoma, making our way south - in a single shot - to the desert. At the behest of @mrs.turbodb, and following in the footsteps of Ken @DVExile - my Death Valley archetype - I wised up at the beginning of 2023 and haven't looked back. Still, every now and then the Tacoma has to come home for one reason or another. This time, it was to do some work on my rear leaf…
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Having climbed into the tent by 7:30pm, exhausted after nearly two days without sleep, we fell asleep quickly despite the tent flapping wildly in the wind, the entire thing swaying - as I imagine a train car might - with each gust. Still, with warm feet and ear plugs, everything was dandy until just after midnight when I heard the pitter-patter of rain. Or was it? Rain, it turns out, isn't so bad as long as it stops early enough in the morning that the rain fly can dry out by the time we need to put the tent away.…
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Moonlit headframe. We arrived at Nivloc at what appeared to be midnight but was - according to multiple timekeeping devices - only a bit before 8:30pm. Still, even under the bight-as-day moon, we knew better than to poke around this old ghost-town-mine-site in the dark, so we unfolded the tent, read the most boring books ever on our Kindles (me: Bourne Ultimatum, @mrs.turbodb: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent), and climbed into bed as I left the camera snapping one eight-second exposure after the next. I'd hoped to capture some amazing timelapse of…
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Hoping to get some photos before the sun was up and the cabin-under-a-rock was lost to the shadows, I set my alarm for too-dark-o'clock, and hit the snooze button a couple of times before finally pulling on my pants and climbing down the ladder to a beautiful morning. Even before the sun was over the horizon, the glow on the granite hillsides was magical. This old water tank caught my eye. Suddenly in a rush against the sun, I scampered up the hillside in search of a location where I could capture the entire camp. This - given the car-sized…
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It was refreshing 6°F as we emerged from the tent on the first morning of our trip. Without a doubt, @mrs.turbodb's statement the previous afternoon as we pounded away the miles in the warmth of the Tacoma - "We're headed south to the Arctic" - was top of mind. I'd ribbed her at the time - geography is her thing - but there was no question that the trip was off to an auspicious start. So, I'd better give a bit of background on how we ended up here. There isn't any *good* reason to "be" in temperatures like this.…
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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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I was pooped when I climbed into the tent on the edge of the West Fork of Johns Canyon. A full day of hiking (I'd covered more than 16 miles), after only a few hours of sleep (about five), meant that I knocked out a full three minutes of reading before my eyes closed and my thumb stopped "turning pages" of Tom Clancy's Red Winter. Sleep was bliss. I'm not sure I woke up at all before the soft charm of my alarm - a little diddy that everyone probably knows from YouTube survey ads that play before videos but…
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Even with the wind - and intermittent snow - buffeting the tent through much of the night, a good pair of ear plugs enabled us to get a reasonable night's sleep at the southern end of the Mojave Preserve's Mid Hills, near Hole in the Wall. We'd camped in this spot once before - when there was much more snow on the ground - and so upon waking up just as the sun was peeking over the horizon, I climbed out of the tent to do a bit of exploration. Good morning swiss cheese butte. Knowing of some nearby petroglyphs,…
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Having drifted off to sleep to the pleasant pitter-patter of rain, it was extra nice to wake up just before sunrise to clear skies and a completely dry tent. Letting @mrs.turbodb bank a few more minutes of shut-eye, I headed to a nearby ridge to watch the sun crest the horizon. Surrounded by mountain fingers, any westerly winds had been kept at bay through the night. Half an hour later, my whistle - carried across the sandy slopes on a cool breeze - was answered in kind as @mrs.turbodb started her morning routine while I retraced my steps back to…
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Perched above I-10 and the Chuckwalla Valley - which for some reason, I'd previously assumed was on the south side of the Chuckwalla Mountains where the Bradshaw Trail passed through the Chuckwalla Bench - I was relieved when the previously rambunctious winds died down after sunset. Having gotten very little sleep the night before, I fell asleep quickly and slept soundly - perhaps my best night of sleep the entire trip - waking well-rested about a half hour before sunrise, so I could get an early start to my day. A nice place to wake up on the final morning…
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Uncomfortably hunkered down in the passenger seat of the Tacoma with a towel covering my legs for warmth, I spent the first few hours of the night transferring photos to my computer and doing a bit of reading. By 9:00pm, winds were strong enough that waves of sand where being thrown against the side of the truck as it rocked relentlessly with each 60mph gust. It wasn't until nearly midnight - after falling asleep for a few hours - that I decided I really ought to point the nose into the wind. ...HIGH WIND WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 4…
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Except for the burro that decided to "eee-aww, eee-aww, eee-aww" in the middle of the night a little ways up canyon from our camp site, Galena Canyon was one of the most pleasant nights I've experienced in Death Valley in recent memory. The level of the tent was just right; there was just the tiniest bit of a breeze to keep air moving; and temperatures were extremely pleasant in the low 40s °F. I was well rested when my alarm went off just before sunrise, and soon I was poking around the mining area that we'd discovered the previous evening.…
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I'd pulled into my camp site just south of the Utah - Arizona border a little after 10:00pm. At an elevation of 2,700 feet, even with a little breeze, it was balmy compared to what I'd experienced the last couple nights in Nevada. Orienting the truck so the morning sun would act as a natural alarm - spilling into the tent as I slept - I soon drifted off to sleep, excited for the easter-egg-like hunt that I envisioned when I awoke. Little Black Mountain My wake-up plans were foiled when I awoke naturally before sunrise. Knowing that I'd have…
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From Rainbow Canyon, I'd planned to drive a couple hours east - through the darkness - to a fantastic petroglyph site that I could enjoy when the sun crested the horizon the following morning. But, as is often the case, I was easily distracted as I set up the navigation system and noticed that my route would take me right by Cathedral Gorge State Park. We'd briefly stopped at Cathedral Gorge for breakfast on a previous trip south to explore the eastern Mojave, but we hadn't spent much time there and I knew that what we'd seen at Miller's Point…
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Generally, when I visit Death Valley, my goal is to explore the more remote regions of the park. Long lost dirt roads, canyons that entail as much climbing as hiking, and days without seeing another soul (with the exception of @mrs.turbodb) - these are the places we spend our time. As such, exploration of Death Valley proper - largely along CA-190 - has been light. Sure, most of the major tourist attractions have been seen, but surely in a place this inhospitable, even CA-190 holds special places that are only infrequently visited. Remote despite their proximity to pavement. With a…
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All aired up, Mike @Digiratus and I were about to spend the rest of our day on pavement. Well, pavement or its equivalent at any rate, since there are a good many highways - like BC-31 - that are gravel, but are so well groomed that we could easily achieve pavement speeds. Like the state of Nevada, southeastern British Columbia is comprised of a series of ranges that run north-south, separated by valleys and lakes. And, while the trails we wanted to run - out of the Radium Hot Springs area - were only one range east, and less than…
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For much of my childhood, summers were spent in the Plumas National Forest. I have such fond memories of waking up in our favorite campground, earning Junior Ranger patches, and fishing in creeks recently stocked with so many fish that the stream bed was obscured by wriggling tails. And yet, when out exploring as an adult, I've spent almost no time in the Sierra, much less the Plumas National Forest. So, it was with great anticipation that we set out to wind our way through on the Plumas National Forest Backcountry Discovery Trail. Like a BDR, we figured this would…
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