mk5 adventures

Utah 2020: Day 1



After just a few hours’ sleep, we hastily packed up and hit the road towards Vegas. No dinner, no breakfast… it was time to cover ground!





First on our destination list was Zion.





The canyon itself was a shitshow of traffic jams due to covid closures, so we didn’t make it as far as I had hoped, but we still had a great time. We then proceeded through the park’s epic tunnel and further into Utah territory.







Next up was Bryce.



This was a quick in-and-out, or at least it should have been, except I missed the turnoff for inspiration point and drove all the way to the south end of the park looking for it. We’ve had a photo of this location framed on our wall for many years; I wanted to finally see it. We caught it on the way back!








Our ultimate destination for the day was Lower Bowns Reservior, located high in the mountains above Boulder. I had scoped it out in advance as the most promising destination to fulfill my fishing ambitions. I had identified Calf Creek as a favorable alternative, but when we arrived there it was already packed (as expected). So that one will have to wait until another trip. Pushing on, the drive presented one amazing view after another. Here’s a spot we stopped to snap photos from the hogback:





Arriving to the reservoir just at sunset, my pre-planned camping spot at the southwest edge of the lake was utterly unreachable (lol satellite imagery), so I backtracked to its northern shore to park, proclaiming we could camp there instead, then gleefully charged towards the shore with my fishing pole in hand.



I then promptly lobbed the upper two-thirds of my fishing pole into the lake, became ensnared within a growing knot of fishing line, lost my balance as mud enveloped my shoes, and finally fell sideways into the muck. In hindsight, many mistakes had been made. The area I had parked was expressly closed to camping. I had made a complete ass of myself, ruined my clothes, and stood no chance of catching a fish that night. But worst of all, I had left my wife to set up camp on her own at a soggy, shitty (literally--grazing land), ant-infested corner of the lakebed.



Running out of daylight and patience for fishing, I returned empty-handed to help with the camp situation, at which point we made the regrettably delayed decision to relocate to the nearby campground, were we spent the night comfortably and with no further drama (and importantly, no more ants crawling up our legs!)





The only downside to campground camping is the forced proximity to other campers and their diverse camping lifestyles, which in many cases including this one, means dealing with the drone of some fuckwit’s generator all night. The trick for a getting good night’s rest is either complete physical exhaustion, wearing earplugs, or getting completely hammered before bed. I chose a three-prong approach, and slept great!

 

Achievement unlocked: page four!

Utah 2020: Day 2

On this day we would charge further into Utah after backtracking to Boulder to follow the Burr Trail eastward. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First, I had a fish to catch!


Sunrise at Lower Bowns Reservoir… hoping for some early-morning luck.

I had a “big one” on the line by sunrise, but I botched the final stages of negotiations and he slipped away. He was probably a good 14-16 inches or perhaps even feet. Thereafter, all I could catch were these little fellas, which I carefully unhooked and returned to the water:


Seriously guys, you have to believe me, I had a really big one on the line just earlier! He was so big, guys! Guys???



After taking a break for breakfast and to pack up camp, I returned to the lake once again, intent on catching that night’s dinner, while my wife relaxed with a book nearby.





I was starting to wonder if we could just eat my shirt for dinner, because that was the only thing I seemed to be able to hook. But then, a nibble or two on the line, followed by a bite!


Finally!

Was it the biggest trout ever caught? Let’s leave that for the historians to debate. But had I ever been more pleased with myself? Only on rare occasions.


Uhhhh….

Cleaning my catch involved doing gruesome things with a knife that I hadn’t fully thought through when planning the activity from the comfort of my desk. But being well past the point of no return, I carefully followed the instructions as best I could with my inexperienced hands, still shaking with the excitement of my first catch. Afterwards I took a hot shower hoping in vain to wash away the guilt, but I would later discover the only true remedy for my remorse: feasting upon every last morsel of that poor delicious fish later that evening!



After packing up, I sent the flying camera out over the lake to snap a few more photos before hitting the road. Just then a jeep showed up to launch a boat, catching me off guard, so I made sure to swiftly crash the drone into my outstretched hand while tripping in the sand and stuttering an unintelligible apology. Luckily he didn’t seem upset about the drone and its disruption of the lake’s tranquility. He too had fish to catch.



Our goal for the day was to reach Lake Powell via the Burr Trail Road. We stopped in Boulder to refill our fuel and water tanks at the service station, and then to refill our bellies at the Burr Trail Grill. This place was recommended to me by a friend, and in case anyone is actually reading this, I can wholeheartedly affirm his recommendation and add my own. I wish we had been able to dine in, but due to the whole global pandemic thing, we opted for carry out, planning to stop at one of the picturesque overlooks further along the Burr Trail to indulge in this late-afternoon lunch. But wow, once the meal’s aroma hit us, we pulled off the road less than a mile past Boulder, tore open the bag, and devoured its contents like a pack of ravenous hyenas.





The Burr Trail is a spectacularly beautiful driving route across south-central Utah. It definitely isn’t a rugged 4x4 trail--in fact, I think much of it might have been paved, but I don’t really remember because I was hopelessly overwhelmed by the relentlessly breathtaking scenery throughout the entire drive. And what I especially love about this trail isn’t just the utter beauty of the scenery at any given point, but how unexpectedly and abruptly the scenery changes from one mile to the next. It’s one of the few roads I’ve driven where a few hours of driving leaves memories that seem to span days.


This ass-clown kept photobombing my landscape shots!


Look, I’m in this one too!



So, after a day or two on this trail per my memory, or an hour or two per the clock, we entered our third national park: Capitol Reef.



I’m still not sure what a reef is, but I’m pretty sure this capitol one has to be among the best. The drop down the switchbacks was particularly epic! It was our first of several thrilling back-country dugways we’d encounter in Utah this year.





After exiting the park, we caught glimpse of our day’s destination: The shores of Lake Powell.



We would camp at Stanton Creek, an official and well-visited, “dispersed primitive” campground just outside Bullfrog. After paying our fees, we were able to find a spot that offered direct lake access and a reasonable amount of privacy. Score!

As we sought out our camp site, I saw a handful of lizards hiding amidst the rocks, but they were exceptionally timid, so here’s the best photo I managed to snap:



Afternoon lizard push-ups


This was a nice vacant site, but a bit too high from the waterline for comfort, plus within earshot of Camp Douchebag and its fleet of ultra-obnoxious generators.


This one was just right!

One of the craziest things about this camp area has to be, well, the lake. Not only that it submerged vast canyons, ecosystems, and cultural relics when it was built, which was a bit creepy to think about while swimming in it, but also that its water level varies wildly week-to-week and year-to-year. Here’s some info I was able to find online at the time of our trip:


Source: US Bureau of Reclamation, I think, via some shitty image re-hosting site unworthy of being cited.

Here’s the historical lake level to 2019. Since reaching “full” capacity, the lake level has dipped by up to ~150 feet due to droughts. Here’s the drought status for Utah around the time of our trip:


Source: David Miskus, NOAA/NWS/NCEP/CPC, via https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/CurrentMap/StateDroughtMonitor.aspx?UT

What those dark colors mean is that southern Utah is having a very bad (“exceptional”) drought. Damn.

Here’s a more detailed plot of recent lake level cycles, saved just after returning from our trip.


Via lakelevels.info

It’s hard to imagine it, but our campsite was somewhat recently submerged beneath nearly 90 feet of water! And at other times, we would have been camping at the edge of a 50-foot cliff. That seems pretty crazy to me. And the unfortunate fact is that 2020 seems to be another year in which the lake level will drop dramatically, aligning with the trajectory of 2018, further straining ecosystems, agriculture, and other entities that depend on Colorado river water throughout the southwest.


