Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

RCI Off Road Aluminum Skid Plates
February 2016

I got into a December RCI GB a little bit late and picked up a full set of skid plates, all of them aluminum. There are a lot of choices in the skid plate market and there were a few different ones that seemed like good choices. I liked the RCI set since all of the plates were aluminum, some manufacturers don't bother doing aluminum for the "smaller" plates. Their design looked clean an strait forward.

I wanted to go with all aluminum to keep weight down, I don't wheel over rough terrain at 60 mph so I'm mostly looking to take an unexpected hit on the front at modest speed and the rest of the undercarriage needs protection from low speed high centering. I really don't need thick steel.

If trying to save weight like I am in this build there really is a question as to how much armor to bother with. I'm not sure I really have a good answer, but I know aluminum cut down the weight penalty of over doing it.

For me the front skid was obviously needed. Having read about many smashed LCA cams I wanted protection for those - including from unexpected turned boulders right under the wheel. With the RCI setup the way you protect the cams is with LCA skid plates. Obviously the LCA itself is very strong and probably doesn't need much protection itself, but the LCA skids also really protect the cams well from front and back. The LCA skids also add very little weight.

Moving back from the front skid now I wonder more about diminishing returns. The transmission skid is not adding much weight and covers some things you wouldn't want to come down on a rock. The transfer skid is probably the least bang for the pound, it requires a new cross member which is steel while the skid itself isn't very long. So you pay a fair bit of weight in a relative sense compared to not much additional coverage. In the end I decided on both the transmission and transfer skids. As shown earlier in the build I already re-routed the exhaust so I can use flat skids.

Further back you can also add a fuel tank skid. The stock "skid" back there is fairly ridiculous. On the one hand I'd expect that if I'm having a clearance issue then I've probably learned about it before I get all the way back to the gas tank! On the other hand, I really don't like the thought of a punctured fuel tank... In the end I opted for the fuel tank skid.

The one remaining skid is for the rear differential. This one I did pass on, the thought being I do know to drive over obstacles with my wheels and also the differential is quite beefy. That said I really don't have a good answer for the trade-offs involved - is a diff skid more valuable than the fuel tank or perhaps the transfer skid?

So front, transmission, transfer, fuel and LCA skids are going on the truck. All of them aluminum though the new cross member for the transfer skid is steel. The total weight going on the truck according to UPS is 100 lbs. I still need to weigh the stock skids that came off. I'm guessing I added around 75 to 80 lbs with all this additional armor.

We are living in an apartment this year and all this armor had been sitting in our "den" for more than a month at this point. Said "den" is actually right attached to the living room and so the family has been staring at giant boxes for too long. So I decided to use the upcoming Death Valley trip as the impetus to get this stuff installed and out of the apartment.

So Thursday night after my daughter was in bed I loaded the armor into the back of the truck and went over to a well lit and now empty parking garage on campus to do the install. This ended up taking a lot longer than I expected because I'm so slow and fuss a lot. Plus I did a few other minor things like witness mark and photograph the LCA cams from the alignment done in the morning.

The install was totally manageable with one person. The plates can all be cantilevered from their fronts before installing their rear fasteners. The front plate is the only one a little tricky to get started in this way. The following plates have their front slide in above the next plate forward making install a breeze. Here's everything that needs to go on:

Lots of Aluminum
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One thing to note right away is that the finish on the aluminum to my mind is perfectly acceptable as is. Another advantage of aluminum is no need to worry about rust so I was able to forgo the powder coating. I thought about potentially rattle canning them, and I could at some point in the future of course, but for now I want to get the dang things on. I saw some folks here on TW with aluminum front skids found the finish too bright and covered in marks so they ended up doing some basic chemical and mechanical finishing to make it look better. In this case I think the RCI front skid is dull enough as received and see no need to muck with it further. Talking with Josh at RCI he had indicated he's had trucks with unfinished aluminum skids on them and after three years they look great with just a bit of the expected oxidation.

When you remove the stock skid you discover that it is effectively a bit beefier than you'd expect. Yes the skid material is pretty flimsy but it is backed by two strong brackets connecting cross members at the front of the truck. The RCI skid doesn't use these brackets and so they are removed, but the RCI skid has some heavy duty gussets to back up the already quite thick aluminum.

Front Skid Gussets
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One key thing I'd consider a flaw in many aftermarket front skids like this one is lack of coverage for the LCA cams. The stock skid you take off actually does protect the front cams and so in that sense this aftermarket skid is a downgrade. Of course the cams are meant to be protected by the LCA skids but I think lots of people don't get those because they figure the LCA is plenty strong on its own so why get a skid. If you go that route you'd end up with less protection, and crushed cams seem to be a pretty common issue here on TW.

No Front Cam Protection
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This problem is resolved by adding the LCA skids which provide excellent and tight protection for the cams on all sides. One concern I had with the LCA skids is that the outboard bolt seemed a bit taller than necessary and is right underneath a boot. It looks threatening. Of course a shorter bolt could be substituted but honestly I couldn't figure out the point of this bolt, the skid is held practically under tension by the two much beefier inboard bolts so I decided to just not install the outboard bolt. Talking to Josh at RCI later he indicated the boot should be fine with the provided bolt but that really the bolt is not necessary give the strength of the inboard bolts and the shape of the rest of the skid.

Scary looking bolt right under the boot


Full protection for the cams now​

I should also mention working on these skids was so much nicer with the truck 2.5 to 3" higher after the lift. Transmission skid went on easily, the install kit includes some small custom plates for the top of the cross member to hold the washer and nut on the carriage bolts used for mounting. Most of the plates have a nice design in which there is a square hole in the plate for a carriage bolt and then things are tightened one handed from the top. This also means no bolt heads to get dinged by or hung up on the terrain. It is a simple, elegant and effective design choice.

The transfer requires a new cross-member to be added and again this is thoughtfully designed to require no drilling for installation. This is kind of a heavy and awkward thing to handle as a single person but the instructions helpfully recommend holding it in place with a jack which I did. After getting the cross member installed I hit the first check in the process:

Oops...
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It turns out 3/8" lock nuts do not fit on 7/16" carriage bolts. This meant I couldn't mount the transfer skid tonight but this would all be resolved the following day with a quick trip to the hardware store. I let Josh know about the kitting error so he could double check that none of the other kits in his shop had the same issue.

So at this point just the LCA skids, front skid, transmission skid and the cross member for the transfer skid but not the transfer skid itself.

