Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Re: binoculars ... we're planning a big trip that will involve a lot of birdwatching (not really my thing) and I want to get my wife some real binoculars. So thanks for the tips, but all the birdwatching sites recommend 8x rather than 10x ... any opinions on this?

Re: air intake screens ... not sure if the sizes are right for our intakes, but at my last two houses, where rats are a real problem, I inset the light-bulb-shaped wire guards intended for downspouts, into the waste and furnace vent stacks on the roof. Perfect fit and already formed to shape, cheap too.

 

I'm not a birder but from what I read I think the recommendation for 8x is down to a few benefits specific to birding:

• Likely a wider field of view than a 10x so easier to both find and track the birds
• Likely closer focusing than a 10x which is good for those tiny little birds that hop around in bushes practically right next to you but you still want a closer look through binos
• Lighter and so less fatigue when hand holding because birders tend to just stare and stare and stare through the binos watching what the little buggers are up to.
• Lighter for hiking with because birders do that a lot too
• Similar to the fatigue issue - less shaky of a view than a 10x

For my daytime "truck" use I'm usually trying to identify something far away or quickly check out some wildlife. For that really anything from say 7x to 10x would be just fine. I chose 10x just because I'm used to bracing my binoculars when I'm viewing from the driver seat so I can use the additional power without dealing with too much shaking.

For astronomy viewing binoculars end up acting a bit different than telescopes as far as the most desirable parameters. For telescopes "aperture trumps all". That's because you can swap in different eyepieces to get whatever magnification you want and the additional aperture helps at any magnification (well except extremely low mags). So for telescopes a 120mm is always better than a 100mm which is always better than a 80mm and so on. With astronomy binoculars it turns out that magnification has a much more significant impact on how many stars and DSOs you can see than aperture actually does and so you'll see for astronomy binoculars a tendency to recommend the highest magnification that either hand holding or tripod mounting allows. Thus the 10x50 is the universal "first astronomy binocular" rather than an 8x power binocular. And a 10x42 would be more desirable for astronomy than say an 8x50 despite the 8x50 having the larger aperture. If you are tripod mounting 20x70 is popular. And if you have deep pockets an image stabilized 15x50 or 18x50.

So definitely different horses for different courses.

Oh and to that end I have no idea what to recommend for horse race viewing...

Brilliant idea! Someone should try that instead of what I did.

 

I like your build idea. Light and simple are better. I've recently decided to go down the same path. I still bring a bunch of stuff but have seriously lightened the load.

I was a backpacker long before I got into car camping. With the truck I've had the attitude that I can bring EVERYTHING...so I did. Now I'm bringing less and less. I'm almost back to backpacking stage camping with my truck. It's much much better. It's like actual camping again.

 

I've only done a bit of backpacking but decades of motorcycle camping and a few years of small hatchback car camping. So I _should_ be able to travel light, But somehow with the Tacoma we always end up having it stuffed. I've really got to work hard on slimming it down. Although we got rid of the RTT, we added a hitch rack for the bikes (instead of cramming them into the 5' bed) so we have a lot of volume under the shell even with ground tent and sleeping pad. I am really tempted by the GoFast camper concept, but a big part of me wants to sell the shell I have and just get a tonneau, partly to make open bed hauling (non-recreational) easier, and partly to be forced to only bring stuff that fits under the closed tonneau. There's a "Keep it Simple" thread over on ExPo that's helping me ...

 

I motorcycle camp too...soon to be adding a mountain bike rack to my Vstrom.

That's a good idea. In backpacking the smaller bag you pack the less stuff you'll carry.

 

I had rodent attack under the hood this year. was expensive fix at dealer, crawled up into the throttle body area, a nice little cubby under the plastic cover, pulled some of the white insulation fuzz from the plastic hood, and gnawed on a wire harness and a hose carrying coolant. I was surprised as I took a very short drive, and noticed first no heat, then T guage maxed, then seeing steam from under the hood.

 

Thanks! Welcome to the thread!

I've tried from the start to keep things as minimal as possible while providing for a wife and a kid but even still it has been important to cull things. At first I had a "camp carpet" to put under the awning so the wee one would be less dusty but it took a lot of space and proved to not be too useful so that was ditched.