Taking the plunge. And if you think the skyline looks fake, then at least you aren't noticing the airbrushed hairline on the old man drowning the lake.

So with all that in mind, I dove into Lake Powell for an epically refreshing swim after a hot day on the trail. Just kidding, of course, I inched into the lake timidly and almost chickened out entirely. I’m terrified of swimming in water when I can’t see the bottom. But damn, it sure did feel nice when I finally lunged out into the channel!



After showering off, we cooked up my trophy catch in our dutch oven. It remains among my favorite camp experiences of all time.


Victory! And perhaps, the best camp meal ever?



As dusk gave way to twilight, we admired the thunderstorms unfolding to the south. I had been running both my cellphone and the borrowed camera throughout the evening to record timelapses, and while I largely botched operating the camera that night, I did manage to capture some epic lightning exposures. Here’s a composite of several strikes:



The cellphone also recorded a nice video of the sunset:



I wish I had left the camera trained on the thunderstorm, as it produced delightful bursts of light for several hours. But instead I tried unsuccessfully to record the moon setting over the nearby ridgeline, in which I managed to bungle not only the focus and exposure, but also dropped the camera, then deleted a whole card’s worth of far-better photos from earlier in the trip. Oh well, luckily I caught a nice dark-sky exposure later that night:



Although I don’t normally like camping around other people, I have to say, Stanton Creek was a great camp ground experience. With so many people camped in all directions, a party atmosphere lingered well into the night, but there was absolutely no bullshit. The drone of generators cut off promptly at quiet hours, and everyone kept to themselves. I wouldn’t hesitate to camp there again.

 

Utah 2020: Day 3

We arose to the excitement of a boater catching a good-sized fish just beyond the shores of our campsite. Or at least my wife did—I allegedly slept through the whole ordeal. But soon we had both emerged from the tent and were enjoying breakfast in the shade of the pop-up canopy. It was already getting hot! With the final day of my three-day Utah fishing permit ticking away, I ventured to the shoreline to pull one more monster from the depths:



This specimen was simply too majestic to keep, so I returned him to reign over his underwater kingdom. As we packed up, a tour-bus-sized, meet-the-fokkers-style RV approached from above, seeking to claim our most-excellent lake-level camp site. And although he was welcome to it, I was glad the driver turned back, owing to the off-camber squeeze (by RV standards) in his path that likely would have tipped him into the lake. It’s impressive the types of vehicles that make it down the “rough” access road, and even though he couldn’t make it to our vacated site, I have no doubt he found an epic spot to enjoy the lake. In our much less luxurious yet more nimble vehicle, soon we had reached the highway and were racing northward. Our destination: The Maze District of Canyonlands. First, we stopped to fuel up at one of the few gas stations on the way to Hite. This one boasted an impressive collection of boats in dry storage from the nearby lake.



Soon we were approaching our last juncture with civilization for that day: Hite, UT. This is nominally the end of Lake Powell, although droughts typically leave the end of its boat ramp laughably high and dry.



In the distance we could see the US-95 bridge over the Colorado, flanked by some spectacular buttes, between which we’d drive later that day.



Before reaching the Colorado bridge, first we would cross the Dirty Devil:



I was impressed to see air traffic making use of the Hite airstrip (not pictured) as we descended to cross the Colorado:



The attendant at the Hite gas station was quite talkative. Upon learning of our destination, the conversation led to her recommended the book “The Monkeywrench Gang” by Edward Abbey, which I began downloading as an audiobook as soon as cellular data service allowed it. It sure is fun reading—err, uh, listening to—literature set within the unique lands you’re exploring, and this one kept me engaged all the way back home!





After checking out Hite and the surrounding not-yet-dynamited bridges, we headed up into the Orange Cliffs towards the Maze. Here’s a helpful map from the kiosk:



What an epic drive!





There are a few locations where the road leaves the jurisdiction of the NPS, so up went the flying camera:





The road eventually climbed to offer a vantage over the vast plateau we would traverse to our campsite.





Partway towards this destination we finally entered the national park boundary.



As the afternoon progressed, we arrived at our first up-close overlook of the intricate network of canyons known at the maze:



Not long after, we arrived at our destination: The Maze Overlook campsite.



Arriving well into gnat season, we were expecting the worst, and had brought a screen enclosure for our pop-up canopy, as well as insect hoods for both of our heads. Gusty winds only grew in intensity throughout the evening, so the canopy net stayed packed away, but between the hoods and good fortune, we wound up with hardly any bites despite our stupidly timed trip (thanks for the two month delay, covid!) Instead, our attention remained fixed on our spectacular surroundings and the glorious sunset unfolding around us.







Overwhelmed by the opportunities for photography, I had to improvise another “tripod” for my cellphone:





That night we feasted on Dutch-oven ramen as a small army of mice scampered throughout the campsite, clearly accustomed to handouts that we would not be offering.





A storm front blew through that night, whipping our tent around like a flag in the wind. Before bed, I pulled the truck alongside the tent to provide at least some relief from the gale. And I for one slept like a king. Or at least passed out exhausted and half-drunk after taking a bunch of mostly blurry pictures of the moonlit maze below us.


Note the wind velocity...

 

Utah 2020: Day 4



Awaking to a gentle slap-in-the-face from our wind-whipped tent, we emerged to yet another spectacular view of the maze to our south. Today’s destination: Moab.



But first, we’d have to ascend the Flint Trail, perhaps the most impressive set of switchbacks we’d encounter on the trip. I don’t think I could have made it up this one without good ol’ 4-lo.







Eventually we arrived at the Hans Flat ranger station, but were unable to enter it due to the whole global pandemic thing. I stopped to air up here, anticipating driving at highway speeds as we returned to pavement. This site boasts quite the collection of radio antennas. Although we hadn’t seen a single ranger, we had overheard heard numerous conversations over the past day, tuned in to the NPS frequencies. Even the nearby pit toilets were noteworthy for their muralled walls.


True art stands proud upon any tapestry.

The drive back to civilization was lonely and recklessly fast. Distances always seem shorter in satellite view, and we had time to make!



Along the route we encountered a small but gusty region of sand dunes, which were reclaiming the roadway at an alarming rate. Emerging from the cab to photograph them turned out to be a terrible idea; I would be rewarded by the crunch of sand in my teeth for many hours to follow.



Also, for what it’s worth, I don’t recommend taking foot-deep sand drifts at 80 mph.



Finally, we emerged to the paved highway, and soon thereafter had joined I-70 east, stopping at Green River amidst a dust storm for lunch on our way to Moab. But just before that destination, we diverted southward to re-enter Canyonlands once more, this time from its northern boundary into the Island in the Sky district – perhaps the first paved road we’ve driven in this park?



Not long after we entered the park via its most travelled route, we diverted again to descend into the Colorado valley via Shafer Canyon road -- yet another spectacular dugway that can’t be driven without countless photo breaks.





And as soon as we had escaped the park’s boundaries, I had the flying camera airborne again to capture some of the marvelous views unfolding around us.











Our route led us around the potash ponds as we approached the river valley floor. These immense blue pools appear quite out of place in the red desert, and it’s hard to appreciate their extent until you’ve seen them in person. That said, it’s also tough to see them at all from the road that skirts the facility, so I’d recommend stopping to hike up the hillside, or finding a good overlook from which to appreciate them. Despite what the satellite maps suggest, the whole area is tightly fenced off, unless you’re luckier or smarter than I am, you can’t drive between the pools.



Now, here’s an important point I can make in retrospect: If you drive your truck through an immense salt mine, you should remember to wash all that salt residue off your truck ASAP. That didn’t occur to Mr. Epic Trip Planner here, and as a result, I was faced with an appalling amount of rust on my truck the following month. This ultimately led me to waste a few hundred hours of my life completely cleaning and repainting my truck’s frame, driveshafts, axles, exhaust, and underbody, which I would have much rather spent camping in the desert. So learn from my mistake, and wash your truck off after driving through runoff from the potash ponds!!!