Looking forward at everything but the transfer skid
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Last thing to tackle was the fuel tank skid. I knew from reading on TW that this is nearly impossible to install with a full tank (the tank flexes under load) so I was sure to not fill up after my drive up from San Diego the day before. I also knew the OEM bolts on the fuel tank skid straps were really short and it was best to use a jack to crank the skid up against the tank to get the bottom of the tank and straps to flatten so the bolts stick through the skid enough to thread the nut. I indeed needed to follow those steps but other than that installing the skid was uneventful. The nylock barely engaged the threads in some cases so I witness marked all the skid mounting bolts so I could keep an eye on things.

Fuel Tank Skid
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And that was it apart from cleaning up all my tools and the OEM skids. I did have a security guard swing by and check what I was doing along the way but he was polite and professional. I didn't get back to my bed until about 3 AM as this all took longer than expected! The next day I got the right 7/16" nuts to mount the transfer skid but didn't take photos.

This was the last of the mods to get in before the Death Valley trip. The next day I needed to get provisioned so we could start out early Saturday morning!

 

Death Valley - Day 1
President's Day Weekend 2016

Normally I despise crowds and thus avoid holiday weekends for camping. In this case though we wanted to look for wildflowers - which attract crowds no matter what - and we needed to distract our daughter over a three day weekend. By all accounts southern Death Valley was starting to put on a great wildflower display because of some extreme storms that occurred in the fall followed up by some decent winter precipitation.

I had been working on the truck all the way up until very late Thursday night (see above skid plate post) and so Friday was a rush to get last minute things ready for the trip. Based on how slow a start we got on earlier family trips I decided this time all provisioning and what not would be done on Friday so we could get going almost right away on Saturday. I got close at least, most everything was staged already by Friday night but I was just too tired to get entirely ready. Nonetheless we managed to pull away in the truck at about 9:15 in the morning Saturday, a new record for us.

The plan was to enter from the south by driving up to Baker via I-15, take the 127 up to the Saratoga Springs turn off and camp somewhere in that area the first night. Sunday drive up Harry Wade Road and camp around central Death Valley someplace. On Monday we would head back via Panamint Valley, the 14 and the Angeles Forrest Highway to avoid potential backups on the I-15 south from Vegas at the end of the holiday weekend.

Despite worries about Saturday morning holiday weekend traffic things went smoothly and we had only a very minor slow down in the Cajon Pass. We had breakfast by 10:30 at the IHOP in Hesperia since we know our daughter finds plenty to eat there. Having kids means defaulting to a lot of chain restaurants.

We breezed through Barstow without stopping. I find negotiating truckers and texting drivers to be rather taxing on desert interstates like the I-15, I-40 and I-10 so when I can parallel the freeway on fast frontage roads I usually do. The most pleasant example is taking the old 66 instead of the I-40, but even the I-15 has spots to do this and so just north of Barstow we got off the I-15 onto Yermo Rd. This is classic old desert highway driving with telephone poles and railroad tracks right by the road and almost no other traffic.

Yermo Road​

This run doesn't go as far as it did in the past as there are some bridges that have never been repaired further north and so in not too long we were back on the I-15. Our daughter wanted a juice box from the back and a potty break so I pulled off at Field Road, one of those exits to nowhere common out in the desert. Rest stop over it was about 12:15 and we were making great time so we would be able to spend some of the afternoon exploring the Saratoga Springs area. As I pulled out of the big dirt patch at the top of the entrance we went over some deep ruts which cycled the suspension pretty good...

As I got the truck up to merging speed and slipped nicely into an open spot on the I-15 there was almost immediately a very wrong sound coming from the truck. Sounded like something bad on the rear passenger side, but not like a flat. Something rubbing or clunking and becoming loud fast. I immediately pulled over and got out to investigate. The problem was not hard to spot.

Sigh...
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Well nuts. Or rather one specific nut gone missing. In my desire to push through a bunch of mods right before the trip I had run out of time to do the one thing I promised myself I would do - check and re-torque every suspension bolt. And now I was going to pay for that impatience...

It only took a few minutes to think through what had just happened, that bumpy suspension cycle at the top of the entrance had compressed the shock and then pulled it out of the bottom seat. The shock then slowly expanded and contacted the inside of the rim making the noise with a nice clickity-clunk each time it passed over the wheel balancing weight. I didn't know if the bolt and nut had been gone for a long time before that or if there was a slim chance they fell out up at the entrance. It was small odds I'd find them, but I needed a moment to think things through so I walked the half mile or so back to the top of the entrance to have a look around. Of course I didn't find anything.

Back at the truck I checked in with my wife and daughter to let them know we'd be here a little while. Fortunately this was on the passenger side so I could work on it without it being a total death wish though I was not happy to be on the shoulder of the freeway. I formed a plan to re-seat the shock and temporarily hold it in place with a bolt stolen from elsewhere on the truck. I did make a quick call to the Barstow Toyota part department but all fasteners are special order. I did recall the Barstow Home Depot had a pretty good hardware section (I built my raised floor in their parking lot the past April). There seemed to be a chance we could still make this trip happen if I got a temporary fix together on the side of the road and doubled back to Barstow to get appropriate hardware.

At this point I also regretted another procrastination on my part. I have a nice kit of jack accessories for safer jack operation but as I already knew they didn't fit the factory screw jack. Unfortunately I hadn't replaced the factory jack with a compatible hydraulic one yet. So I'd get to do this repair on the side of the freeway at a slight cant with the factory screw jack's gently dished top under the axle. Oh, and of course my just installed U-bolt flip kit meant there was no bracket to trap the jack head either. At least I wouldn't be getting underneath the truck.

I got the wheel jacked up and taken off without much trouble, including the walk back to the top of the freeway entrance it had been about a half an hour.

A Wobbly Working Situation
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About this time the CHP showed up. The CHP has written me more than one ticket over the years but I still love them. Maybe it was the childhood propaganda of watching CHiPs but I think really it is that they have always been professional and helpful when I encounter them. Also having lived other places I see most equivalent organizations in other states as being almost painfully inept at dealing with accidents and disabled vehicles safely and efficiently compared to the CHP.

The officer quickly checked what was up, when it was clear I didn't need any aid he asked "do you feel safe working here?" I said, "not nearly as safe as I would like." He said he would check if he was needed at a just reported accident far away and if not he would stay behind my vehicle with his extensive light display turned on. After checking the radio he came back and said he could stay and asked if he could help with anything. I told him I was good but if he happened to have an extra bolt that would be a big help.

By this point I had the shock re-seated and had decided that I did not want to deal with bolting it on the side of the freeway on a wobbly jack. I was confident it would stay seated while I backed along the shoulder up the entrance where I could work more safely. Re-seating the shock was easy since I had watched Jason do it just a few days ago. I removed the top shock mounting nut and hardware and removed the shock from the top mount. Then I seated the bottom of the shock and slowly compressed the shock to get the top mounted again.