Thieves removed the compact telescope that wasn't getting much use anyway...

Next on the chopping block may be the propane fire ring. We just don't use it really at all. I never use it solo because I'd prefer to be looking up at the stars and a camp fire and dark adapted eyes can't coexist. My daughter isn't a huge fan of fires to begin with and really it takes enough time to get her fed and ready for stories and bed without adding a fire to all that. Maybe when she is older, but by then I kind of hope she is looking at the stars too!

I also need to go through the second Action Packer as I think there are a few low use items hiding in there right now.

Nice! I think this is the one:

http://forum.expeditionportal.com/t...Simple-Stupid-Tips-amp-Tricks-Lessons-Learned

I've ditched my plans for fancier camp lighting. I tend to like a dark camp to begin with and the two lights in the Flip-Pac along with head lamps seems to cover everything I need. I've got the dual white/red lighting in there but I've found I never switch it to white. White attracts bugs, red does not! I use white "task" lighting as necessary from my head lamp (e.g. checking if my hot dog is cooked enough).

I've heard of this happening to more than one person. One victim crammed some crumpled up chicken wire or hardware cloth in that space to keep them out in the future. I've never tracked down the location though so thanks for specifying where it is! Might be rodent project number two for me!

 

I'm a big fan of head lamp only around camp as well. There's no need to have lights all over the place.

 

I love this thread!

 

One of my pet peeves at big meets. Whole damn desert is lit up like a football stadium. Don't get me started on the loud music at camp either.

 

Squadron Pro First Use
December 2017

Saline trip was my first real use of the Squadron Pro lights I put in place of the stock fogs. I'm always headed out to the springs in the dark given my typical schedule for the day and the fact I'm usually doing a sunset photo around Panamint Springs or Lee Flat. It was the trip down Grapevine Canyon that originally motivated me to do the Fog Lights Anytime Mod as a first step. The Squadron Pros are essentially that on steroids.

Well I can say I really like them and they work pretty much exactly as I intended. They throw a whole lot more light to the sides an higher up than the fogs do which makes it a lot easier to tell where a winding road is going and what might be looming out from the side of the road. In addition the spot beam portion of the pattern also did what I want - provide very bright but low raking light that really makes the road surface features pop at a distance.

Now was it all worth the rather exorbitant cost of those particular lights? Well that is of course a matter of opinion and in my weird aesthetic taste I was trying to pack as many lumens as possible into the stock lighting locations. As mentioned earlier I think one of the cheaper light bars mounted in the lower grill probably achieves the same effect for less money (though I must say after watching my transmission temps during my June trip I'm not so pro on blocking that lower grill). Once again must mention the Fog Lights Anytime Mod really gets you probably 70 or 80% of the way there for free with just the OEM lights.

Part of the way through the drive I picked up two unexpected passengers (details to follow in a trip report some day) and as soon as we started driving the first thing they said was "wow, those are really nice lights!". So apparently it isn't just me that likes the setup.

I stopped in Grapevine to once again take comparison photos this time with the better context of an actual road:

OEM Brights Only


Brights + Squadron Pros​

 

Thanks a lot. Just seeing those pics makes me wish I was out there right now...wait...that's most of the year I have that feeling.

 

Nice shots! Thank You for posting up your feedback. I hope you don't mind, I went ahead and shared here:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...d-gen-16-18-more.423635/page-18#post-16660944

 

Death Valley Teaser

Just two nights out with my daughter after Christmas. Now two trip reports behind!

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If it makes you feel any better I did 21 trips for 52 nights of camping this year. I think I’m about 15 trip reports behind. Lol

 

That makes me feel really, really jealous rather than better...

 

Nice looking build....tagged for later.

 

Saline Valley
December 2017

Early December is my almost annual pilgrimage to the Saline Valley Hot Springs. Usually this just involves sitting around and relaxing for the better part of the week and maybe tweaking a few things on the truck. So this will be a pretty quick trip report!

