1 Bored Clerk's Garage Built Camper

Truck is dialed and ready! I'm outta here!

All four tires rebalanced. One was 8oz off and they also had to spin one on the rim because it had a heavy spot in the same place as the heavy spot on the rim. Drives so sweet now!

 

I like this idea!

 

So, after all the hub bub with the truck, I decided to leave in the afternoon on Friday and drive to bend to stay with my buddy over night. That was awesome. Glad it worked out that way.


That's what that looked like.


Nothing like getting up early to head East.

I just blazed through Oregon and northern nevada as they are close enough to home and I have further horizons to chase.


Decided I was going to start campsite hunting at 3 each day. I don't like rolling into camp after dark. So i did a little of this just south of Battle Mountain, NV


Ended up finding this gem at the end of a mining road. Not a bad view for the evening.


Gratuitous rig photo because HELLS YEAH!


Set up camp. There is A LOT of work to do here. But I'm learning stuff every trip. I bet I'll have a pretty good idea of how I want to do this after this trip.


A little steak and broc for dinner. I had a bit of a salt mishap so some pieces of broccoli were Saltan Sea style. Nothing more steak couldn't balance out though.


Some of that action...


Now some of this action. I've got decent cell coverage so I'll burn up some gigs checking out stuff on the internet. I never saw higher than 45 degrees today. I started at 17 and expect to be well below freezing tonight. I'm contemplating what kind of heater I'll out in this bad boy. Honestly, I'm thinking Propex because they aren't finicky about altitude and refilling propane is easy pretty much anywhere in the US.

Anyway, that's day 1.5. should be in Death Valley tomorrow afternoon unless I get sidetracked along the way.

 

I'm in Fallon, right off 95 if you need a pit stop heading either way. The door is open.

 

fantastic seeing this thing in action! Safe travels!

 

Thanks! I really appreciate that. Last time I passed through fallon was when I had an FJ Cruiser back in 07-08 and I went out to do the Steamshovel Trail. Passed through from Carson City.

 

Yeah, I really only took these pictures to prove it doesn't just darken my driveway.

 

Shoot me a PM and I'll get you my number and address if you want to stop by.

 

You'll love Death Valley, we just left there yesterday!

 

I'm in Austin now. Checking out Stokes Castle. I'm heading back up through CA on my way home. But Nevada will always be home to me. I expect to be visiting a lot more.


Seeing all the dirt roads that slither around out here just makes me want to start driving them. ALL of them. Nevada always some some hidden gems back on these roads

 

Sounds good, watch for the "Shoe Tree" just east of Middlegate on the north side of the road.

 

If all you know of Nevada is Casinos and Cat Houses, then you don't know Nevada at all.









Ophir Canyon. If you're cruising through Nevada and you see an interesting road going up into the hills. Take it. Take all of them. They all have something interesting, wacky or beautiful to reveal.

I ended up camping here just outside of Death Valley...on a pile of mine tailings. So if I end up with cancer or shrivel dick, we know where it came from.



A little pork stir fry then off to bed. Death Valley to come.

 

loving the pics!

 

I've taken SO MANY. As is standard, most of them are trash but a few good ones snuck in.

 

Love seeing the rig in its natural environment, great job.

 

thank you these were the type of pictures i have been waiting for. looks so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Death Valley day 1 went something like this:

Titus Canyon
Ubehebe Crater
Racetrack Playa


Entrance road to Titus Canyon. Air down. Air down right now. The washboard is bad...which is standard for dirt roads in the desert southwest up through Nevada. I won't rant about speed making these roads miserable. But by telling you I'm not ranting I got a tiny bit of rant out.

I didn't take too many pics on the road for some reason. I think it was just so cool and not really photogenic with a cell phone...canyon is too big. Here's a few photos though.



Same mine shaft. Looks so much cooler when you hold your phone in past the iron gate. Pro tip.

This was just visible across the canyon from the road. There was a pull out area around one corner. Park and sort of follow a "path" up to this. It's not visited very often.


There's a little mining ghost town down in there too!


And this crazy wavy rock strata too. It's pretty vivid in real life. It's black and tan/red.


A pretty dope collection of petroglyphs. I don't know what it says so I carved SCREW YOU! In it.