But despite this bonehead move, I can’t recommend visiting the potash ponds strongly enough. You might think that they are just big blue ponds, but at least in this context, it’s hard to appreciate the meaning of “big” and “blue” until you’ve seen them in person. Just, for the love of god, remember to wash the salt off your truck, or visit a nearby overlook instead.




My new favorite rock, roadside on this trail.

We were approaching Moab, but I had one more trick up my sleeve. I pulled off the highway so we could hike to the Corona Arch natural bridge just as the sun was setting. I had picked this destination over the better-known arches in the nearby so-named national park, not only because it was on the way, but also because it would be less crowded, and was fair game for by hobby of aerial photography.



The hike starts by crossing the potash railroad and entering an offshoot valley. Late afternoon sunlight made for excellent photography conditions.







We missed direct sunlight at the arch by a wide margin, but still arrived with plenty of daylight to take in this magnificent geological masterpiece.


Corona Arch appears to the right in this panorama, but also visible at center frame is the less-impressive yet still gigantic Bowtie Arch.



Thanks to the late hour, there were only three other people at the bridge. I asked each if they would mind if I flew the drone, and they all responded with approval padded by disbelieve that a drone could operate in such gusty winds. I wasn’t totally sure myself, but that’s never stopped me before. Soon said contraption was airborne, and although the insane winds and fading light made for some pretty terrible footage, I still had fun looping the stupid thing around this immense rock arch.


Talked about a botched composition!

Arriving to Moab well after dusk, we stopped only to refuel before charging further up the Colorado. The destination: a campsite somewhere near the trailhead for Top of the World. We pondered several BLM campgrounds along the way, but wound up pushing forth to my top pick: Cowskin campground. To great relief, several sites were yet unclaimed. In fact, we only had one neighbor that night, but I still felt bad for showing up at 11PM and noisily setting up camp. Hopefully the other campers didn’t hear much over the howling winds--easily the strongest of the whole trip. I used every stake and bit of string from our camp supply bin, just trying to anchor our tent to the earth that night!



Here we were ambushed by the most aggressive campsite mice I’ve ever encountered, and one brashly scampered up my tailgate ladder within seconds of my lowering it, right in front of my eyes. Because of my bed drawer setup, I stood no chance of cornering him or shooing him out. So that fearless bastard spent the next several hours pillaging my camp equipment and supplies while I brooded nearby, trying to devise a plan to capture him and return him to ground level where he belonged. And later, to spitefully murder him after he had effortlessly outsmarted my earlier plans. But that gave me plenty of time to fumble around with the camera, waiting for him to fall victim to my improvised traps.


If only I were better at focusing the damn camera!

I did ultimately catch and murder the bastard, to great initial fanfare that quickly faded to remorse and regret. Poor little bugger! Meanwhile the camera caught salvageable footage of the setting moon, tinted unnaturally orange by the ongoing fires in California several hundred miles to our west. But even my tripod couldn’t hold the camera steady amid the intermittent gale-force winds, so this footage took a lot of effort to stabilize when I got home, and still isn't perfect:

 

Utah 2020: Day 5

The winds tore through our camp as ferociously as ever that morning, but on this final day of our adventure, I had grown tired of bowing to the gods of weather and common sense. I was making breakfast, god dammit. So I stubbornly set up my stove and laid out the ingredients, then repeatedly retrieved them as the winds blew them away. Eggs: check. Pancakes: check. Bacon: Shit, it just blew away! Back-up sausage: Here to save the motherfucking day. The result: A delicious hearty breakfast, with just the slightest crunch of wind-swept sand in every bite. In other words: perfection.



It was a short drive to the trailhead for the day’s main attraction: Top of the World. Certainly among the Moab area’s most quintessential destinations, this would be the finale and the turnaround-point for our adventure.


'Cause packing up is hard to do-ooo…

Our trip to date had benefited from an uncharacteristically tranquil balance between expectations and reality, but today’s agenda fell under the more typical pattern of abject delusion. I had intended to hit the trail by 6AM, summit by 8, and be back to Moab by 11 in time for an afternoon hike into Arches National Park, while leaving plenty of time for the long drive home and a restful night’s sleep before we were both due at work early the next morning. But in reality, 6AM had passed in slumber, as had 8AM, and by 9AM I was rummaging for pieces of bacon on the ground downwind from camp, coughing up piles of dirt that had lodged in my sinuses overnight, and gazing blankly at our still-fully assembled tent as it flailed in the wind. Reaching home in time for a restful night’s sleep was already out of the question, but still, I was hoping to make up time by racing to the top of the world, just a short distance to our south.



But the thing about this trail is that it isn’t easy going. I mean, it’s exactly as described in the countless trail guides and reviews online. And the overall consensus is that it can’t be rushed, at least not in a lightly modified highway vehicle like our pickup truck. So soon I was stumbling over various obstacles, bottoming out suspension travel and scraping sliders against rock; trying to carry on a conversation or do anything else to draw my wife’s attention from the compounding reality that we were vastly and increasingly behind schedule.


There are a handful of notable obstacles on this trail, which we managed to overcome with relative ease. But there are countless less-noteworthy obstacles that also require attention, and upon reaching one of them, I picked a careless line in haste. With a pronounced clunk, I suddenly found myself stuck, with essentially all of the truck’s weight resting between its high-centered rear differential and a single front wheel. I would describe the result of this misstep as “a disconcerting lack of vehicle control authority along its longitudinal axis.”



While normally it might make sense to power through such a predicament using the actuator beneath my right foot, a quick inspection of the vehicle’s undercarriage revealed that the rear axle was resting directly on the drain plug for the differential. Not wanting to mangle that area any further than it already was, I elected to stop and break out the high-lift jack to lift the axle out of harm’s way before proceeding. So there went another 30-45 minutes.



Finally, we reached the top of the world.



It was breathtaking.



Utterly breathtaking.



My wife wouldn’t let me drive all the way to the edge. Not that I had the guts to drive any further myself. With no view of the horizon over the dash, and scarcely a glimpse to either side, is pretty unnerving to inch forward towards oblivion.



We stayed much longer than planned. We took pictures. We called our families. I checked in on TW. Did I mention that this place is breathtaking?



The return back down the trail seemed even slower than the ascent, although technically we made better time, thanks in part to not boneheadedly running the rear axle aground. Emerging at last at the Colorado River, we stopped to air up and admire the remains of the Dewy bridge.







Then, we returned to Moab, this time stopping for lunch in addition to fuel. There was no chance we’d get home at a reasonable time, so we decided to double down and go explore Arches anyway. Fuck it-- sleep is for the weak!




A quick hike along Park Avenue


Hey, that’s just the same picture twice!

It was late afternoon by the time we hit the highway back home. I can’t say I was well-rested or even partially rested for work the next morning, but as much as that sucked, I was probably grinning ear-to-ear all day. We had pulled it off—our best trip yet!


Stopping to admire the Eagle Canyon bridges on I-70


The day’s last light... ‘Till next time, Utah!


Footnote: Folks I know describe this latest video as the "most abrasive" and "least watchable" one yet. It's not easy cramming 5 days worth of overwhelmingly useless footage into just a few minutes of chaotic disappointment, much less synchronizing the whole thing to an unpalatable soundtrack. I hope you enjoy it even slightly as much as I do!



https://youtu.be/pTOVmKV0VlI

 

Very nice write up. Looks like a great trip.

 

Coming over from the DV thread. Nice trip reports. Keep them coming!

 

amazing trips! quick question... why don't you guys sleep under the softopper? I've done it a few times and it's pretty comfortable.