Flew in Monday morning, got provisioned after checking for what all had been stolen from the truck, had an early In-n-Out lunch and was on the road a bit after noon. Drive was pretty uneventful and I got to Saline Valley Road a little bit before sunset with hopes of getting a decent shot somewhere along the road. It was quite windy!

My first spot to shoot was going to be a composition I've scouted a good five years ago on Lee Flat. Today it was just too damn windy since I'd need to stand on the roof of the Flip-Pac (not fun in 40 mph winds) and the usually steady Joshua trees that would compose the foreground were moving too much for a sharp photo. With time running out I made a dash for South Pass where my alternate shot would be.

I caught up to a white pickup above Lee Flat which turned out to be an Inyo County vehicle. The driver was headed out to collect the road grading crew whose commuting vehicle had broken down. I continued on and passed by the broken down truck just a bit before the pass. I got positioned for another shot I'd scouted awhile back and hoped sunset would develop adequately. Indeed there was some nice color. Given how windy it was I shot from inside the vehicle with the window rolled down. I kind of made a mistake I think and used a polarizer to try to get the pink clouds to "pop" a bit more as well as cut down on some of the haze kicked up by all the wind. I've learned this lesson before - a polarizer on twilight clouds makes the scene just look a bit too surreal and I haven't been happy processing any of the color versions of the shot. Made a decent black and white version though:

South Pass Vista
​

I'd been pressing pretty hard to get in position for a sunset shot so I took a little break at the pass to have a snack and a rest. The wind through the pass was just insane. Forecast was for it to die down that night and I kept my fingers crossed for calmer winds for the rest of my trip.

Descending Grapevine was a good checkout of my new lighting (written up early in the thread) and I made good time since the road was in excellent condition on account of the stranded grading crew.

Just after I passed the turn off for Lippincott Road I was surprised to see two people walking down the road in the dark. They were two backpackers and I stopped to see if they needed anything. They asked for a ride down the road to Beveridge Canyon and I was happy to give them a lift.

They had hiked from Owens Valley over the Inyo Mountains and then up to Racetrack. They were now on their return leg intending to camp near Beveridge and hike back over the Inyos the next day. I suggested they spend the night at the springs and I could ferry them back to Beveridge in the morning. This proposal was gladly accepted.

Along the way we passed a burnt out vehicle which was a bit surprising. The rest of the drive was uneventful and we arrived at the springs to find them crowded for this time of the year. Walking up to the fire ring the two backpackers were surprised to find two other hikers they had met a couple days before up in the Inyos. They were headed out the next morning and had extra space in their vehicle so there would be no need to hike back over the Inyos.

Around the fire was a French gentleman who had apparently fractured his leg in a dirt bike accident. Someone with limited EMT training was there and after examining it concluded indeed it was likely a fracture as there was blood pooling in the heel. Arrangements were made for him to get a ride out the day after next along with someone familiar with off-road motorcycle riding driving his bike out for him.

There were more than the usual number of folks around the fire and some interesting conversations were had. It had been extremely windy the night before according to everyone and looked like the wind would hold on through much of the night. I decided to not deploy the Flip-Pac and park in a semi-sheltered spot for the first night. I eventually had a nice soak in a tub and then went to bed.

By 4AM the wind had died down considerably and I returned for my usual pre-dawn soak. After sunrise I relocated the truck and opened up the Flip-Pac. There followed a few days of relaxing and truck maintenance.

My original plan was to leave Saturday morning and with any luck @inv3ctiv3 was going to swing by Friday evening. By midweek though I was getting a bit sick of the place as there were just far more people here than was typical of this time of the year and more than a few were clueless and loud. The huge fires around Santa Barbara meant @inv3ctiv3 had to cancel his trip and so I opted to cut the trip a couple of days short. My wife would be glad of some extra child care help too! So Thursday morning I managed to book a red-eye out of LAS that evening for about the same price as my original Saturday ticket and I began to make the drive out.

On the way out I passed the burned out vehicle again:

​

A bit further on part of the road grading crew was waiting for their ride out of the valley. I stopped to chat. They had been doing this job for many, many years. They commented on just how much visitation had changed recently and how surprised they were by the almost continuous traffic in the Valley these days while they were grading. They mentioned that they would be grading much more frequently now because some sort of funding dispute between the County and the NPS has been worked out in the past couple of years after nearly a decade of reduced road maintenance.