While I was working with my tool rolls laid out next to me the CHP officer said, "you are the most well prepared disabled motorist I've ever seen." Well, I could have been better prepared but still appreciated the sentiment. I remounted the wheel, lowered the jack and was ready to back up the half mile or so to the Field Road entrance. The CHP officer was going to lead the way from behind with his lights still on. We got to the top of the entrance without incident and I pulled back onto a dirt patch to finish up the temporary repair. I waved to and thanked the officer and oriented the truck so I'd be working in the shade.

My target for borrowing a bolt were the recently installed skid plates. Surely one of them would last with three mounting points rather than four on just highway travel back to Barstow. I found an appropriate one and removed it. It was just a bit narrower than the M12 bolt that was lost. This would certainly do the trick for now. We got back on the I-15 south headed to Barstow an hour and fifteen minutes after originally pulling off on the side of freeway.

Jury Rigged Repair
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In hindsight I don't think I did the best job approaching this emergency road repair. The very first goal should have been getting off the side of the road as quickly as possible - it is just too dangerous. The walk back to the top of the entrance was a waste of time, there was no real chance of finding the nut or bolt and clearly they weren't necessary. I also just assumed without much thought that I needed to jack the truck and remove the wheel to re-seat the shock before we could get moving again. The safer option would have been to just remove the top shock mount without jacking the truck and then try to remove the entire shock and back up to the freeway entrance with no shock mounted at all. I'm not sure I would have been able to do that successfully because of the awkward positioning and need to apply significant force to compress the shock enough to remove it from the upper shock mount, but there would have been no harm in trying it before jacking the truck.

It was getting to lunch time and I needed to get my poor daughter distracted after having spent so much time stranded in the truck unexpectedly. I dropped my wife and daughter off at the Barstow McDonald's, which my daughter likes because it is made out of train cars that you sit in to eat. I continued on a few exits to Home Depot to find appropriate hardware. I noted the approximate length bolt needed and I did a quick web search to see what metric bolt has a 17mm head (this is a Japanese truck so that would be a JIS bolt). Worst case if I got it wrong I could just go back inside and try again.

The Barstow Home Depot once again delivers for the Diet Taco
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No need to jack up anything so I was able to swap out the bolt pretty quickly in the parking lot, again having oriented my truck to work in the shade. Do not underestimate how much nicer the simple step of providing shade for yourself makes working on things. I used copious amounts of Loctite since we were headed off road. The bolt was a bit long but there are no clearance issues so that was fine. I chose the slightly longer bolt to have the part passing through the bushing be non-threaded. I replaced the borrowed skid plate bolt and finally rolled up and tucked away all my various tools. I headed back to McDonald's and picked up the rest of the family just an hour after I had dropped them off. They kindly brought me a two-cheeseburger meal to eat as I drove.

Trail Ready Repair
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We got back on the road again and passed Field Road once more at 3:45PM after a three and a half hour delay. Not fun, but in the end the trip was saved and I was so thankful my daughter had to have a juice box and pee at Field Road. It was that suspension articulation pulling back on the pavement there that revealed the missing bolt. To discover that only half an hour or so from a Home Depot that had the parts to make an effective repair was a blessing. It would have sucked to discover this somewhere along Harry Wade Road instead.

So what happened, where did the bolt go? Well the most obvious problem would be if that bolt was never tightened during the suspension install. That is a very real possibility, I was dorking around installing mudflaps then and disrupting Jason's workflow. However I have found more than one post here on TW reporting people losing these bolts on stock trucks without the suspension ever having been touched. It is also possible the bolt was torqued when jacked during install but something was bound at that point and lowering the truck resulted in an under torqued bolt.

I talked to Jason after the fact and besides apologizing profusely he mostly rejected my theory of the bolt having been properly torqued and still coming off. He said he's done probably a hundred suspensions on trucks and while he has never overlooked torquing a bolt before he has also never seen one come loose on its own either. He was fairly certain the only explanation was that he forgot to torque it. Of course I was also watching all this happen and trying to keep track of what was torqued and I missed it too. And the correct thing to have done as already stated would have been to recheck all torques after the truck was driven up from San Diego. I failed to do that. Fortunately the end result was just a modest delay. The shock looks to be undamaged though I will of course monitor it closely for leaks over the coming months. I'll be replacing my Home Depot both with an OEM bolt soon and will be re-torquing everything as well as perhaps swapping to nylock nuts in certain places too.

I'm still super happy with my choice in having Jason install the suspension, as I told Jason unless you use a checklist read by a second person things will get missed from time to time. That's why mission critical stuff is done by two people with written checklists. But that takes a lot of time, so for most things we just accept the risk of an occasional problem. For me the double check was going to be a re-torquing before we left for Death Valley and I dropped the ball.

In not too much longer we got to Baker and headed up the 127. Pulling off at Saratoga Springs Road it was time to air down. Here I tried out a new air-down method. I had liked how the ARB deflator worked, it is quite fast, but it requires a little bit of fussing at each tire. I had selected it though because I didn't find the Staun's to have reliable reviews and calibrating them seemed a pain especially if you might air down to different pressures. Having read through @Crom's build thread I discovered the TeraFlex deflators which are like a Staun but without any setting to stop deflating. They just push in the pin like a Staun so they are slow compared to the ARB which removes the valve stem, but of course you can install four in parallel unlike the ARB. They let you check the pressure as they deflate. So just screw one on, wait 30 seconds and do the next tire and so on. By the time you screw on the fourth one the first tire is nearly at the right pressure. Monitor it with an air gauge and remove the deflator at the right pressure and move on to the next tire with 30 seconds of wiggle room. These worked great! I think my ARB deflator may hit E-bay...

Aired down the new suspension was finally hitting dirt. All I can say is our initial impression was OMG. This section of road was heavily wash-boarded, it gets a lot of traffic with heavy equipment and lots of government pick-up trucks going to the Fort Irwin range gate along Owl Springs Road. The suspension just ate this up. I was going 55 mph before I knew it and my wife and I both said this felt much like the paved road we just left. After marveling at the smooth ride I slowed down to a more sane speed.

It was now sunset and cresting a rise as we approached the valley containing Saratoga Springs and the Ibex Dunes we immediately saw a huge expanse tinged yellow by wildflowers. I was feeling glad I persevered and got the trip back on track. The flowers were going to make this trip a memorable one. We turned up the road to Saratoga Springs and I snapped a quick picture with the newly lifted and armored truck finally out in the desert with family in tow and the desert in bloom.

