Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Ahh so you can run these tire sizes on stock suspension? Been trying to figure this out.

 

Yep! And it looks like you already found the 235/85/16 The Skinny thread too!

 

Thank you! Love your truck.
Happy Thanksgiving

 

Once again admiring your well-researched content and fantastic photography... I have to specifically thank you for the growing number of bizarre and seemingly random objects you've brought to my attention over the years, which I now carry to the benefit of my comfort and safety while camping and hiking.

Seriously... a comb? I can't believe I just bought a comb.



I'm sure many dogs have learned about the cholla the hard way... but who can fault a dog for its innate curiosity and joyful exuberance?

Humans, on the other hand, should be smart enough to avoid cholla if warned of the hazard.

Yet some of us, upon encountering a clearly worded warning sign erected by NPS, march directly to the nearest cactus and poke at it.

I tried to blame my predicament on the innate curiosity and joyful exuberance of my breed, but I'm a grown man and this was like three years ago... my wife wasn't buying it.

Luckily I'm at least much taller than a dachshund.



ETA:

I'll mention, I recently hiked to the mine with another thread regular... the gate in question was wide-open, and no postage signage was encountered aside from a modern chain-link fence surrounding the main structure at the mine. But there weren't any welcome mats either, so I'd say the situation remains ambiguous. The side canyon wasn't particularly interesting save for a narrow horizontal squeeze through a tunnel of sorts. Hoping to post some photos soon.

ETA again:

In the course of posting photos, I figured out we hiked the wrong canyon!

 

My colleagues and I have lots of experience with cholla removal. As it's very common in Anza Borrego, my home desert. A plastic comb is useless against a clump in my experience, they just bend as the cholla barbs are too strong. I recommend needle nose pliers. Or perhaps a comb like tool made of aluminum that can't bend. Somewhere in my album I have a poor fellow that fell into one on a backpack trip. Needle nose pliers was the thing that saved him and when we backpack at least one of us carry them.

I've also seen the carcass of a small mamal that died because it got cholla stuck on its face. At least one of my fellows only uses foam backpacking sleeping pad after too many times of cholla spines poking holes in his inflatable mattress. Lol

Great trip reporting as usual, Ken.

 

Excellent point (pun intended) Nick!

I, fortunately, spend most of my time away from cholla! My only experience is with very shallowly embedded cholla and OMG do they hold on way more strongly than you expect (the spines are microscopically barbed). In that case the standard cheap pocket comb got the job done. I can imagine it doesn’t take much penetration to require pliers.

I see some folks in the Sonoran desert use a stouter comb with some success:

 

I found your thread this am. This is super entertaining thank you for taking the time to elaborate and share your experiences. I am enjoying this thoroughly.
Sub’d as both my truck and myself need to be on a diet! Keep it coming!

 

25 Years Visiting Death Valley

This week marks an anniversary for me, 25 years since my first visit to Death Valley. I ended up visiting because the cover of Digonnet's first edition, which had just come out, intrigued me in the book section at the Sport Chalet in La Canada, CA a few months earlier. Based on that I gathered what other information I could and planned a trip for the start of winter break.

I turned in a final project for a class a few hours before leaving and picking up a friend who flew in for the trip. We took a Honda Civic and got stuck on ice going up Wildrose Rd that first afternoon trying to enter the park. Got the car pushed off the ice and ended up going around the long way to make it to Wildrose campground in the dark for a very cold night. We spent a few days hitting many of the standard tourist spots as well as some excellent off the beaten path hikes out of Digonnet. I was back just a few weeks later solo as I knew I was hooked.

I actually didn't take a camera on that first trip. A year later I did take a photo under similar conditions that reminds me of my first full day in the park:

​

 

Congratulations.
My 1st was '77. A road trip from Reno/Sparks with 2 friends and one guys girlfriend. (They are still together I hear)
Back of a pickup, under a tarp.
Almost all the way up Zabriski Point. I chickened out.
Then late 80s with my father, a nephew, and a friend.