Past that point the road was perfectly smooth as I put down the first tire marks on a few miles of freshly graded road. In not too long the third member of the crew passed going the other direction to pick up the folks I had just been talking too. Those who follow the Death Valley thread here on TW know this excellent road maintenance just seems to make things so smooth going that people go too fast and roll their vehicles.

In Grapevine there was a Subaru stopped and I checked with the driver. He had run out of gas. Unfortunately I didn't have any gas in my jerry can this trip and apparently he had already talked to the grading crew on their way in that morning for a ride. I'd be going the wrong way on the 190 to give him a useful ride so I let him know the grading crew had just left to head home and should be not too many minutes behind me. He was at this point the third vehicle I had passed besides the road crew. On a effing Thursday the second week of December. The typical number of folks seen a few years past would have been zero.

As I finally reached the 190 there was a truck apparently waiting for me. It was a ranger and he asked about the burnt out vehicle. I told him it was indeed there and asked if he wanted to see a picture. He said no, he already had his own pictures from when he visited it four or five weeks earlier. The owner was supposed to have had it removed at least two weeks ago. The ranger would now have it removed (Miller's presumably) and bill the owner. He thanked me for saving him a long drive and headed back on his way. After airing up again it was an uneventful trip back to Vegas and my flight home.

As anyone who follows the Death Valley thread may have already seen I wasn't very happy about this trip. The number of people at the springs for this time of year was astounding. Worse not all of them were particularly well behaved. One group of morons was blasting music for a whole day at the lower springs loud enough to be heard all the way up at the upper springs. Multiple off leash dogs a few of which were not even remotely well trained enough to be off leash even if it weren't illegal to begin with. Of course 90% of the folks there were nice to chat with but it only takes a few dopes to start to ruin the place.

At this point I think this may be the end of my annual pilgrimages to springs. Unless the roads get taken out by weather to limit visitation I'm unlikely to enjoy it even on what was previously one of the least visited weeks of the season. It is certainly only going to get worse and fast. The confluence of a glassy smooth Saline Valley Road and a tipping point of social media attention can only fundamentally alter the place. I think people are going to be surprised just how quickly south it is going to go - though I hope I'm wrong. NPS is slowly working out their management plan and I can only assume the rapid changes there are going to factor in to which options they choose for management. At this point I think permitting a small number of visitors is the only rational alternative short of just removing the man made pools entirely.

The silver lining to this is that there are still a lot of Saline Valley canyons that I have been meaning to explore but never do because it is just too tempting to park my ass at the springs for a solid week. So perhaps next year I'll just use the springs as a place to stop for a midweek hot shower but otherwise spend the rest of my time in other parts of the valley that demand some exploration!

 

I'm thinking of going to the Springs next month. Hopefully it will be a quieter time. I was there in April 2016 ... my first visit, and it seemed pretty quiet, with a generally more civilized clientele than some of the Eastern Sierra springs which are so easy to access. My favorites are probably in Oregon, fairly busy, but mostly a quiet respectful crowd. BTW, @DVexile how are liking your 235/85 KO2's? I'll be replacing my OEM Goodyears soon and was assuming I'd get LT265/75's, but realized there's a much bigger selection in the 235/85's and they're a bit lighter.

 

Reading reports like this are a little disheartening. The crowds of party people are the reason I prefer to escape to the desert. As instagram "overlanding" has become more of a fad I'm sure traffic and congestion will also surge. I've wanted to go to the springs for several years, but since I've never been before, I am a little hesitant to go alone since I don't know proper etiquette and am unfamiliar with those roads. Worst thing would mean I'd unknowingly become one of those idiots you mentioned. I'd eventually like to go there with someone that is as familiar with the area as you are so I can avoid the trail faux pas. Since I'm close enough to make it a worthwhile trip, I really should explore the area before it gets too bad. I'd even be willing to take time off work to make it a mid-week trip to limit crowds even more.