Diet Taco doing what it was meant to do
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We continued on to Saratoga Springs to have a nice twilight glimpse of this rare desert oasis. We'd let it get dark there and find a spot to camp in the dark. I was already getting a sense of how crowded the park would be, this area is usually empty but there were people primitive camping every mile or so along the road. We took a picture at the springs, though I did miss the depth of field slightly leaving us a bit blurry. Oh well. Found a camp spot a couple miles further north not too nearby anyone else. Flip-Pac deployed, cooked up some quesadillas and after the usual daughter bedtime fussing around got into my sleeping bag rather exhausted but happy at 8:45PM.

Saratoga Springs​

 

Death Valley - Day 2
President's Day Weekend 2016

Sunday Morning in Camp
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The photo above shows what I love about the Flip-Pac and my current setup. We can pull off the road in the dark almost anywhere and setup up in minutes with a footprint no larger than the truck. The only thing removed for three person camping are the two Action Packers which I set by the side of the truck so the raised floor is more open. The cooler stays in the truck as a step up to the sleeping platform which can also act as small table for my daughter to eat on. I can prepare dinner on the tailgate while my wife and daughter just sit on the raised floor to eat. I've got plenty of gear for a full picnic setup outside, which we often do for lunch, but often at night what is shown here is the extent of our camp. We usually don't have the time to pull out the propane fire ring so there is little point in setting up chairs and an outside camp. In a few years when my daughter enjoys the fire more and has a less involved bed time ritual I'm sure we will be doing that more often.

We woke up Sunday well rested. Since we had stuff to do today we just had a quick cold breakfast to get moving a bit quicker, no one in the family really likes hot drinks or needs hot food in the morning. My wife and I tag-teamed keeping our daughter entertained with some short walks around the area while we got ready for the day. By 9:15 we were ready to start moving.

We could see multiple alluvial fans painted in yellow in the area. There was a nice one just a mile or so north along the road with all its washes traced out in bright yellow. We decided to give that a quick look before heading back down to Harry Wade Road for the drive up to Ashford Mills. The fan was quite nice and the flowers healthy and tall. Our daughter got her first sniff of a wildflower.

Sniff
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I suspected from earlier trip reports that there were bigger and better things to be found further north so we didn't spend much time here and got back on our way. I was still really loving the new suspension as we headed north on Harry Wade Road, not only did it smooth out washboard nicely but it ate up various ruts and dips along the way. We could see patches of yellow both near and far all along the road though none were dense enough to really make us stop and get out. We reached the Amargosa crossing and it turned out to be quite dry with just a modest mud puddle maybe a foot deep on the road. We encountered other vehicles pretty frequently which in my experience is quite rare in this part of the park. Clearly the holiday weekend and the flowers greatly increased visitation.

Just past the Amargosa crossing we came to an extensive patch of flowers along the road. We could see them extend well up onto the hillsides. My wife found a number of less obvious species to get some nice close ups of as well.

Along Harry Wade Road at Amargosa Crossing


Desert Five Spot


Desert Sand Verbena (I think)


Yellow Cups (I think)
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My desert wildflower identification expertise is weak at best, so feel free to offer corrections if I got these wrong! After letting everyone explore the area for awhile we continued on our way north. We passed a truck nearly identical to mine, a white DCSB with a windowless Flip-Pac on it. Getting further north there were still plenty of wildflowers on display though they would thin in density in many places. At one point clearly the desert had gotten lots of precipitation, the creosote bushes were the lushest I've ever seen anywhere - they almost looked like juniper they had so much dark foliage on them.

As we approached Badwater Road the fields got incredibly dense. At this time Badwater Road is closed due to washouts just a bit south of the Harry Wade Road junction. Nonetheless the insane wildflower fields had attracted a number of people on the 45 mile one way dead end journey from Furnace Creek. It was time for lunch and this seemed a nice spot.

Modest Lunch Time View
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This is a good time to mention our usual lunchtime routine and equipment. With a little kid I opted to go for low chairs she can get into and out of easily as well as make it easy for her to migrate to someone's lap when desired. The table is a Camp Time Roll-a-Table with short legs. In this photo you can see how the awning provides a bit of shade to work with when the truck orientation is not optimal. As she gets bigger we will switch to a higher table and chairs, sitting low at midday in the desert can mean being quite a bit hotter than just two feet higher. This setup allows us to have a leisurely lunch pretty much wherever we want in comfort. I'd like to make a movable side shade panel for the awning to improve situations such as this where the sun and truck orientation is not optimal.

The flowers here were nothing short of jaw dropping. While I packed and aired up our tires my wife and daughter explored. I usually make sure my camera is close at hand with a telephoto lens on it when I'm working since it is usually a good time for candid shots.

Yellow Overload
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By a little after 1:00 we were headed north on Badwater Road. There were many beautiful displays all the way north to past Badwater. The west side of the valley was bright yellow in the distance as well. As we got further north the road started to get quite crowded. Badwater itself was insanely crowded with the parking lot completely full, people were parked along the road for a good half mile in both directions and a ranger was parked trying to managed the madness. I've never been in Death Valley during a peak time and to me this was crazy. Continuing north we could easily identify what must be the northern most decent fan with flowers. It wasn't anything as nice as others to the south but people were parked all over the place since it must be the first one they saw coming from Furnace Creek.

Wanting to avoid the crowds and get my daughter excited about Death Valley in peace and quiet we headed to one of my favorite short hikes that is off the beaten path but close to Furnace Creek. This is an unmarked canyon off of Artist's Drive at the second big dip in the road. The very start of the hike is a pink colored dry fall about ten feet high which is a bit daunting for a three year old. I braced myself midway up and had my wife pass our daughter up and then I lifted her to the top above my head. I had to climb to the top and then back down before this to convince her she wanted to do it. Once we got her to the top of this fall though she was unstoppable. There is a lot of little scrambling in this canyon but she insisted on leading the way and refused all assistance except in a few places just too tall and smooth for her to tackle on her own.

Intrepid Explorer
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This canyon has changed a few times over the years due to new wall collapses and subsequent flash floods so you never know for sure what you'll get. My brother and I got my then four year old nephew up a long ways back in the 90's but since then a tall fall midway up has gotten dicier. I could make it, and probably my wife would have, but the exposure was such that there was no safe way to pass my daughter up to the top. So we didn't make it quite as far as I hoped, but the hike was a success as my daughter clearly loved the experience. She asked to go back to the truck and hike the same canyon again. We suggested we were going to hike other canyons on the trip and that she had also asked to see the Visitor's Center.

