92Shawman's 1992 3VZ-E SR5 Pickup

Ah man...such a hardship!

 

@at_olw and I did a trip out to Anza Borrego and Valley of the Moon for New year's.

We decided to start at Valley of the moon to take advantage of good weather to sneak in some climbing.

We got there around sunset:

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

My usual camp site was not quite suitable for two vehicles that needed flat ground...so we found a new spot that was pretty awesome! Had a great campfire and camp talk and that was the night.

The next morning was perfect weather. Excellent temps, partly cloudy, no wind (didn't last long...)

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We went into the valley of the moon to do some climbing. I was able to do my favorite route, which was great, but unfortunately brought up the wrong top-rope anchor that was too short and resulted in the rope dragging over a sharp lip so I had to rappel off. By the time I got down the weather had failed us and started to drizzle, so Timmy didn't get to climb. Still feel bad about that... Next time!

Had the drive out up the rocky hill in the rain.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Then wrapped around to an overlook over the valley and elliot mine with a flexy climb up.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

And then headed out to get to Dos Cabezas for the evening and night.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Had an excellent welcoming to the Dos Cabezas area!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Did some scrambling and bouldering with nice views before the wind came in...and didn't leave for the rest of the trip...

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Hey Kev! Looks like a great trip-was wondering where you'd been lately

 

We had a fire but kept it small and had to cut it short because of the wind.

Timmy tried to hide in the rocks...didn't work too well, I guess. Even I woke up once from the wind in the hard shell!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Headed out to the bouldering area again before heading to meet up with my parents at Mortero wash.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

"The Egg" Such a weird formation with a cactus on top!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Double snorkels! Oh yeah...I got a snorkel

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Then headed over to meet up with my parents! Amazingly, we met up at exactly the same time and no one had to wait at the trailhead! What's even more amazing is that we didn't have cell service or 2-meter APRS coverage, so we were texting information through Timmy's HF rig using APRS and SMSGTE. In our search for a camp, we got a smidgin of service and I could double check that my parents got all of the info, which was nice, but it worked either way. Makes me want an HF rig even more now...

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We hiked up intending to get to the Goat Canyon trestle, but that was not happening. We looked it up later and it's a 6-hour round-trip effort of basically rock scrambling the entire way. So we settled for a small summit overlooking the mortero wash area and mortero palms.

SUPER windy!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Watched some other hikers checking out the trucks. After zooming in on the photos, it looks like they put trash in Timmy's trasharoo!

Figure 1: Hiker 1 holding trash, hiker 2 pointing towards Timmy's truck with the trasharoo
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Figure 2: Hiker 1 obscured by Timmy's truck, hiker 2 watching
Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

The Palms

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

From there we headed up towards S2 via Jojoba Wash, anticipating a shortcut through the area. It ended up being much more technical than we thought! The person that was following us turned around at first look.

We passed through Piepkorn slot, which had a memorial plaque at the entrance that stated that Mike Piepkorn died on the trail. Ominous start! After further research, it sounds like he died of a heart attack on the trail. More info here.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Interesting squeezing through with many sidewall-slashing obstacles!

Of course the challenges weren't over... guess that's why we build our trucks up!

The drop-off into Jojoba Wash:

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

Beautiful area in the volcanic hills!

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

With the wind we looked up wind-protected campsites. We were hoping for carrizo gorge, and it turned out that was a recommended protected camp!

Another really beautiful area that I hadn't checked out before.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

New Year's Camp! We had a lovely little fire with the most amazing chicken tortilla soup, spicy rolls, and brownies for dinner. Best. Camp Dinner. Ever. Then it rained, but we retreated to my parent's tent and had fun playing cards before toasting the new year with bubbly and heading to bed by 10:30

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Really weird area with moss and cactus.

Untitled by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

 

The next day we pushed up the Carrizo Gorge to try to get to the trestle from the north side. The hike was really pretty, even though we made the brilliant decision to not pack lunch. I thought it would go fast, but it did not.

Saw some birds! This guy and a number of his friends, a finch species, a red-tailed hawk, and a Peregrine Falcon to cap it all off!

Black-throated Sparrow by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

We got to goat canyon and were blocked by a curve so we couldn't see up the canyon. I went to check out the hike up the canyon but was blocked again by a massive rock waterfall. Damn!

So we hiked up the opposite side of the gorge from goat canyon and finally got some good views of the damn thing.

Goat Canyon Trestle by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Someone screwed up!

Carrizo Gorge Railroad by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

Insane terrain

Goat Canyon Trestle by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

But a beautiful canyon to hike in!

Carrizo Gorge by Kevin Shaw, on Flickr

By the end of the hike it was 3pm, so we only had an hour and a half of daylight left. My parents were only out for the night, so they split off and headed home while Timmy, my fiancee, and I headed north to look for the next camp and for cell service to check the weather forecast. When we found service...there was a wind advisory throughout the night. Soooo we headed home a night early. Timmy and I were both fed up with wind at camp and a campfire was NOT happening. Ended up having a great dinner at a tasty thai food place in Ramona and split ways. Not a bad way to end the trip!

Until next time, Timmy...

 

Thanks! It's definitely an awesome area!

Haha, thanks! Been busy...

 

Thought you might be working on tryouts for the next Mythbusters show

 

Fantastic pics and trip reporting! Wish I could have made it to the wilds. We never made it out. Doomed by illness.

Carrizo gorge is super rugged. I've backpacked a few times in there, totally awesome!

 

As always - fantastic photos! Thanks for another great trip

 

Great report and pics Kevin! Looks like a fun trip!

 

Great truck and build.I had a 94 toyota pick up growing up in drove it until the frame rusted through i miss that truck.

 

Minor update... The last few months have included 3 or 4 Anza-Borrego trips for wildflowers, Swainson's Hawks, and mud caves, a 4-day climbing trip to Valley of the Moon, and a camp-out in the Yuha Desert the night before an early morning of work in Seeley. Now preparing for a week in Arizona/Utah leaving tomorrow night!

Truck's doing well. Got a new sleeping platform that's slimmer than the last and a more comfortable mattress. I also just added a TJM awning with an ARB wind-break (yes, they work perfectly together) and I need to find the time to mount and wire up two new 9" round IGGY lights and a second ARB compressor. Busy busy! Pictures will come eventually...

 

Damn! Busy guy!

 

Have a great trip man!! I'll be with you guys in spirit!!

 

It was a great trip and I finally broke my curse of having to end trips a day early because of weather! This time the weather was perfect (although a tad on the windy side at times) the scenery amazing, and the company excellent. Even got on some awesome climbs on the last day!

I've had work on every day since we got back, so I haven't had the time to go through my backlog of photos from the past few months, but I'm working on it. Just had to replace the fan clutch narrowly avoiding catastrophic failure of the fan blades. We noticed the beginnings of the horrible noise coming from the fan just before we left Utah, so I'm glad nothing exploded on the drive home! It was starting to get really bad these last few days...

Everything else is running pretty well, though, and aside from the fan that probably was dying anyways we didn't have any truck issues that I can think of. We didn't even need one spare tire, let alone two like the national monument people told us!

 

That's awesome Kevin! Glad to hear everything went smoothly! Looking forward to seeing all the photos and a little report!!

Kinda disappointed that you guys missed out on seeing me attempt to "climb" for the first time!