 

Good question... I sleep under the soft topper when I'm solo, but this year we found the ground tent to be easier and a more comfortable for two. The comfort comes from having a gigantic self-inflating air mattress... here's a reposted photo from Utah last year:



It's a fairly expensive model that I wouldn't have gotten on my own, but we borrowed it once from our in-laws and decided on the first night we were never giving it back! It's at least a full, if not a queen. We plug it into the truck's inverter to air it up. And I'll be honest, I often sleep better than at home!

We tried using low-profile mats and air mattresses with the soft topper and it was always cramped, dusty, and still not that comfortable. I had high hopes for Klymit air mattresses, but they were absolutely terrible, in that they developed leaks at least once per trip, and we got tired of having to patch and/or exchange them. Our Therm-a-rests work great, but aren't quite as comfortable as a thick air mattress. Ultimately what drove us to prefer the ground tent is simply that, with the drawer platform, there isn't space to even sit up beneath the topper... and that got old quick.

And surprisingly it seems faster or at least less frustrating to pitch the ground tent than it was to clear out the bed and set it up for sleeping each night. Now we can leave the bed full of all the food bins and other unused camp stuff at night, and packing up seems to go smoother as well.

I'm still holding out hope for camping in the bed... but for that to happen I'll need a topper or camper shell that offers enough head room to sit up. If I ever wind up living somewhere where I can park in a garage, then maybe I'd devise a hoist so I could manage one of the hinged camper shells like a FlipPac or GFC. I'm also hoping to someday see a RTT in person; my wife is unconvinced, but perhaps touring one would convince us to go that way instead. But for now, I don't have a way to store, install, or remove anything larger than the soft topper, and I won't be able to afford any of these options any time soon anyway!

I'm halfway through installing a diesel parking heater in the bedside, so I suspect that might bring us back to camping beneath the soft topper next winter season. But other than that, for the foreseeable future, we're quite content with the ground tent.

 

Trip Report: Back to Salt Creek Wash

a.k.a.: I Got a New Camera!

a.k.a.: I'm Getting Really Sick of the UTV Crowd



I thought I was stuck at home for the rest of February and most of March, but we wound up with unexpected clear schedules for Presidents Day weekend, so we quickly made plans to return to the desert. Plus, I finally bought a nice camera, and I was super excited to try it out! Here’s what I bought, my rationale, and the preliminary review:

Now don’t worry, I still have many days of backlogged past adventures to post, so there are still plenty overcooked ketchup-drenched cellphone photos yet to appear on this thread! But I was a bit more motivated to post these newer photos from the better camera for now, which also gives me a chance to learn how to process the raw files it records. Some still turned out hokey, but many turned out great. Just for old time’s sake: Here--I properly ruined this one in photoshop:


Ugh...

Anyway... back to our adventure, yet another trip to the Salt Creek trestle of the Eagle Mountain Railroad. I’m not sure why I like this place so much, but I do.



We met at Chiriaco summit to fuel up, then stopped at the sign kiosk to air down as a snow-capped Mt. San Gorgonio towered behind us.


Breaking out the fisheye lens

This time we were joined by family, travelling as a socially distanced entity in their bone-stock F150, which had no trouble keeping up in the mild desert terrain.



Here’s a frame grab from a video shot. Although my phone and drone can also shoot 4k, this fancy new camera packs a ton more detail into each frame. I’d say its video quality rivals that of carefully taken stills from the compact cameras.


Look, a plant. Let’s stop for more pictures!


With all these dials and buttons, it’s never been easier to botch a photo. Photoshop to the rescue!

This place was crawling with traffic. I bet we saw 100 vehicles on the trail that day – which would be around 99 more vehicles than I typically encounter out here! Guess that’s the risk we took coming on a winter holiday weekend. At one point we pulled over for a battalion of dirt bikers to pass, one after another for several minutes.



As we continued encountering unexpected volumes of traffic throughout the trail, I started rushing, worried that our favorite camp spot would be occupied when we got there.


Looks like we’ve got the desert to ourselves, but…


Nope, there’s another group of ~10 vehicles just up the trail!

Eventually we arrived quite early to my favorite camp site, which I was pleased to find vacant, but per usual, was more vandalized and litter-strewn than ever.


Fuck Josh, fuck Claire, fuck Calvin, and fuck every last narcissist douchebag on earth that engages in this type of destructive bullshit.


The camera's onboard HDR left much to be desired. I've since concluded it's always better to shoot raw and finesse range compression in software later.



At camp, we immediately started setting up, but the winds were pretty overwhelming. I was aware that a wind advisory was in effect that evening, which is why we had diverted here instead of our original destination at Anza Borrego that night. I was hoping that the canyon would provide some degree of shelter. And based on later conversations with other groups of campers, I’m pretty sure we fared much better in the canyon as compared to the broader washes and plains nearby, at least in terms of wind velocity. However, the canyon walls contributed a steady supply of airborne dust and tiny pebbles throughout our stay. I was okay with that, so long as the vehicle-sized chunks of weathered canyon outcroppings above us stayed put for the night.



Our guests were camping in a truck tent, which appeared not only spacious but also quite robust in the face of the mounting winds. My tent on the other hand flailed about in the gusts, as it always does, although we would still manage to sleep quite comfortably that night after anchoring it to the earth with every last stake and tiedown string we could find.



We mostly hung out in one of the cave-like alcoves set beneath the canyon walls, which offered the best protection from the winds. Meanwhile, I scampered up a secret staircase to the canyon rim for more photos.






Another army of UTVs descending Red Canyon Trail. This is a cropped 240mm zoom shot, but I could hear their obnoxious music clear as day over the howling winds. Thanks for sharing your shitty taste with all of us!


The first of many...

So this brings me to my rant about the UTV crowd, which until now, had never really bothered me. But on this holiday weekend, during the course of our stay at the end of this dead-end canyon, we were visited by dozens and dozens of UTVs and other off-road vehicles within their cohorts, arriving in wave after wave, always with six thousand LED bars blaring in broad daylight, and blasting music loud enough to be heard from the next time zone. And many of these groups were led by obstinate morons that charged directly into our campsite, apparently unwilling to believe me when I explained that the trail did not continue any further. And I’ll agree, I too would be annoyed if some ass-clown set up his tent in the middle of a road. But here’s the thing about where we had camped. It is at the absolute end of an impassable dead-end canyon trail. Here’s the view upstream from camp:



Do you see tire tracks leading any further into the canyon? Me neither.

Here’s an aerial photo to help clarify the situation:



What you see here is a massive boulder field leading to a 50+ foot dryfall shelf that no motorized wheeled vehicle can pass. Well, perhaps I should be careful with my phrasing, I'm sure that vehicles exist that could chew the canyon walls to dust, but I sure as hell hope to never see them here. It’s an epic place to explore on foot, and I fully expected folks to walk through the canyon to explore this spectacular area on a beautiful weekend night. In fact, many did, and we enjoyed chatting with several of them! But what I didn’t enjoy was when group after group of UTVs charged around my pickup truck, which after the first few fiascos I had resorted to parking smack-dab in the middle of the road hoping in vain deter them, only to wind up bottlenecked bumper-to-bumper in the middle of our camp site with nowhere to turn around. Now, to be clear, these are public lands, and we all have the right to be here. But after moving our camp gear out of the way for the fourth or fifth time so these ass-clowns could turn around, squinting to see anything over the glare of their obnoxious LED bars, and unable to hear anything over the cacophony of their unmuffled engines and terrible music booming throughout the canyon, I started to feel just a bit irritated by the whole situation.

