Calipidder

Black Mountain is the southernmost peak in the White Mountains, most commonly known as the home of the Ancient Bristlecone Pine forest. On the northern end of the range is White Mountain, the third highest peak in California at 14,246 feet.
Black Mountain, while ‘only’ checking in at 9,083 feet, is still an impressive peak when [...]

After Saturday’s visit to Fossil Falls, Cerro Gordo, and the U2 tree we didn’t have a lot of light to find our campsite outside of Death Valley. We like to primitive backcountry car camp in the BLM lands outside the park since there are fewer restrictions (i.e. we can cook over a campfire with the [...]

After spending 30+ hours of the last month on a plane, I wanted to do an overnight backpack trip with minimal fuss and maximum relaxation. I wanted to go somewhere with a relatively easy hike, nice scenery, fishing, campfires, and swimming. I also wanted flexibility in the number of people and time, so I didn’t [...]

We left Palm Springs on Christmas morning, ready to head back out to the desert for some hiking. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooporating and most of the surrounding ranges were completely socked in. That, combined with the ridiculous wind forecast, had me rather disappointed as we worked our way down highway 10 towards the [...]

As part of our trip to the desert we decided to join the Southern California 4×4 Geocachers on a run. The target was the Dale Mining District, just north of Joshua Tree, and the run was suitable for our stock 4×4 (though it pushed its limits at times!) The district has a huge number of [...]