Minietta Mine

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 [...]

Buck Island Lake Has No Fish

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 [...]

Mastadon Peak and other goodies

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 [...]

Dale Mining District 4x4 Geocaching Run

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 [...]

Anza Borrego, Joshua Tree and Beer

Instead of flying to Michigan this year to see our families, David and I stuck around California for the holidays. We both missed our families, but it was such a relief to not pay ridiculous amounts of money to be incredibly inconvenienced and probably stranded in Chicago or Denver or some place that was neither [...]

Warm Springs Canyon

Our last full day of the annual Thanksgiving Trip to the desert was an adventure! We decided to do the run up Warm Springs canyon into Butte Valley, but instead of continuing through the valley and up towards Mengel Pass, we turned off towards Arrastre Springs to explore that area. The day was primarily spent [...]

Black Canyon, Inscription Canyon, and Afton Canyon

It’s that time of year again, time for me to play desert rat for a week. Thanksgiving is a great time to head to the desert. Temperatures are mild to cold and crowds are generally light (except on the freeways). As usual, we hopped into the car on the Friday before Thanksgiving and headed south, [...]

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