I don't know why so many people were unwilling to believe me when I told them the trail was impassable and that there was inadequate space to turn around... but we faced clusterfuck upon clusterfuck of vehicles obstinately lodged bumper-to-bumper within our tiny camp site t that evening. And upon seeing the utterly impassable rockscape at the far end of our camp, each group’s leader would insist that the route had been passable “just last year.” No, it wasn’t, you drunk petulant fuckwits. It wasn’t passable last year, and it won’t be passable next year. The only way into the upper canyon is by illegally bypassing BLM barracades from upstream, which must be what they remembered doing "just last year," and certainly seemed to be their intent after getting turned around.


It's a fucking dead-end!

Being a polite person, and forcing a smile, I offered each trailblazer my unbridled enthusiasm to be proven wrong, and made a show of preparing to photograph their triumphant ascent over the boulder field and vertical cliffs beyond. But as you might gather from the complete lack of such photos amidst this lengthy tirade, none of them even attempted to approach the first boulder, because the canyon is utterly impassible, as it always has been and hopefully always will be.

Now to be clear, many groups were totally polite, engaged us in conversation, and acted like adults. But because such an alarming fraction of them didn’t, I was left wishing that every last UTV on earth would be crushed, and their drivers lobotomized then sterilized for good measure. Of course I don’t actually wish such hyperbole on anyone, much less a broad group of people based on the actions of a few ass-clowns on a singular occasion. And it's not the vehicles that are the problem, it's the entitled often-destructive mentality that seems to disproportionally prevail among their drivers; the need to selfishly and stubbornly drive anywhere and everywhere as fast and obnoxiously as possible with such little regard for trail regulations and basic human etiquette. If this culture of unchecked rampant douchebaggery continues to flourish and grow as it has in recent years, we are likely to face vast restrictions to land access that will affect all of us in the very near future.

And that is what really pisses me off.


Bye, come again!

Okay, end of rant. At least this one. To cut back to our story, to great relief, the traffic finally died down around sunset.



Returning to the rim above, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that a group of vehicles had collected undetected just outside the narrows approaching our camp. Somehow, having seen our tents and vehicles from a distance, they had decided against charging into our camp site, and were instead airing up for what I assumed was their impending return to pavement. And I hadn’t heard them approach because they weren’t blaring Nickelback at 140 dB from outward-facing speakers. Faith in humanity restored!



If anything, I was the ass-hole now, creepily staring at them from above while my flying camera circled overhead. I later even walked down the canyon taking scenery photos as their vehicles started departing—trying to capitalize on the final minutes of the golden hour for photography. But it turned out that several of them stayed to camp the night, so in hindsight, I was the uncourteous creep, stumbling through their soon-to-be campsite, snapping blurry underexposed shots with my new camera while looking at my feet to avoid eye contact. I hope I didn’t irritate them too much… I sure didn’t get any usable photos though--even of my feet.



Oh well… dinner at camp was fantastic: oven-cooked steaks with vegetables and some sort of sauce that involved wine. And as dusk gave way to night, I started paying better attention to the camera settings, and was getting salvageable exposures again.







Our neighbors were running some sort of bright green lantern or floodlight for most of the night, and it produced interesting lighting in the canyon as I continued creeping around taking pictures. I kept a few hundred feet distance, channeling my inner Ron Swanson to resist the urge to say “hi.”




Best neighbors we ever had. We still never talk sometimes.



I promised my wife I wouldn’t hike up to the canyon rim after dark, but after everyone had gone to bed I snuck up there one more time to see what I could snap with a tripod. I had refrained from partaking in the evening’s beverage service with this in mind, and even then, I stood several steps back from the precipice to ensure I wouldn’t accidentally fall to a gruesome death just a few feet from my sleeping wife and her family. And although the solo scramble in darkness and howling winds was a bit unnerving, I was rewarded with what turned out to be the trip’s best shot, capturing Orion’s descent towards the horizon above the far side of the canyon, lit by our dimed camp lights below:



Returning to camp, I dicked around awhile longer to capture this shot of the starscape reflected over my truck’s hood, and for that ephemeral moment, felt like I had finally gotten the hang of this new camera.

 

Interlude: The International Banana Museum in North Shore, CA, is the finest museum I've visited this year!

 

The next morning, parties of visitors came and went as we cooked breakfast and packed up, but luckily we didn’t experience any more moronic traffic jams. Eventually we hit the trail towards the trestle.



It never gets old. I just love this place.









I had been planning to lead us all the way back to the Salton Sea, then around it to reach Anza Borrego for the next night’s camp. But as we chilled in the shade of this cherished desert relic, we collectively realized there was no reason to race to a distant destination unless we actually wanted to. And we all seemed to be having a great time hanging out there in the wash. So with the winds continuing to calm, and the sunlight becoming more pleasant by the minute, a new plan was hatched. We would camp somewhere nearby, assuming we could find a good spot, and would just hang out and enjoy the profound beauty of this place for another night.





And that decision left even more time for photos!











After a leisurely lunch and lengthy conversations had transpired beneath the bridge, we eventually ambled down the wash, looking for a good place to camp. With unbridled ambitions for amateur photography coursing through my veins, I was hoping to find a spot not far from the trestle, so I could return there to photograph it beneath the night sky.



Perched atop a ridge, wondering if we could do better…



But lacking the benefit of prior internet reconnaissance, we spent quite a while wandering around, hemming and hawing between a handful of paltry, uneven, windswept camp sites near the bridge. Just before settling on a particularly mediocre camp site, I had the bright idea to send the flying camera out on a scouting mission.



Within moments I had identified several camp destinations far-better than anything we’d stumbled upon thus far. I charged forth to verify my findings, then vectored the other party in via radio, monitoring their progress via an airborne camera. How 21st century is that?

The site I had found was great, but was littered with garbage, including most appallingly, a well-used shit bucket. I know it’s not the Christian thing to do, but stopped then and there to pray that whoever left it here might very soon drown in a shit-filled bucket. Or you know, see the light of God and change his or her ways, but let’s be realistic, the drowning-in-shit option would make for better TV. I guess I’m not a good person, but… well, the only place on earth I’d ever leave a bucket of my own shit is on that fucking dickhead’s grave.





So following that introspective pause, and deciding we didn’t want to clean up someone else’s excrement during a global pandemic, we found a nearby site that was even better. It offered spectacular views over the Salton Sea to the west, and of the horizon beyond, over which the sun would soon set, chased shortly thereafter by the crescent moon. The railroad trestle was also within sight, comforting those of us harboring a bizarre infatuation therewith. A towering hill of rock offered commanding vantage points over the wash, in addition to wind shelter, and was adorned with spectacular coves and rock arches glistening in the evening sunlight, into which I would later crawl to snap perfectly composed shots of my lens cap as the sun set. It was epic.



The railroad trestle is barely visible to the upper right.





Our guests had brought a contraption that somehow infused extra deliciousness into already-delicious whisky via a forced-induction combustion process, which high-school-aged me would probably have used to consume drugs. But adult-aged me appreciates the sophisticated taste of smoked whiskey, and had even managed to preserve a handful of gigantic ice cubes at the bottom the fridge, just for this event, by deep-freezing ice blocks in advance, and pre-cooling the fridge to 32 degrees before loading up and departing. The result was plenty of ice on hand for our extended cocktail hour, and only slightly frozen ingredients for the rest of our dinner.




Lights from Ocotillo Wells SVRA visible from across the Salton Sea...

Meanwhile I kept snapping photos of the desert scenery and progressing sunset.








Dinner was another smashing success. My wife cooked up chicken dumplings in the dutch oven, and although it lacked the raw pride and glory of feasting upon my first-ever fish catch the year prior, the consensus was that tonight’s meal was by far the best yet. I didn’t even get a chance to photograph it because it was gone in a heartbeat. And as we were licking our chops, she hit another home-run with the dutch oven: A delicious pineapple upside-down cake! This woman is truly amazing.





