The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving Holiday. Ours was excellent. My pops came to us from 2,000 miles away. It was a very short visit, yet my vision of taking him to the edge of the desert was realized. We visited Desert View Tower and 4-wheeled in In-Ko-Pah BLM land. Weather was very cool, with lots of wind.



I parked nose into the wind and we had a picnic on the tailgate.


The tower owners have several dogs (all nice) and they waited very patiently for my kids sandwich scraps.


This picture looks like it was taken in the 1950's and shows there was a cafe next to the tower.


A view from above

We played in the caves and around the rock carvings.



Then after airing down to 15 psi we crossed the street and climbed into the rocky mountains. Having my pops around was great.


We visited a quartz mine and collected some samples.

My 71-year old dad, taking in the views.



My camera's 50x optical zoom, told me another Tacoma owner was a few miles away.

We spied this old building from the quartz mine and decided to check it out.


There is a 4x4 trail that leads to the summit where the building is and some concrete pads with studs, probably for an antenna structure.
I think it's an old abandoned radio room.

The Toyo's did great in the rocks.




It was a great day trip. My dad enjoyed getting out and he was very impressed with the performance of the Tacoma, and the comfort it delivered on the very rocky and rutted trail.

Back at trailside, the ARB Twin aired up my tires from 15 PSI to 36 in about 1 minute, 5 seconds each. So happy with the compressor.

 

Awesome pics buddy. Wish we had places like that around here

 

Thanks Andrew. I'm grateful for the varied terrain. One of these days I'll have to go wheel in the forest with them trees.

 

It's nice but I would love to be out in the open like that w/ that sand (dirt)

 

Borrego Springs Part 1

After Thanksgiving I packed the truck up and we headed for a hotel in Borrego Springs.


We love our little duplex. Patio, living room, kitchen, heat, air, etc.

A view from the porch. We had inclement weather upon arrival, then two clear, very cool days.


The propane fire pit was a great idea for the patio. It made the whole experience so much better.


Saturday morning we drove 5-minutes to dirt, aired down to 12 psi.

We took a fun trail back into Rockhouse Canyon. The trail is a mix of dry lake bed, hard pack rock, wash, silt, and embedded boulders. Part of the trail invokes scenes of Baja where high RPM's can be heard and fast spinning tires, felt my suspension bottom out a few times. So much fun!

The mountains in the distance are some of my favorite, they're the tail end of the Santa Rosa Mountain Chain. I've been up there many, many times.

Anyways, we drove until we were sufficiently far back in and explored a mud wall cliff.

Found a really neat metamorphic rock


We climbed up a seam in the cliff where I took this photo of Toro Peak (8,717′), Riverside, CA. They clearly had some snow up there.

Our standing elevation was about 1,200'

Climbing the cliff was quite difficult because of unstable terrain. We know when to quit, so we scrambled down and back to the truck for the next adventure...

 

Was all that gear in the truck for an overnight trip or multiple days?
I'm one of those "rather have it and not need it" types, so whenever I think about packing for a trip, I always go through the checklist and still worry that I'll forget something. 9 times out of 10 I over pack, but you can never be too safe. Not having a shell or locking external compartments makes it difficult for me.

 

Borrego Springs Part 2
Still aired down we hit pavement and went down the road a little bit. I decided to have my wife drive in Inspiration Wash. I think it's important for her to drive off road and for the kids to see her doing it too. We drove until our tummies were hungry and pulled over at this great little spot. Toro Peak is just left of center and is the most northern part of the Santa Rosa Mountain Chain.



It doesn't take much for an impromptu picnic. Chairs, food, water, views, etc. It was nice having the sun at our backs. Nature's heater.


This place used to be under a giant lake. So all the dried mud was once lake mud. The trail is to the right in this picture.

The trail we came in on, just before stopping for our picnic.


After our picnic we returned to pavement, aired up and went to the State Park visitor center. It's a fun little stop where everybody can get a souvenir. My kids each got an 8" stuffed Big Horn Sheep, and I got some stickers for the truck. Wife got something for xmas present for the kids I think. We also watched a 15 minute movie about the different seasons in the park and the wildlife that can be found in it. Neat stuff.

While outside the center, I explained to my oldest girl the dangers of the Cholla cactus. I also photographed Indian-Head Peak. This is the mountain that almost killed me.



Back at the hotel. I really like my camp kitchen tool box. It's heavy! But it has everything I need.

I cooked b'fast each morning, eggs, sausage, OJ, choc-chip muffins etc. We did pack lunches and ate out each night.





Great little trip.

 

Hey Crom. What is the name of the hotel? I'd like to spend a couple of 3 day weekends down there in the next couple of months.

 

That's good! I'm a check list guy too. Sometimes I get get tired and just do it from memory and like clockwork, it seals our fate that something(s) gets left behind. lol One thing I like about the Tacoma is, there is a finite amount of gear that can go in the back and on top of the truck. I've hit that threshold, lol. I do believe that less is more.

Yes it was for two nights, three days.

In the back we had:

• Hi-Lift
• Tools / Tire kit / spare parts
  
• Camp kitchen
• 20# Propane bottle
• 4-gallons water
  
• Fire pit
• ARB fridge
• (3) duffles
• (1) wheeled small luggage thing
• (1) Giant contractor trash bag with about 15 blankets + pillow (kids)
• (1) XL cot for the kids to sleep on.

Sure. I've always dealt with Mike the co-owner. Great guy. We always rent the duplexes, great for privacy and more seclusion.

