For a couple of years now - ever since I read a trip report from Mike @mk5 - I've wanted to drive the Bradshaw Trail. Located in the southern California region of the Sonoran Desert, it traverses some 85 miles of desert - from the Salton Sea to the Colorado…
Leave a CommentTrip State: California
Death Valley, Sierra's, Anza Borrego, Mojave Desert, ...
For the last four months, my sole destination has been Death Valley. This would be my sixth trip to the National Park, and with temperatures warming up elsewhere, likely the last visit of the season. I couldn't wait. Ever since December, when I'd ventured up Pleasant Canyon and South Park…
Leave a Comment
More and more I've found that I enjoy hiking more than driving in Death Valley. Getting out into a canyon, walking across the desert, hiking up a sand dune - these are the times when I really find joy in the beauty of this grand place. And so, for the…
Leave a Comment
Exploring Death Valley during the winter months is usually a good choice. Given the wintery-cold temps and snow elsewhere, the relatively cooler - but still pleasantly warm at 60-75°F - days in the desert a welcome break from the dreary days in the Pacific Northwest. It was with this in…
5 Comments
I'm one lucky dude. Having just gotten back from two trips to Death Valley - (Lowest Peak in the Park) (Highest Peak in the Park) - over a three week period, I'm now headed back for my third trip in a month! But, frequency isn't the only reason I'm excited.…
Leave a Comment
The 20-hour drive home - that concluded our Lowest Peak in the Park - aka Into the Owlsheads trip - gave me a lot of time to think. The trip had been brilliant, with some predictable highlights, and some unexpected surprises. And I have to admit that joking around as…
Leave a Comment
I have no better way to describe this trip than Michel Digonnet has so expertly done in Hiking Death Valley. One read of this, and I was sold - it was time to visit the Owlshead Mountains. At the south end of Death Valley, between the imposing Panamints and the…
Leave a Comment
For the last eight months or so, I've been trying to get us down to the area along the Nevada-California border to explore the area west of Walker Lake (Nevada) and northeast of Mono Lake (California). One of the highlights - I hoped - would be summiting Mt. Patterson. For…
Leave a Comment
The last couple years have been tough on the forests of California. According to data from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, 2020 saw more burned acreage - 4.4 million acres - than any recorded year in history. More than 2.5 million additional acres have already burned as…
Leave a Comment
I'd been home less than a week after Tragedies in the Tablelands, and I still had the itch to get out and see everything I'd planned before things went all wonky. Even as we'd been driving home from that trip, I was ordering a new camera and lenses, and I…
2 Comments
Having recently visited the Volcanic Tablelands for the first time in search of and petroglyphs, we'd been delighted with what we'd found. So delighted - in fact - that I started researching the area for a return trip as soon as we got home! As I searched, I realized we…
Leave a Comment
Visiting the Mojave National Preserve has - unconsciously - become a traditional "last trip of the year." For three years now, the pull of the desert sun has drawn us south - out of the gloomy grey of the Pacific Northwest. This year the trip would center around foot travel…
Leave a Comment
I don't know whether it's an "oh, duh!" moment, or "can you believe it?" situation, but less than two weeks after returning from our Death Valley trip along the Nadeau Trail, we were headed back for more! I was jazzed, and - a little surprisingly to me - so was…
Leave a Comment
The Nadeau Trail follows the west side of Panamint Valley, roughly in a north-south direction between the Argus Range and the valley's paved roads. Measuring a scant 27 miles long - and for the most part completely straight - the casual observer may wonder if allotting three days to travel…
Leave a Comment
Having just completed the Nevada Backcountry Discovery Route (BDR), we now found ourselves in at the southern most tip of Nevada, quite a distance between us and home. We found ourselves there with a week to spare, having finished the trip a few days sooner than we'd originally expected. Only…
Leave a Comment
I can safely say that trips to with Pops have now become a tradition. I suppose I could have said that after the second trip to this special place, but with a third in as many years, I hope it continues for many more. This time, for the first time,…
Leave a Comment
Death Valley is always full of wonderful surprises. Experienced where they are never expected, they make for memorable trips and are one of the reasons I keep going back. This time, I was going solo; sort of. Sure, there were a couple spots - Hidden Dunes being the most prominent…
Leave a Comment
After visiting the Mojave National Preserve in December 2018 to run the historic Mojave Road, and test out the new rear shocks I'd installed, we ended up having remove the shocks after less than a mile and the run the entire trip with no shocks on the rear of the…
Leave a Comment
Death Valley is not nearby, and yet - it continues to call time after time, urging us to make the 20 hour journey south to explore its wonders. It's hard to say no. That's how - on a Wednesday morning - we found ourselves packed up in the truck and…
Leave a Comment
Well, it's not every day that I get to go camping with my dad, and it's not that often that I camp in the same spot for more than one night. I mean, I guess we camped in the same spot two nights in a row on the Idaho BDR…
Leave a Comment