The roads and pull-offs got more and more crowded the closer we got to Furnace Creek. Sunset Campground (essentially a giant gravel parking lot) was packed with RVs. The Visitor's Center parking lot was actually not too crowded, I think everyone was out on the roads. My daughter enjoyed exploring the Visitor's Center and watching the movie there. It was starting to get windy so we found a sheltered spot by all the date palms to have a snack and form a camping plan for the night. The forecast was for a windy night but calming on Monday so we just needed to find a somewhat sheltered spot for the night.

The big "secret" in Death Valley is that Echo Canyon Road which is just a few miles from Furnace Creek allows primitive camping one mile from the pavement. Based on the wind directions I expected the wash and the head of the canyon would provide some decent shelter from wind. I worried that with this many people in the park that others might think the same thing. Indeed at exactly one odometer mile from the pavement we saw the first person camping. It wasn't too crowded though, over the following two miles there were maybe eight or so people camped and they were well spaced out. We continued past the head of the canyon where the road gets just a little rougher and found just one group camped right at the mouth but no one else further along. I tucked the truck off the road snuggled up to the canyon wall.

It had been a great day with spectacular wildflower displays including a lunch spot to die for, a great drive on the new suspension and my daughter falling in love with Death Valley canyoneering. Couldn't ask for more. We once again quickly setup a small footprint camp and had hot dogs and smores. Just before dinner I noticed a nice sky and quickly snapped a photo of our camp.

Echo Canyon Camp​

 

The best, Thank you!

 

great build, this thing is put together really nice.

 

Questions...
How many miles are on your truck now?
When you take a trip, what's your average total miles for that trip - out and back? (Trying to compare to what I have available in a radial from Cincinnati)
Do you let your wife or brother drive your truck?

 

A little under 8000 and about 2k to 3k of that is from occasional commuting from September through December when our other vehicle was in for an extensive repair. My previous "mostly camping truck" had 42k miles put on it over 14.5 years. I hope to get to use this one at least that much, time will tell.

Usually around 500 miles for the whole trip give or take. My latest trip report (still in progress) on our Death Valley weekend was about that. From LA it is not unusual to have 3 to 4 hours highway driving each way to the areas I like to explore. Depending on the location and itinerary it might be a hundred miles shorter or it might even get up to 700 or 800 miles if I'm doing a multi-day trip that involves a large loop in CA and NV deserts.

Now I also plan on doing Southern Utah and Northern Arizona at some point and that will get significantly longer of course. Though at my current slow pace of getting trips done I might not be doing those until the truck is back in Las Vegas which will make it a bit closer.

Yes, my wife drove the truck solo a lot this fall when it was our only vehicle here in LA for a bit. She was annoyed at it being a bit bigger than our Forester but otherwise had no problems with it. She really never drives it off road and so far our trips have been short enough there has been no need to switch drivers but I'm sure that will happen in the future at some point.

My brother knows how to drive vehicles off road so I had him drive a bit on our Toroweap trip both off road and on highway.

Both parties are at least as responsible at driving if not more so than me so I have no worries about that. There are definitely some people I would not want to drive my truck though.

 

Great pics! Excellent write up Thanks.

 

Death Valley - Day 3
President's Day Weekend 2016

Once again we managed to get up and get going reasonably quickly. Rolled out of camp before 9AM. We had been reasonably sheltered through the night, but of course winds do have a way of finding their way into canyons so every so often we got a pretty good gust. Today we needed to get home but had plenty of time to see some sights along the way.

First stop just down the road from the Echo Canyon turn off is iconic Zabriskie Point. This was just a quick stop to enjoy the view though the little hill that makes the viewpoint is a fun "summit" for a three year old.

Zabriskie Point
​

My wife is no slouch at photography either so as long as I make sure my daughter and I stand someplace photogenic for a bit we usually come back with some nice daddy-daughter shots.

Next we headed north to Salt Creek which has a nice little boardwalk hike. Around this area along the 190 there were lots of flowers in early bloom probably a week or so from peak. It was already getting noticeably warm in the sun and there was enough of a gusty breeze to make using an umbrella for shade difficult. I was getting a little warm and could tell my daughter who isn't as clever about sun and heat management was getting grouchy too. So we decided to just take a look at the water for a little bit and find a more sheltered hike elsewhere.

Salt Creek
​

Our daughter had really enjoyed the canyon we hiked in the previous day and we had promised we would do another one. My wife's favorite hike in Death Valley is Mosaic Canyon. It usually has ample shade too. We stopped briefly at the sand dunes by Stovepipe but with the sun getting warm and the thoughts of a sandy daughter to deal with all the way home we just looked. Just barely past Stovepipe Wells is the turn off for Mosaic Canyon.

This really is a wonderful canyon that pays off almost immediately. I always recommend it to first time visitors. The first hundred yards or so are exposed and gravelly with a modest grade. When starting midday like we were that first uphill, sunny trek makes you really appreciate the shade of the canyon. I taught my daughter how to cool down quick - find rock that has been in shade since morning and lay down for an almost chilly rest.

Cooling Down In Mosaic Canyon​

We continued up the canyon which is deceptively steep and full of tight twists and turns with many polished rock chutes. None of the "narrows" are particularly deep but the rocks are beautiful and there are all sorts of natural short slides for a kid to play on. Once again our daughter insisted on taking the lead and would only accept help once she was convinced she couldn't do something on her own. This meant occasionally shadowing her closely as I was worried she might take on more than she could handle. Really though, in this canyon most places she'd only get some bumps and bruises if she slipped and fell. There is no dangerous exposure.

Polished Narrows and Chutes
​

After almost exactly half a mile the canyon opens up quite a bit. This is where we stopped to have a snack as I wasn't planning to do lunch for a couple of hours. There was still plenty of shade on some nice rocks for sitting right before the canyon opened up. This point is a half mile and 300 feet above the parking area so this is just a nice family jaunt well worth stopping for and not too taxing for a three year old. Our daughter absolutely loved it. From here we went back down canyon, my daughter sliding down every surface that looked appropriate and generally charming every person coming up canyon. It was not surprisingly a bit crowded.

It was now almost noon and time to start heading in the direction of home. We headed west on the 190 over Towne Pass into Panamint Valley. I can recall so many trips up this road in my old 1992 Toyota with the 4 cylinder 22RE running in 3rd gear at like 35 mph near the top. Boy do I enjoy the 4.0L V6. I always enjoy the spectacular views coming down the west side of Towne Pass but my wife and daughter soon fell asleep. My goal for a lunch spot was Trona Pinnacles so we turned south off of the 190. I snapped a quick picture of a great example of a common desert sight that illustrates just how narrow the margin between barely alive and nicely lush is when it comes to water.