After dinner, we set up the tents and readied for bed. Well, except for one of us, who planned instead to double back to the railroad trestle for some night photography. And although I had originally planned to drive back up the wash, our most-enjoyable evening at camp had left me in a questionable state of sobriety. And even alone in the middle-of-nowhere back country, there’s no excuse for driving drunk. So fuck it, I decided, I’d walk to the bridge instead. It hadn’t seemed so far away through the camera’s zoom lens… perhaps a quarter or half mile? So I threw the tripod over my shoulder and stumbled eastward into the sandy wash as the lights of camp slowly faded behind me. Surely I’d reach the bridge at any moment…


Chasing Orion

I arrived at my destination nearly two hours later. It turned out that we had camped some two miles from the trestle, and that I had followed an even longer circuitous route through soft sandy washes to reach it, finally climbing onto the railbed just a few hundred feet from the span. Gusts of wind blew only intermittently, separated by periods of deafening silence that made it unnerving to stand still for even a moment. Although a curious desert fox had startled us at the campfire earlier in the evening, I hadn’t seen a single hint of life since hitting the trail, nor had I heard any sounds other than my own footsteps and labored breathing, save for the occasional rustle of the winds. I was on my own out there, and that seemed a bit creepy. Not that I wanted to hear a pack of hungry coyotes howling nearby either, but absolute silence is profoundly unnerving to the human psyche. I started imagining a narrative to my adventure, muttering it beneath my breath to break the silence...

​

Even from its threshold, I couldn’t make out the trestle amidst the darkness. I had been here countless times before and knew the structure was looming before me. But I had been unable to overcome my unfounded fears of darkness, hiking alone in the silent desert that night, so I’d left my headlamp at high power since leaving camp, thus ruling out any hope for scotopic vision during my visit.

​

Light pollution from the Coachella valley drowned out the milky way, but offered its own backdrop for night photography instead. A sudden gust of wind brought a pocket of markedly colder air, then faded away in the distance. The steel monstrosity creaked eerily.

​

Although the horizons were polluted with light in most directions, the skies overhead appeared crystal clear, at least to my unadapted eyes.

​

Then I started playing with the handful of modest light sources I happened to have brought in my pockets. Starting with the nearly imperceivable glow of reflected light as I shined a handheld blue laser pointer at the ground beneath the camera. We had been using the laser for stargazing at camp earlier in the evening. It is nominally rated at 1 mW at 445 nm. That’s not very much light!

​

Then I tried using my cellphone screen as a remote light source…

​

​

Finally growing tired and cold, I started the trek back to camp. I’ve never been more glad to see my stupid flagpole glowing in the distance. I set up the tripod once more to snap a photo of its appearance from my remote perch upon the railroad embankment. Following this beacon made for a much quicker journey back to camp, where I soon collapsed upon my bed in exhaustion.

​

 

Dude, I feel your pain on the UTV thing. You pretty much hit all the points - 99% of them are drunk (or high), middle-aged, belligerent, mid-life crisis types who think the world revolves around them and their little $30k POS machines. And yes they all have shitty music turned up to 11, obnoxious exhaust, and enough light bars to blind anyone in the same county. Why anyone needs to run all their LEDs during the day is a mystery to me. Perhaps one day I will be as wise in such matters as these offroad masters.

 

Great story telling, and the photos aren't half bad either !

I hope the world never ends up with any of those Zones you mention, they were bad enough the first time around and I feel like we all sort of banded together to make sure they didn't happen again. The US does seem like the leading candidate for them reappearing at this point though, doesn't it? Oye.

Keep up the good times and trip reports, I'm really enjoying them!

 

Yeah, the UTVs look absolutely fun to drive, and I hope to someday have the opportunity to drive one. But I like to think I'd retain the skills I learned in kindergarten, such as showing basic respect for public places and other humans. But who knows, perhaps I'd be too busy grinning ear to ear...

It sure made my day knowing that you not only glanced through my incoherent rant of a trip report, but actually caught onto this subtlety! I have been trying to think of a clever thing to say in response, but lacking that, I'll just have to sigh in agreement.

I'm digging through my garage looking for a 48-star flag I inherited from my grandfather, hoping to fly it proudly on a future trip, not because I have anything against the 49th and 50th states to join the union, but in memory of his and so many others' service to this country during the time you referenced, back when the flag had only 48 stars. (During which time he in fact served in both future states!) I truly wish he was still around so I could talk to him as an adult, but am also glad he hasn't had to bear witness to the alarming unravelling of this nation's virtues, for which he and millions of others fought so effectively, not really all that long ago.

Anyway, thanks for the comment, I have been enjoying following your adventures here for as long as I've had the truck. Can't wait to return to another non-acceptable zone of imperilment sometime soon!

 

ULTIMATE TACOMA DASHBOARD TECH UPGRADE!!!

Here’s my typical cab setup, photographed on the way home from a recent adventure:



As you can see, there are plenty of distractions for my right hand while I drive: An android head unit with countless apps, games, and movies… an assortment of ham/cb radios making noise all the time, a gear shifter, a transfer case selector, climate controls, some sort of electronic rear-view mirror contraption, ample cupholders holding various beverages… plus my cellphone running a zoom meeting in which I’m actively participating (I'm on the clock!) Obviously there's also a digital camera I'm holding to snap the photo. And best of all, there's my wife in the passenger seat—plenty of things my right hand can do to irritate her while I drive!

But what about my poor left hand? It gets a paltry handful of confusing buttons, an utterly useless stick actuator protruding from the column, and a plain-ass steering wheel to grasp… BOO-RING!

So for today’s mod, we’re going to add some exciting tech upgrades on the left side of the dashboard, to better balance the distractions surrounding me while I drive. This is a common-sense safety upgrade that won't break the bank!

We’ll start with some paracord. Make sure to use real-deal made-in-America load-rated stuff here—no sense risking your safety on cheap stuff from China...



Then make sure to use your propane torch to cauterize the cut ends of the cord, to prevent fraying. Again, safety is key.



Finally, we attach our new high-tech upgrades to the left side of the cab using high-strength outdoor-rated zip ties:



100% of our test subjects agree, this is THE BEST MOD OF ALL TIME!!!

 

Buddy, this thread is delightful. Thank you for the trip write ups, I thoroughly enjoyed reading them.

 

Following the thread

 

Project: On-board air

On-board air systems always seemed like a goofy waste of money to me. I mean, why not just use a portable air compressor to air up? I had carried a

$91 Viair 88P Portable Compressor Kit (12V, 120 Psi, Forup to 33" Tires)

Viair 88P air compressor in my prior truck, and when I bought this truck, I was pleased to learn that the prior owner had already bolted the exact same model of air compressor under the hood and hard-wired it. A far cry from a proper on-board air system, but it couldn’t be easier to air up by popping the hood and switching on the compressor, and using a couple Schrader style extension hoses to reach the rear tires. In fact, I was so confident I would never need a complete “on-board air” system that, when I regeared with a front locker last year, I went with an e-locker instead of an ARB, because I was certain I’d never need to install a real on-board air system.


Prior setup: Viair 88P mounted on the passenger wheel well, hard-wired, with extension hoses stored in the cab to reach the rear tires.

So the logical next step was to suddenly decide that I absolutely had to have a high-capacity on-board air system. Such is the nature of hanging out on Tacoma World.

Like so many other projects, I eased into this one by cheaping out on the key central component (here, the air compressor), then wound up wasting tons of time and money trying to make it work perfectly in a delusional pursuit of my unrealistic expectations. Hope you enjoy the writeup!