It's kind of hard to tell in this photo but something that impressed me about Death Valley was the outflows from water. This entire outflow came from within a seemingly tiny drainage. You can see where the parks service has bulldozed a fresh road through there many times. The entire park is huge outflows like this. Boulders the size of your truck. It would be terrifying and mesmerizing to see a storm big enough to do that damage. It's unreal.


There this weird section of jumbled rock in the slot part of Titus at the end. Doesn't even seem to belong to anything around it. I realize I didn't take any classic photos like the slot canyon at the end. Or the massive epic views before. Those have all been captured and none of them are as amazing as seeing it in person. It's THE BEST way to enter the park.

I also didn't stop at Rhyolite outside of Beatty because I had been there somewhat recently.

So, this is a pretty crap introduction to Death Valley but I think it ramps up nicely at Ubehebe Crater and beyond. Next post...

 

Looks awesome! I wish we could get out more!

 

Day 1 cont'd.

Ubehebe Crater


I'm no expert but I believe something volcanically significant happened here. This crater is massive! Diameter and depth. And, yes, I walked down into it and all around it. It took a while.


This is a full 360 pano of the crater...from the bottom. The walk down is very steep and all loose pea sized volcanic gravel. Easy going down but a butt kicker going up.The color change around it's edge is pretty cool. There some interesting fingers in the red section like slot canyons.


Here's a pic looking out from one of the little slots. Those light gray ribbons in the background are the paths in/out. Take the one on the right. There were people going up the ones on the left and they're wicked steep. I think they thought they were saving some effort by going STRAIGHT to the parking lot but that's not the case. Evidenced by the number of people sprawled out on their faces on that trail. Not even kidding. Face down just hoping for their body friction to keep them from sliding to the bottom.

I got to the top and there was a mom trying to talk her three young boys into going down. I'm wheezing and sweating and saying "yeah man, totally worth it" "when else are you going to get the be at the bottom of a pit that big?" Hands on my knees bent over. "Totally worth it" wheeze... For the record, it is totally worth it.

Then I finished myself off with a full walk around the crater. Bigger than it looks and way more elevation gain than I expected.


Here's a pic from close to the highest point on the rim. You can see those same light grey paths on the far side. They are not to be underestimated. People were sitting down, young folks were on their knees. I didn't find it all that difficult...one foot in front of the other, but it was epic. It would be downright dangerous in warmer temps. It was mid 60's I think.


On one corner outside the main crater is Little Hebe on the left and Half Hebe on the right. I called him half hebe because half his wall blew out in the big crater.

After this I hit the hellscape they call a "road" out to Racetrack. It is easily, hands down the worst goddamn 27 (or 35?) Miles of road in the USA. The washboard is terrible everywhere, all the time. And embedded rocks and loose rocks for the entire length as well. And people would be doing 30-40 mph. Unreal. I did 12-15 and it was rough. I saw passenger cars hauling down that road.

I came across a couple standing by their Ram pickup. Flat tire. There was a jellybean era F150 that had passed me earlier that had just pulled in behind them and out it in park. As soon as they saw me, they out it in gear and tore out of there. Dick move. Anyway, I helped them learn how to jack up their truck, lower the spare and swap it all around. That full size 4x4 had P rates tires. They had already had a flat earlier on their way out to Racetrack and someone used a plug and got them up and running again. This time a different tire completely blew out...all the way across the tread from one sidewall to the other. Anyway, that took a good amount of time before I was back on the road.


Made it to teakettle junction. I love a good desert oddity. This means you are 6 miles from the playa.

I settled in to the opportunity that changing a tire and driving slow afforded me by looking forward to a playa near sunset and probably empty.


When I got there, there were two families raising hell around the island so I took a beat to make a sandwich for dinner. Then it was my turn. I took a photo of these two rocks. It would be romantic to think of them as friends or soulmates but I thought it would be hilarious if one of them was that weirdo that seems to always sit next to you on the bus. Talks too much, smells funny. You know the character.


A little texture scale for you. There were people out there still so I decided to walk across the whole playa to the other side. It's deceptively large. Here's what I found along the way.


I made it farther than this little fellow.


A playa tag or perhaps wart?