Happy Creosote Lined Road
​

Pavement is of course impervious to water so the little rain that does fall runs to the shoulders. Creosote usually effectively space themselves at the point they each barely stay alive with the collection area of their root system. Right at the edge of a road however there is effectively a large collection area with no competing root systems. As a result the creosote right along the road are much more lush than those in the rest of the landscape. Along this section it was particularly evident and almost looked like someone had intentionally lined the road side with well watered creosote bushes.

We eventually made it down to Trona and gassed up there as we would be bypassing Ridgecrest. If you've never been to Trona it has shall we say a distinctive smell from all the lake bed mining operations. Our daughter referred to it as the "stink place" when she couldn't remember the name. There were quite a few people at the Pinnacles (which are fortunately far enough away to escape the smell) which was also unusual for me. This was a busy weekend most everywhere! We crossed the wash away from the first group of pinnacles to the second and that somewhat rough wash crossing filtered out almost all the other vehicles and people. We found a spot with a nice view and oriented the truck for optimal shade. This would be our last stop on the trip.

Huddled in the shade
​

It was actually quite comfortable in the shade. I was originally a bit doubtful of the utility of the Fiamma awning as it is rather small but it actually works great for lunch stops as long as you plan an appropriate orientation. I think once I make a shade panel for one side it will be even more useful and flexible. Especially with a little kid in tow having the ability to slow down for a bit and have a nice picnic lunch by the truck whenever desired is a big plus.

From there we took the usual short cuts bypassing Ridgecrest on the southeast via Trona Rd. and Searles Station Cutoff to the 395 for a few miles and then onto Garlock Rd. over to the 14. We stopped for dinner in Lancaster and then headed over the Angeles Forest and Angeles Crest back into Pasadena.

All in all it was a great trip and we were fortunate to have timed the wildflower bloom so well. Our daughter is even more excited about camping now. The new suspension was awesome and it feels like the truck is getting closer and closer to "done" although I still have a very long list of smaller mods to do.

 

So much win in your thread! Reading your write ups are the best short stories ever! Please continue. Thanks again.

 

Exactly what I'm looking for too. Thanks for taking the time to make such a detailed write-up about these!

 

Awesome thread!

 

Happy Birthday Diet Taco!

Well it has been one year since I picked up the truck from the dealer. I had hoped to be a little further along in the build by now and expected to have been out using it more as well. Life intervenes, however. Still been really happy how things have turned out so far and I'm pretty confident I'll have all the major parts of the build done by the time we relocate back to MD in September leaving the truck in storage in the west.

Since the end of January I've had four weeks of unexpected work travel which has blown my schedule to shreds. I'm not suppose to be working that much this year, but I guess it is better to have people anxious to get your hours rather than be indifferent about them. So the build thread has been a bit boring of late.

Fingers crossed the coming weeks will see more progress on a number of fronts. Up and coming I expect:

• Running 12V back to the Flip Pac (already in progress)
• Semi-permanent mounting and dedicated power run for my "on-board" air
• Finishing out the recovery gear/plan
• All-Pro Off-Road Aluminum Rear Bumper (90% sure)
• Fancier interior lighting for the Flip Pac
• Cab rear seat reading lamps
• Exterior camp lighting
  
• Fire extinguisher(s) with appropriate mounting
• Flip Pac weather proofing

I've done a few minor things already I'll write up alongside some future work.

In more of the "spend money" rather than "build" department I've also just ordered an important component of my camp setup - a telescope! When I lived in the Mojave more than a decade ago I had an 8" telescope that I didn't use enough but did enjoy a lot. It was a bit large, heavy and awkward to take to observing sites. Now that I live in MD where there is no such thing as a dark sky for hundreds of miles I drool at the sky every night I'm in the Mojave. Of course I'd also like to get my daughter excited about astronomy (especially since her mom is a professional astronomer) as well as occupy some of the evenings while camping. That means put a scope in the truck rather than bother with one at home in MD where we would mostly enjoy high magnification views of the bottoms of clouds, leaves and very occasionally horribly light polluted skies. So expect a post in a few weeks on selecting a compact solution for camping amateur astronomy.

Lastly, unless one of us gets sick or there are horrible wind storms in the desert, this upcoming Easter weekend my daughter and I are headed out for a weekend camping trip. As my daughter says, "Yay, camping!" Mom has abandoned us for a bit more than a week to go sit on top of a mountain in Chile using a really big telescope so this will be our first single parent camping trip. Cross your fingers that we will both come back alive and still talking to each other!

Looking forward to a great year number two with Diet Taco...

 

Afton Canyon
March 2016

With the wife out of town for over a week I had the Easter weekend with my daughter to kill. I decided it was time to try camping with just the two of us. This would be a single night trip and so I wanted something not too far away but with interesting things to see that she would like. She definitely liked hiking up various canyons in Death Valley so for this trip I decided to go to Afton Canyon where there are a few nice slot canyons. The Union Pacific tracks also run down Afton Canyon and she likes trains.

We set a new record by leaving by 8:30 on Saturday. We headed over the Cajon Pass with no delays but the roads were already getting busy. Breakfast in Hesperia and then we continued up the I-15. The forecast was for some decent wind through the middle of the day but calming by the afternoon and evening. Well before we got to Barstow the strong cross wind reminded me that I still had not dealt with the "Crosswind Kazoo" that affects my truck and many others. There are few different causes for these annoying sounds and on my truck it is the top door seal on the driver side.

I wouldn't get a better opportunity to do an immediate before and after test so we pulled into the Barstow Home Depot after listening to the kazoo for thirty miles. I picked up some EPDM foam weather seal, cut it to length and put it in between the factory seal and the door. Got back on the highway in heavy winds and not a peep! Hurray, no more kazoo!

We exited onto Afton Road and pulled into the campground for our lunch. This is actually a pretty slick campground with nice shade covers, tables, fire pits and even dedicated grill pits too. We had sandwiches for lunch and then broke out cookies for dessert. My daughter is a fan of Chessman cookies and is always excited to see which piece she pulls out from the bag.

Mmmm... Cookies...
​

After getting lunch packed up we headed down canyon. Just past the campground is the most significant crossing of the Mojave River. Years ago I was here twice in my old truck and both times the water was a bit deep for me to try as a solo vehicle. This time with bigger tires and about three inches of lift on a larger truck I wasn't too worried. This would be the first use of the diff breather mod too.

Well, turned out the crossing was crowded. A whole pack of Jeeps was coming up canyon. There is something I don't quite get about packs of Jeeps. They seem overly excited about driving through and over things. Nothing is more awesome than getting something broke and fixing it on the trail. And there has to be copious video of all this and fist pumping at the seemingly trivial. Well, whatever floats their boat - I enjoy weird things too I guess.