Motivation: With my prior air compressor setup, each adventure ended with a slow and somewhat laborious process of airing up each tire individually, which usually took at least 30 minutes, and more typically 45-50 minutes, depending on how low I had aired down, how close to optimal highway pressures (45 PSI) I wanted to reach, and how well I was able to maintain my attention throughout the process to equalize the pressures. (Typically 10 minutes per tire just running the compressor.) I realized that this was actually a pretty large amount of lost time, which inevitably came at the cost of precious daylight hours for mid-trip hops along paved highways, or much-needed sleep at the adventure’s end by delaying our return home. And sometimes, this situation led to imprudent decisions to speed along highways with deflated tires to save time, which is of course a terrible idea.

Goal: I want to reduce air-up time to 10 minutes, from stopping the vehicle to hitting the highway again!



Spoiler alert: I totally failed. But I did get it down to 15-20 minutes, which still saves me about half an hour for the air-up process. Plus it’s somewhat automated, so I don’t have to babysit each tire and check pressures during the process. That gives me more time to sit in the cab planning our next move, or just pondering my shortcomings and life regrets.

First attempt: Last year, I started carrying my old 88P compressor (from the prior truck), in addition to the engine-bay-mounted one, to try to reduce air-up times. While somewhat effective, I had trouble managing two air compressors at the same time while also readying the truck for the drive home, and ultimately still spent at least 25-30 minutes stopped. Plus, I had to find a place to store a scalding-hot air compressor amidst our camping gear after airing up.

Declined alternative: CO2 air-up systems such as Power Tank offer unmatched CFM ratings for rapid air-ups, but require the installation and maintenance (refilling) of a CO2 tank. I decided that our long road trips would require at least a 5-10lb tank, and I wasn’t able to devise a way to mount a tank of this size in our truck without sacrificing any cargo area. Folks with bed racks and campers could definitely consider this option, but I decided to stick with a conventional--albeit slower--air compressor, motivated by its smaller size and the convenience of not needing refills from a gas supplier between or during trips. (Our longest trip to date involved… I think 8 airdown cycles!)


Power Tank

My solution: I decided to install a substantially larger air compressor than my 88P, with air lines running to each wheel well, and a pressure regulator, to dramatically reduce the time and complexity of airing up. The next post will show what I came up with.

 

On Board Air: Part 2

Air compressor: I wanted to get the

$160 Smittybilt 2781 Smittybilt 5.65 CFM Air Compressor - 2781

Smittybilt 2781 air compressor, which at 5.65 CFM, is nearly 4x faster than my

$91 Viair 88P Portable Compressor Kit (12V, 120 Psi, Forup to 33" Tires)

Viair 88P (1.47 CFM). However, when I was ready to pull the trigger, this product was completely out of stock! (Thanks, global supply chain clusterfuck of 2021!) Not wanting to spend $230 + shipping from a “third party” on Amazon for a product that had recently sold for $130, I opted for a clone instead: the GSPSCN 5.65 CFM air compressor, for $130. It has the same ratings as the Smittybilt, and is clearly of the same design, down to and including the use of stupid air fittings that make it incompatible with standard plumbing fittings in the US without modification. I suspect it came from the same factory, but who knows?



Upon receiving the air compressor, I was impressed by its “heftiness” – at over 15 lbs, it was clearly a larger and more capable unit than the 88P it would replace. However, I was also disappointed by its cheesiness… a large proportion of the material that appeared to be (and should have been) metal was in fact plastic, painted to look like metal! Perhaps most appalling, the part resembling a finned cylinder casting is in fact a piece of plastic with a thin metal cylinder lining. I wouldn’t count on this to run air tools all day – it is intermittent duty at best!





Nonetheless, it seemed that the compressor itself was functional and performed at its rated flow rate. Connecting it to my garage air compressor’s tank, I clocked it at 5.8 CFM, during which it drew 43-47 A from my truck’s battery. Its volume did seem to drop off considerably at higher pressures though, and I am not optimistic about its longevity.

Compressor output modification: The compressor comes with some sort of useless quick-connect fitting that doesn’t work with anything in the US. (I read elsewhere that it’s a Japanese fitting?) Plus it uses communist threads at every interface, so you can’t just swap in a proper air fitting. As I imagined fitting the compressor under my hood, I eventually decided to delete its plastic handle shroud and the output tube contained therein, and instead to fabricate my own output fitting out of brass.



I started with 1” square bar stock, then turned one end down to fit the air compressor’s primary casting outlet, which is M14x1 thread. I had to buy a die of this size to produce suitable threads, because I suck at cutting threads on a lathe, and didn’t have a good thread pitch match in my gear set.


These threads wouldn’t seal – had to buy a die.


This worked.

I cut a few cosmetic heat fins in the part too, because they are super cool looking, and it’s my garage and I can do what I want. Finally, I drilled and tapped NPT threads into each radial face of the adapter, alternating between 1/4 and 1/8, initially only on two faces, but eventually on all four, as I couldn’t predict which orientation of the fitting would provide adequate sealing of the threads, and was weary of cracking the compressor casting by turning it beyond the minimum amount necessary to form a seal. The extra output ports later proved useful for installing a pressure gauge.




I really enjoy making things out of metal!


Here are all the leftover parts after reworking the compressor for this application. I deleted the base plate, the output tube, the handle/shroud and its associated supports.


Compressor pressure switch: Portable compressors are designed to be connected to a tire and switched on and off manually. But here, I want to be able to run the compressor through a pressure regulator until my tires are full, then have it switch off automatically. This requires installing a pressure switch, as described on this thread.



I bought a Viair 90233 pressure switch, which has 1/8 NPT threads, and a 90/120 PSI on/off calibration. I installed it in one of the output ports on my brass adapter, and wired it in series with the compressor’s power switch. Luckily, the compressor has an internal high-current relay, so I didn’t need to worry about switching the full motor current with this pressure switch.



After some trail testing, I found that the compressor’s pressure relief valve would generally trigger a blowdown before the pressure switch cut off the motor. So I bought a Viair 90212 (85 PSI on / 105 PSI off) switch and plan to someway swap it.



The nearly-completed compressor assembly, on a scale… nearly 18 lbs!

Pressure regulator: I wanted a regulator that I could dial to my desired pressure each time I stopped to air up, rather than having to measure the air pressure every few minutes to decide when to turn off the compressor. I wound up selecting the Wilkerson R21-04-00 dial regulator, which has a dial range of 5-160 PSI. I wish there was a model with a dial going up to 60 or 80 PSI only, which would allow more adjustment resolution. But the only other model tops out at 40 PSI—too low for the optimal highway pressures on my truck. So the 160 PSI model would have to do. Another benefit of this regulator is that I can use it to air down as well, just by setting the dial to the desired pressure with the tire air lines connected.



I wound up mounting this regulator on top of the air compressor, in the space I had freed by deleting the output handle, by machining four support legs out of some aluminum hex stock. I would have preferred to mount the regulator somewhere else, but simply couldn’t find a better spot under my increasingly cramped hood! Hopefully the compressor’s vibrations don’t cause it too much trouble…

Air tank: Connecting a high-capacity air compressor directly to a pressure regulator seems like it would lead to rapid (perhaps destructive) cycling of the air compressor as the tires approached the desired pressure. There’s a reason most air compressors come with air tanks! So, I decided to mount a small air tank somewhere on my truck, to be installed between the compressor and the regulator.



I eventually decided on a 1.47 gallon spun aluminum air tank (5” dia x 18” length) for $130 from Switch Suspension. I was able to fit it inside my passenger frame rail beneath the cab, by fabricating these aluminum mounts on the milling machine:


One of the tank mounts. The cutout is to clear the air line to the rear tires, which runs in the frame.




The other tank mount, with the tank clamp attached. These bolt through existing holes in the frame.


The air tank installed along the passenger frame.

