I've been spending a lot of time in Utah this spring. I'm not sure if that's because the weather has been unseasonably great or because I realized that I needed to check my desire to spend every exploring minute in Death Valley, but whatever the reason, it's been amazing. And so, when Ben @m3bassman put out a feeler to the crew for a spring trip to Capitol Reef for a few days, I was in! Actually, I was mostly in - my home life meant that I'd be a couple days late - but I was super excited to finally…
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There are always places that get missed or left behind. Sometimes it's due to a lack of time; sometimes because of a lack of knowledge. Whatever the reason, and despite the fact that it's both normal and unavoidable, I almost always feel like I've failed in some way. Of course, it's not a failure at all; there is so much more than we can ever see. Sometimes - the best times - there's so much in a given area that it's easy to plan an entire trip. Other times, there's not quite enough. In those cases, it's always nice when…
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"I want to do something epic for @mini.turbodb's spring break," @mrs.turbodb mentioned to me a few weeks ago. At the time, I think we were on our way home from a day of skiing, and I jokingly suggested that we could take @mini.turbodb on her first ever backpacking trip, through the Grand Gulch. After all, I'd recently created a goal around hiking the length of this amazing gash on the Earth's surface. Anyone who has followed along for a while will likely recall that I don't like carrying weight on my shoulders. In fact, I have a collection of variously-sized…
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Utah's Grand Gulch. Click to enlarge. Every time I go to Utah's Cedar Mesa, I find myself wondering why I don't visit more often. When I really think about it, the answer is a combination of factors, with the largest being: Distance - It's a 24-hour drive from home. Anything over 19 hours is a slog - even for the younger me, who could conquer long drives and still hike the next day. Even when the Tacoma is stored in Las Vegas, it's a 9-hour trek - nearly a full day of driving - just to get there! Death Valley…
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Comb Ridge. There, somewhere, is a ruin that I've been searching for over the course of several years. While not unknown, this ruin - with walls supported by a Juniper Tree trunk - is infrequently visited and photographed, and the location is kept well under wraps by those who have been lucky enough to visit. And I'm fine with that. I appreciate it and understand why. Still, I'll keep searching until I find it. Looking through the - relatively little - material I have been able to collect on the ruin, a note I'd either missed or not been able…
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First prints. 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 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…
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After spending two weeks (one) (two) in Death Valley, and a week in the Mojave Preserve before that, I figured it was time to get out of the Mojave Desert for a bit. My first inclination was to head east towards Cedar Mesa to continue my search for the Juniper Tree ruin. This, I figured, would be a relatively straightforward affair, since I'm confident that I've narrowed down its location, so I knew I'd need more to fill a trip. Pouring over my usual sources of inspiration, I came upon a reference to the Shamans Gallery along the North Rim…
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