This did, however, provide an opportunity to show what the crossing looked like since I could take a video of the last Jeep crossing (the opposite direction I'd be going). It was in fact a little bit deep:

Mojave River Crossing in Afton Canyon
​

After that Jeep went across it was going to be my turn, but believe or not another Jeep wanted to drive back across, turn around and do it again. What odd folks. I crossed after him while he was turning around on the other side. I managed to keep an even speed and have a functional bow wave though at one spot a little bit of water made it up onto the hood. The truck slowed in another spot due to loss of traction which was a bit concerning but there was plenty of momentum to continue on. On the far side I got out to check everything looked OK. Fan blade was fine, engine compartment just a bit splashed in spots. Reminded me that I had a plan to make a temporary fording reroute of the intake for just these marginal kinds of crossings.

We continued down canyon to the second rail road bridge where we would do our first hike. At this point I had to reverse up a hill to park and lost traction at one point which made me realize the truck was still in 2WD. Oh wow, I was busy making fun of the Jeep crew in my head while I was trying to cross a river in 2WD. Boy would I have felt stupid if I had bogged down mid-crossing.

This first hike would be to two "caves" in the bank of the river. The hike is only about a quarter of mile each way and so seemed like just the thing for my daughter. What I failed to account for was the brush and ill defined route. We didn't really bushwhack, but there was lots of wandering through arrowweed and other brush that was scratchy and annoying. Especially for my daughter who was shorter such that many things at my thigh level were at her face. A few times I needed to carry her but on the whole she did a great job. We talked about how much we didn't like the bushes as we found a route. Finally we got to the first cave. I'd read that this is smaller than in the distant pass as part of it has collapsed. Well it sure looked like it might be even smaller now and that there has been an even more recent collapse. The top of the rubble pile was visibly dusty as if there had been some sort of fall quite recently.

First Cave
​

After exploring this small cave we looked for a route to the second which is very nearby. Unfortunately it looked like it would be very awkward with a three year old. So we decided to find our route back to the truck. In doing so we found a slightly better route with less brush to deal with but it was still awkward. This was not a great start to the camping trip and while my daughter was a real trooper about it she was definitely not thrilled with the warm, scratchy hike. Getting back to the truck I dug out a fruit juice pouch to cheer her up.

There is a second river crossing at this point but it was extremely shallow and just a mud puddle. We headed down canyon to visit another very short canyon, more of a notch, that I had been to many years ago with my wife. This ends in an impressively high dryfall and I thought my daughter would enjoy it. It was actually a bit too imposing and when we discovered a bunch of flies flying around at the bottom she decided she wanted to leave right away. So no photo of her, but for reference here is a picture from many years past of my wife standing at the base of the dryfall.

Dryfall
​

Well, I'd been skunked twice now! The last canyon to try was one I'd never been to before. I'd wanted to get to it for a long time though. Hopefully this one would pay off. It is sometimes called "Spooky Canyon" and the entrance is through a culvert under the railroad tracks. It squeezes down to a narrow slot canyon quickly and is very twisty. It really isn't very long, but for a three year old everything is a bit of an adventure so we brought a snack to have along the way.

Snack Time
​

While the canyon is not as narrow as slot canyons in Utah where sometimes you have to go sideways this one made up for it by having quite tall walls and lots of turns. As usual my daughter insisted on taking the lead. Honesty, I don't think I've been in a canyon this fun anywhere else in the Mojave.

More twists and turns...
​

Finally, and almost unbelievably, the tops of the canyon walls almost met at the top plunging the canyon bottom into darkness sprinkled with occasional skylights from above. My daughter got quite apprehensive at this point, but the ace up my sleeve was not just her flashlight but a headlamp for her as well. The excitement of playing with the headlamp was enough to keep her going. Soon enough the top completely closed in with the canyon becoming a pitch black tunnel. We pressed on around a few more twists, one of which required enough climbing that she needed some help from me. I knew from reading about this canyon that eventually it would become too steep for a three year old and we'd soon have to turn around. She started to become rather scared of the dark and when I suggested we continue on just a bit further she held up both her hands and said, "No thank you!"

Turning around we made it back to daylight and turned off all our lights. No longer some place quite as scary she decided she really liked this canyon and wanted to do it again, by which she meant go back down to the truck and do the whole hike over! Well this canyon was pretty darn cool so that's exactly what we did. This time she didn't want to continue into the pitch blackness but I was able to convince her we needed to take a picture for Mommy and so we posed under one of the dim skylights with our head lamps on.

Spooky Canyon
​

Behind us in this photo are the further twists and turns that continue into inky blackness. I'll have to come back some day to press on even further with a climbing partner. Apparently you can continue further back and reach light again but have to climb some significant dryfalls in the dark to get there.

By now it was getting late in the day and we needed to find a spot to camp. We had not seen a train yet but as we were getting in the truck to leave Spooky Canyon we saw one coming up canyon. The bridges back up canyon are a favorite spot for train photographers, but really anywhere in Afton Canyon makes for an impressive view of a long train winding its way along the wash between steep walls. We waved and got two toots of the horn in reply. As far as my daughter was concerned this was now a fun trip.

My plan for a camp spot was to exit the mouth of the canyon so we wouldn't be camped so close to tracks that we'd be woken up by trains all night. At the mouth of the canyon is another rail road bridge and as we got near another train was on its way. It really wasn't at a good angle for a nice photo, but given Afton Canyon is known for trains I needed to take a picture anyway.

U.P. Intermodal Crossing the Mojave River Wash
​

Now in an OHV area we spent not too long finding a spot far from the few OHV campers around and far enough from the tracks to not be too loud but close enough for my daughter to enjoy watching any trains that might come by. I managed to get maybe thirty minutes of rest while my daughter colored though this was interrupted more than once when she freaked out because a fly got into the Flip-Pac. Need to make rear screen curtains! Eventually I just closed the back up entirely. This is what I love about the Flip-Pac, we just pull off in a random patch of dirt and can have a nice, large tent footprint up in a minute. Because there were some bugs around we just cooked right in the Flip-Pac and had some tasty hot dogs.

Minimum Footprint Camp
​

By 9PM I had my daughter in her sleeping bag and in her makeshift "room" that I always setup using a blanket. Reminds me, this build thread really needs some interior photos of the Flip-Pac in its open camping state. Will do that next trip!

The moon wouldn't rise for about an hour and this is a pretty dark site. Unfortunately light pollution is severely encroaching most everywhere as gas stations have discovered drivers are like moths and turning on insanely blazing outdoor lighting convinces people the gas station is open and safe from a distance. Sigh, even tiny nearby Baker was producing an ugly blotch across a significant portion of the NE horizon accompanied by the sickly glow of Las Vegas.