Boynton's - Hacienda del Sol
610 Palm Canyon Drive
Borrego Springs, CA 92004

www.haciendadelsol-borrego.com

Phone: 760-767-5442
Cathy & Mike Gaffney Managers
​

We covered it back in October.

 

...

 

Man I'm getting old. My apologies. You're right! There is more. It was my second attempt on IndianHead Peak that I almost died on that thing.

It was 2008. I navigated wrong and I climbed up the wrong chute!

And I could not summit because it was blocked by boulders beyond anything I've seen before. I had to bail off the mountain via unknown, uncharted route. Almost got marooned. Had to drop down 3-dry waterfalls, each one committing. So sketchy.

A view climbing up the wrong chute.

A view looking down the canyon where I came from.

Found a tarantula

Hostile rugged rotten rock everywhere.

 

APRS?

Edit: Nevermind, just went back to check out your ham rig in the OP and saw the SPOT GPS with the same map as this, so that answers that! We've got the same ham setup, though.

 

@Crom gotta stop posting so many nice pics of places haha

 

BC is awesome for exploring and wheeling. But our season is short and we're pretty limited on where we can go this time of year without hitting snow. A little snow can be fun but it can quickly turn into a nightmare. You don't want to get caught in the backcountry when a big snowstorm hits or you mine as well abandon the truck till spring rolls around.

Im jealous of all this desert wheeling. Is this the start of the peak season from fall to spring now that temperatures have dropped? It must be nice to be able to explore year round although I'm sure the summer heat discourages many from getting out there when the temperatures are scorching. I really love California, especially SoCal. I spent a lot of time there when I was younger at my grandparents place in Palm Springs. All these pictures really make we want to get back down there and do a little exploring with the Tacoma. I've been contemplating doing a big Cali trip within the next year or two possibly evening working my way down into the Baja as well. When are the peak seasons/times of year? What would be the best time of year to try and avoid a crowd but still have decent weather?

Btw, awesome pictures as always Crom. Glad to see you were able to spend some quality time with your pops too.

 

Looks like a very nice trip for your family.
I'm pretty sure I stayed at Hacienda Del Sol while on a geology field trip back in the mid 90's. I remember the park ranger gave a tour of the park showing us some of the paleontological sites that most poeple don't know of. We were also given a tour of the Stout Research Center Peleontology Lab. It was one of my favorite geology trips. I have yet to return to Anza Borrego, but one of my top three areas that I want to explore.

 

We have trees.

I would love to have one of those ARB Twins. Do you have a will?

 

This may have been covered and I may have missed it: what kind of GPS hardware/software are you running to get the map of your route with the added altitude information, etc.? That and my HAM license are the two things I'm missing for my Dora the explorer kit.

 

Yes I use SPOT Trace for vehicle tracking.

I've used APRS-IS before with my old call, and it can be pretty fun to use. For my instance I use APRS Droid. I've come very close a few times to buying the Mobilinkd TNC product.

Ultimately though, in the end I have issues with publicizing my time and location in public domain, for which there is no expiration for.

I will try.

Snow is no joke. In all my times wheeling the truck I've only ever been stuck once, and it was in snow, high centered.

Yes. Fall, Winter, Spring are very popular times for the desert because of cooler temps. I am oddball though because I like to go when it's hot too.

Late fall and Winter have the most unpredictable weather. If I was going to choose a month for best weather to travel the desert it would be early-mid March.

Palm Springs is a fun town. Wife and I used to use it for base camp at hotel and then adventure out in the day. Fun times.

Did you ever take the tram up to San Jacinto Mountain?

That's great story to hear. Anza-Borrego has a lot to offer. Here is the website for the parks Paleontology http://www.anzaborregopaleo.org/

A number of years ago I discovered a hidden rock house high in the Santa Rosa Mountains. It had several artifacts strewn about. I photo documnted the whole site. It was very old. I found old skeleton key and empty cans from prospectors. And the most interesting discovery was a transparent jar of food which looked still preserved.

After making the discovery I got in touch the with state park's superintendent who did not know of the rock house. She in turn put me in touch with the former retired park superintendent. We conversed over email, and he knew of the rock house existence but did not know the origins or history of the house.

If I did not have to work, I'd move to Borrego Springs and spend the rest of my life exploring out there. Paleontology and Geology would be fun hobbies.

The park is huge and covers a lot of varied terrain. Behind the park service is a very powerful nonprofit agency who for years has been buying private property from willing sellers and deeding over to the park. Most of these land plots are adjacent to the park, or are inholdings within park boundaries. Some of the land transfers have been quite large and were part of historical desert cattle operations. So in the last 20 years the park has expanded quite a bit, especially at the base of the Laguna Escarpment and even all the way up to the boundary of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park.

I just checked, they've added 52,00 acres to the park. http://theabf.org/saving-land

on getting your ham ticket. Great for emergency comms.

I have an old Garmin 60CSx handheld GPS that I've carried for 9+ years while hiking. It is old but works well. I pull the data out with a USB cable and import it into software for route analysis. For software, I've always liked TopoFusion http://topofusion.com/

 

Here is something cool. An addendum to our Borrego Springs trip. Staying on the other side of the duplex was a nice family from San Diego who we met and talked to and it was great to meet them. The husband was a Tacoma owner of a 2010 sport. We talked Tacoma and camping. He noticed the nice new headlights on my truck and I told him about the warranty program which was going to expire the next day which was Nov 30th. I got email from him today that he got his headlights replaced under warranty and it was the very last day of the program. Wooooo!