Plumbing: I plumbed air lines to each wheel well using push-to-connect fittings with 3/8” air lines. At the end of each is a standard quick-connect air fitting, capped with a removable cover to prevent dirt and dust from collecting within the fittings. Most of the air lines are protected with split loom tubing, and the lines running near the exhaust manifold are further protected with reflective aluminum sleeving for shielding against radiant heat. (The compressor output and tank return lines are routed inboard of the frame near the exhaust manifold, but I managed to route the low-pressure output line within the frame to reach the rear wheels.)


Front tire connection point


Rear tire connection point

Between the air compressor and the tank, I ran 3/8" stainless line, because the compressor output gets stupid hot! The rest of the system uses 3/8” PU tubing. I also installed a US-made pressure relief valve on one of the tank ports (120 PSI), just in case the one on the cheap compressor fails.

Surprisingly, the system is air-tight and will hold pressure for days. On occasion I remove the plug from the air tank to drain condensate; but luckily corrosion is less of a concern since the tank is aluminum.

Relocating the power steering reservoir: I’ll admit, this compressor was much larger than expected. The only place I was able to fit it was next to the windshield washer reservoir at the front of the engine bay on the passenger side, where the power steering reservoir normally sits. So first, I had to relocate the PS reservoir…

The only place I could find for the relocated PS reservoir was where my Viair 88P compressor had been installed: atop the passenger wheel well. So I had to say goodbye to this old trusty travel companion in the name of progress. I respliced it to the lopped-off alligator leads from the new compressor, and will carry it as a backup for a few trips--until I fully trust the new setup--then plan to retire it to serve in the trunk of my shitbox commuter car.

My original PS reservoir likely had a small crack, because its return tube had been perpetually coated with steering fluid for at least a year. I had already replaced the hose and its clamps to no avail, so I decided to replace the whole stupid reservoir this time around. I selected an inexpensive replacement assembly (Doorman) for $60, and am hoping this finally fixes the slow mystery leak plaguing the PS return line. (Update: so far, it has!)

Next, I modified the old PS tank mount to conform to its new installation location atop the wheel well, by cutting off two legs, replacing one with a new mounting hole, and shortening, bending, and reattaching the other:



I’m so bad at welding, I opted to drill and tap screw threads to reattach the modified support leg instead of welding it like I should have.

Finally, I re-attached the power steering supply and return lines with new 5/8” and 3/8 lines respectively (Edelmann). I tried to re-use the original supply line from the pump, adding an extension via a 5/8” barb adapter to reach the new reservoir, but that backfired because the OEM line started leaking at the pump after rotating it to face the new tank position. So I replaced the entire supply line with fresh 5/8” line and it’s been leak-free ever since.

As part of the process, I also decided to replace my washer fluid reservoir, which had an apparent leak for several years. I started by buying a new one, of course, then leaving it on the kitchen table for 18 months while telling my wife I’d install it “next weekend” every time she complained. Then during the process of swapping it, discovered that the leak was actually in the hose near the pump. But the new one was just so shiny, and so beyond its return window, that I decided to keep it, in addition to replacing the broken hose. I just love wasting money on this truck.

Mounting the new air compressor:

Fitting the air compressor was going to be tight, and due to its mass, I knew I would need some pretty solid mounts. First, I had to replace the OEM A/C tube support bracket, which interfered with the desired air compressor location. I replaced it with a piece of stainless steel bar, bent to support the A/C hose from below, with tapped holes added for the A/C hose clamp as well as for the air compressor.







Then, I fabricated front supports for the air compressor from 1/8” stainless steel bar, using a propane torch to heat it enough to make tight bends, then drilling and tapping mounting holes as needed. One of them wound up too short, so I made an aluminum spacer to position it correctly. The final (rear passenger side) mounting point for the air compressor was made from brass, which I turned, tapped, and cut to conform to the sloped angle of the wheel well in that area. Ultimately the air compressor was mounted in all four corners using its factory grommets for vibration isolation, using a hodgepodge combination of its original (metric chinesium) hardware supplanted with proper American Stainless Freedom hardware wherever I could fit it.




For the fourth corner, I made this brass part to mount through the sloped wheel well. The central portion is tapped, so I can bolt it in place from below, then slide the mounting grommet over the upper part and bolt it between washers.


The final compressor mounting locations.


With power steering reservoir installed and plumbed in.


The nearly completed compressor assembly...



Installed!

Tire air hoses and accessories:

To connect the tire air valves to the air system, I assembled (4) 3’ sections of air hose. On one end is a standard quick disconnect air fitting, and on the other is a self-closing, clamp-on Schrader air fitting. They coil up and store in my rear passenger door cubby, where I used to keep the extension hoses for the 88P air compressor. I really like these air hoses -- no more fumbling to thread extension hoses onto Schrader valves in the dark!

[tire hoses]

I also carry a spare 12’ coiled air hose extension under the hood, by the washer reservoir, so I can use the compressor to air up tires on a different vehicle, or in theory, to run air tools in the parallel universe where I’ll ever have or need to run air tools on the trail. I also keep a normally-open (high flow) clamp-on Schrader fitting attached, which I figure might help if I ever need to reseat a tire bead on the trail. Hopefully the air tank capacity would also help there.

Finally, I carry a spare M14 to 1/4 NPT adapter in my tool box, in case my shitty brass manifold or any of the other tubing fails on the trail – I can still just connect an air line and air up each tire manually.


High flow bead-setting chuck


Airing up: The new procedure and timeline for airing up is as follows:

1. Pop the hood, turn on the air compressor switch, then set the desired pressure on the regulator dial. The tank will begin filling. (30 sec)

2. Grab the hookup hoses from the door pocket, then walk around the truck connecting each air line. (1.5 mins)

3. Wait for the desired pressure to be reached, after which the air compressor will shut off automatically. (10-15 mins—fuck!)

4. Shut off the air compressor, close the hood, then walk around the truck removing each hookup hose. Along the way, reinstall each valve cap and protective air fitting cover. (1.5 mins)

5. Stash the hoses back in the door pocket and return to the cab victorious (30 sec)

So as you can see, it still takes 15-20 minutes to air up, so I guess I’ve utterly failed at my goal of a 10-minute air-up. Sorry folks!




Conclusions and experience to date:

The new system is a huge improvement and I’m glad I built it. But that said, I wish it was faster. My friend has the ARB high-capacity air compressor on his truck, and he is always done first. And my heart boils with jealous rage with every passing second after his hood slams shut, while my stupid cheap-ass air compressor toils away for like eighteen more hours. But fuck, this no-name compressor was only 130 bucks--what delusional moron would expect it to keep up with a $600 brand-name unit of a clearly superior design? (Answer: me, god dammit!)

The dial-a-pressure regulator works well enough, but not perfectly. It generally fills my tires to 5-10 PSI above its setting. Perhaps this is because it’s mounted atop the air compressor and thus shaking violently during use? Ultimately, I still use a manual gauge at one of the tires to confirm that I’ve reached the desired pressure. But on the bright side, I don’t need to waste time checking and balancing all four tires like the old days… they’re connected together now so I always get the same pressure at each wheel.



While troubleshooting the reality of my failed effort to achieve <10 minute air-up times, I wound up installing pressure gauges, at both the compressor output and the regulator output. I’ve tried several types of “vibration proof” (glycerin filled) and “high temperature” pressure gauges, and none of them work worth a damn. The engine bay air compressor is apparently just too hot and too vibratey for pressure gauges to function. That sucks; I wish I could read my actual tire pressure at the regulator. The good ol’ tire chuck gauge is the only way to confirm the actual tire pressure. So fuck, add another 30 seconds to my air-up time for that too.

Overall, even though airing up is still slower than I had hoped, I’ll call this an improvement. On our future trips, we can expect so save hours of daylight, and to get home just a bit earlier. And that’s a good thing.