A piece of wood. I wonder how long that's been out there?


Way out in the middle, I found this. Looks like some real science-y shit going down here.

I made it across the playa and started heading back as one would do.


Then I started messing with my phone...


The island. It's actually quite large.

A full moon will make the desert glow. You won't need a headlamp or anything. A half moon is not quite enough. I got off the playa just as the last light left.



I got back in the truck and headed toward Lippencott Pass. It's only a few miles further. I was hoping to camp right near the start of the pass but there was no camping. And the only area that seemed reasonable had a group in it already. So, I headed down Lippencott in the dark. I just needed a spot to stop. I happened to find a wide spot around the outside of a corner with a spit of rock that jutted out into the canyon. It was the perfect size for the truck. I backed it in right there and went to sleep

 

Death Valley Day 2.

This is where my standard wonder-where-that-goes-itis kicks in.


Here we are riding majestic into Valhalla. Witness us! Woke up early and hit the rest of Lippencott pass. Driving before the sun broke the mountain tops.


Another hole in the ground. This one went in a few feet then stopped. When you see a hole in a rock, you owe it to yourself and that hole to go take a look!


Looking down into the canyon as the sun broke over the mountains behind me.


Here you can see the tiny truck on the left and the road zig zagging up and to the right. This is a decent trail. It's got some tight turns and some sticky spots. I would not want to take a full size rig up or down this road. There is one spot in particular that's really tight to a cliff wall on the right (going down) and a washout on the left. You have to drop a tire pretty far into that washout to clear the cliff wall. No thanks. Now I see why folks on big ADV bikes really celebrate a successful trip up this road. It would be really tough on a loaded GS or KTM ADV.


Then you flush out into the canyon onto many more miles of washboard. You drive through miles of what seems to be flood deposit. Seriously, where does it all come from!?


Then you work your way up into a joshua tree forest. The most northern latitude that joshua trees exist in, I guess.


Then Boxcar Cabin. I saw several people drive by while I was here. If you're way out here (and you are WAY out here), I think it's worth stopping.


You can go inside and check it out. Don't ask questions, just accept it for what it is: Desert oddity. I didn't care for the cabin. But...


I did find the accompanying outhouse and Joshua Tree guard to be particularly photogenic that day.



More joshua trees and many more miles of washboard and you end up here: Rainbow Canyon (AKA: Star Wars Canyon). The military uses this canyon for low level maneuver training. Fighter jets come over the top of the hills to the west and drop into this canyon for a quick few S moves before dropping into the panamint valley below. They are eye level or lower when they rip through there. Lots of jets around but no fly through a when I was there. Fun fact: the north half of death valley almost didn't exist because the military "owned" it. They said it could be turned into a national park if they could continue using it as a training grounds. You hear a LOT of jets there. Sad fact: in 2019, a pilot died when he crashed hit jet in Star Wars Canyon. Apparently onlookers were hit with small pieces of shrapnel but no real injuries to the onlookers. Gnarly.

This is where my Death Valley trip takes a turn. At the bottom of the road from Rainbow Canyon, I saw a sign for a "waterfall" hike. I drove back to see what that was about and found the parking lot to be pretty full and kind of a navigational mess with everyone trying to get in and out. But the road continued to the left and said 4x4 only. Well, I'm in a 4x4, they must mean me! So I took it. It went up and up and up and then down and down and down. It was fun.



I found a sunshine rock, an old car and some old buildings at a fork in the road in a wash.


Both forks died out. So I went back to another fork I found and ended up somewhere else. Surprisingly.




Found this crazy ribbon rock. This stuff is so cool to me.


And more old mining stuff. Always a fan.

So, now I'm out of Death Valley and have wandered over the pass to Darwin, CA. Funnily enough, I saw a special about this strange place on Amazon Prime I believe. I didn't take any pictures because it felt out of place. These people came all the way out here to avoid that shit. Plus I saw exactly two people outside and they both looked at me like I was crazy. It was a strange place with a "peer at you through the blinds" vibe. Find the short documentary and you'll see all you need to know.

Now I had a choice to make. Back into the park passing right by rainbow Canyon again? Or west/north to new other stuff? A quick glance at the map and the decision was made...