Later on Sunday morning, after our Minietta Mine exploration, we headed out of Panamint Valley and into Death Valley. Our goal was to visit some of the lesser known canyons…
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…
I've been meaning to visit Cerro Gordo for a long time and it was with great excitement that we turned up the dreaded road on Saturday afternoon. I have heard…
Every year we take off the week of Thanksgiving to explore the deserts of Southern California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. This year, our trip took us through Death Valley, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, and Mojave National Preserve. Over the next week or so, I’ll be posting trip reports on specific parts of this trip since many of the things we did deserve their own entries.
The trip started relatively low-key, with an uneventful evening drive from the SF Bay Area to Fossil Falls, just north of Inyokern, CA and off of 395. Arriving a little before 10 pm, we were slightly concerned about finding an available campsite at the 11 site BLM campground, but our worries were unfounded – we were the only campers in the park. I am not as familiar with this southern end of 395 and wasn’t comfortable trying to find a campsite in the dark, so I was glad it all worked out.
Recently I acquired a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 digital camera (birthday present to myself). This camera is a high quality device disguised as a compact point-and-shoot.
When I’m backpacking, I’m often in the most beautiful scenery I’ve ever experienced and strongly wish I had my DSLR along, but I’m not going to haul it for long trips. So a few months ago I started looking for a ‘professional’ compact (meaning flexibility via manual controls) with a good wide lens. Not surprisingly, the market for this type of camera is pretty small – someone who cares that much about the lens and control is probably going to go for an SLR (especially at that price point) – and choices are somewhat limited. But us backpackers – well, we’re really good and compromising and balancing function, weight, price, and convenience, and a small camera that’s going to get me as close to the SLR quality and experience as possible is something I’m willing to spend some $$ and research time on.
I thought this was important enough to get its own entry. When you spend hundreds of dollars on a garment, you want to treat it as carefully as possible. I've…
I managed to squeeze in a long dayhike, finally! Since the Sierra backpacking season ended I haven't gotten out on a lot of long hikes and I'm definitely missing it.…
A few months ago I wrote about how I take my favorite coffee, fresh ground Peet's, into the backcountry. I'd arrived at this technique after years of trying out different…
Happy fall! Up until Saturday, I was still functioning in 100% summer mode - summer can't quite possibly be over, right? Although I wasn't really ready for it, on Friday…