As mentioned earlier in the thread I'm getting a telescope kit together for the truck. Not quite ready for this trip, but I've had a pair of 9x63 binoculars bouncing around the old truck and this truck for years. They are more than 15 years old now, I bought them when I first got interested in amateur astronomy before spending money on a telescope. Once I got my first telescope I rarely used them and that is a shame. There are actually many great objects to view with binoculars.

I had brought along a new

Sky & Telescope's Pocket Sky Atlas

Pocket Sky Atlas that I bought for the new telescope and this seemed like an ideal time to try it out with the binoculars. This "pocket" atlas is actually about 100 pages long and is roughly 7x9 inches. It shows 30,796 stars down to magnitude 7.6 and about 1500 deep sky objects. There are other much larger atlases but in this day and age I think an app on an iPad is the best for a truly deep atlas and catalog. This small atlas is just right for sitting on your knee and is as large a physical atlas as I'd bother having now. Plus for binoculars you wouldn't want more.

Within about ten minutes I was full of regret and feeling like a moron for having not taken out these binoculars in years. This was a lot of fun, I kept running into faint fuzzy deep sky objects and pretty open clusters that I'd look up on the atlas. I had forgotten just how many things you can see with binoculars! Jupiter was high in the sky which resolves into a small disk in binoculars and the Galilean moons were visible as a line of 4 dim spots.

Soon I noticed I couldn't see certain objects I'd expect to and that was because the moon was just about to rise. Just as the sky stays bright for almost an hour after sunset the sky starts to get just a little brighter when the moon is just below the horizon. As the moon peaked out behind some distant hills it made an awesome view in the binoculars. A sunrise is rather boring, it is just a blank disk with bands of distortion from the atmosphere. A moonrise at 7x to 10x is really quite spectacular as you can resolve all sorts of craters and maria. So despite the fact this meant my short observing session was over it was a pretty darn good way to end the evening.

Pocket Sky Atlas Excerpt​

There were a few trains in the night, none too loud. My daughter woke up at about 6:30 - ugh. She was perfectly happy just playing in the Flip-Pac while I fussed about organizing other things in the truck and getting stuff packed away. The point was to kill time so I just let her play to her heart's content. More trains passed, she would come to the tailgate and sit and watch them pass all smiles and excitement each time. At one point she said, "we are very lucky to see so many trains!"

Eventually we exited via Basin Road back up to the I-15 and headed back south. I thought we might explore Rainbow Basin near Barstow as it has some nice canyons to explore. We did stop by, but my daughter was getting a bit tired and what clinched it was her slipping on a modest slope which provoked a lot of tears. I decided the Barstow McDonalds that is made out of old train cars was probably the right way to end the trip at this point. She readily agreed.

After our late lunch it was time to head home. Looking at Google Maps made me realize the other reason I love Death Valley so much. Coming home from Death Valley I can take the 14 and the Angeles Forest - roads that never have traffic on them. Mojave National Preserve means coming home on the I-15 over Cajon with all the Vegas traffic. Ugh, someone had an accident in the pass and someone else had one around Victorville. I hate traffic so we took side roads which saved a minute at most but more than that just saved my sanity.

We made it back home by early evening and went to Outback to celebrate the end of the trip. In the end we both had loads of fun. Single parent camping is way better than single parent sitting at home. And even just an hour under a dark sky made me remember how much I miss amateur astronomy.

 

Ken, for as much as you are enjoying your outings with your family, I know you must also realize that in years to come, your daughters memories will be worth a hundred times as much as your enjoyment now.

Oh, and from that great closeup of your daughter, I hope you take as many family pics as nature pics!

 

I meant to comment when I first saw it, doing it now... This comment by the CHP officer is very awesome!

Glad you got out on Easter weekend! Sounds like a great trip. And for the water crossing in 2WD! Amazeballs!

 

Yep, trips are pretty well centered around making memories for her. And yes, lots of family photos these days. I actually do a about a 60 page photo book each year for close family and friends. It is a royal pain to do but my daughter actually loves them as much as the grandparents do. Way to keep the memories fresh for her.

Second time I've gone miles in 2WD before losing traction and realizing I'd forgotten to switch! Heck, I even spent five minutes airing down but left the truck in 2WD. It's the ABS kill switch that's making me forget I think. I hit that and my mind ticks some box plus the instrument panel lights up like a Christmas tree effectively masking the missing 4WD indicator. Anyway, this last time was really stupid and could have resulted in some really inconveniet results so hopefully my subconscious has been shocked into remembering the dang 4WD knob.

 

Hi DVexile, I followed your FlipPac exploits over on ExPo, but now as a new Tacoma DCSB owner I've found this thread. My Tacoma (2016, but bought used) came with a cab-high shell which just doesn't meet our needs, but as it has roofrack tracks on it, I borrowed a friend's RTT and just got back from four days in DV (really just Searles, Panamint, and Saline Valleys, and Darwin Wash). Not many flowers at those higher and dryer places. I'm missing my FlipPac but of course the one on my T100 won't fit. And I'm not quite ready to write a check for the AT Habitat sight unseen, though it looks good. Anyway, I haven't read the whole thread yet but definitely plan some of your mods as I want to keep things light and simple. Dust sealing is number 1 on my list, while we figure out the camping setup. By the way, we FlipPac'ed at Alabama Hills last year with our daughter ... she's 23. She too slept in the truck bed while my wife and I stayed upstairs.

 

Hi dman, nice to see you over here! I decided it was just going to be too onerous to maintain build threads both at ExPo and over hear at TW. Was hard to choose, but a bit more traffic over here on TW. I think when I get to more Flip Pac specific mods I'll collect and post just those over at ExPo in the pop-up forum.

Congrats on the new to you truck! The Habitat looks great so far, I think you are right to wait and perhaps go with that over another Flip Pac.

I'll be passing through those areas of DV in a little less than two weeks myself, probably going to do a Searles, Panamint, Lee Flat, Hunter Mtn, Hidden Valley, Racetrack, Saline, Eureka super loop!

I've discovered a bit of a surprise I think on dust. My raised floor seems to keep much of the dust contained to under the floor. So far I've only added bulb seal around the tailgate and the dust is not too bad at all above the floor. I've still got plenty of low hanging fruit to do on dust sealing though. But for now under the floor is suppose to be for dusty/wet camp stuff and so the dust down there doesn't bother me much.

Hope to cross paths with you out in DV some day!

 

Great thread Ken! I love all your detail and am also a big fan of the DV area. Keep on trucking!!