Sports Chalet. Yes, an iconic shop then. Bad CS pointed me towards REI in San Dimas in 89.

 

What a fantastic story. If I may be so bold as to add a bit to the end, I'd love to do so.

I am coming up on the 5-year anniversary of my first trip to Death Valley (January 2018). I hadn't been using the Tacoma as much more than a secondary vehicle (I commuted to work and road a Honda CBR600 around town) since I'd bought it new in late 1999, the first and only new vehicle I've ever purchased.

While my route on that first trip followed one taken by a buddy (who'd been one of the cohort that invited me on my very first big adventure just 4 months earlier), the impetus behind the trip were your trip reports - the writing style and photography had piqued my interest in a way that little else ever has.

Like you, after the first visit, I was hooked. Less than a month later I was back - solo this time - to revisit some of the places I'd been the first time and begin further exploration into this vast expanse. 17 trips later, I've only scratched the surface, and I continue to look forward to your posts, like no other on TW.

Thanks Ken.

 

So the favorite comes out. @mk5 has revoked your friendship.

 

My first visit to the park was maybe 15 or 16 years ago -- a family road trip with my future in-laws. With seven of us crammed into an access-cab-style F150, we visited a handful of mainstream tourist destinations which, at the time, seemed like the most desolate corners of earth. I remember gazing with intrigue at the distant mines, the seemingly impassible roads leading to them, and (my favorite) occasional glimpses of abandoned railroad grades... I won't deny being curious where these routes led, and wondering what else might be out there. But at the time, it may as well have been the surface of Mars.

The woman crammed next to me on that trip would soon become my wife (or perhaps already was... like I said the more vivid memories are of mines and abandoned railroads, but please don't tell her that... in fact, should she ever read this: Happy anniversary, dear!)

Some years later, that F150 became my first 4x4, and with it, we eased into "back-country" car camping. That all occurred far away in a different time zone, so I didn't wind up returning to Death Valley until 2019, a few years after we had moved to CA, and not long after buying a smaller pickup truck that led me to join this forum. (I loved that F150 but it was too big to fit in the stupid places I wanted to drive it!)

Perhaps you didn't need that whole backstory, but here's its point: It wasn't the cover of Digonnet's first edition that led me back to Death Valley. It was a guy named Ken on that internet forum--the stories and photos from his adventures.

And now I'm hooked. I could be playing video games now, instead I'm planning a trip to Death Valley and shopping for a better tripod.

Trust me folks, this Ken guy is a public menace!



Edit, since apparently you both posted while I was writing the above:

Clear case here: Ken is everyone's favorite.

And I love how neither Dan nor I were able to thank Ken for his inspirational content without extensively discussing our vehicle ownership history.

As is customary.

 

Cool.

Signed,
Another Ken

 

Owens Valley
June 2022

Well, a really late write up and not a particularly interesting one. My daughter and I had a few days to kill while my wife was at a conference during our summer CA trip. It was pretty hot and so we did a quick tour of spots mostly north of Bishop, though we did spend one night camping in the Panamints and almost did the Wildrose Peak hike but my daughter was upset by a high density of locusts along the trail so we turned back.

Not the time of year to visit...


Arrested decay...


Hot enough out of the water...


Potentially more refreshing...


This place is getting a bit too popular these days...


This one fortunately less well known.​

 

I’ve driven by the “bit too popular” lake a zillion times but never stopped. Your photo convinced me to change my ways. Your daughter’s really growing up since your earlier trip reports. Two, no make that three, of my best Eastern Sierra and DV trips were with my daughter when my wife had other things going on. Once up Silver Canyon when she was about 14, with a day spent riding bikes at the Mammoth downhill area, when I had my 80 Series; once in DV when we got a flat in our Prius; and another time in DV with my Forester when she was a bit older, because I remember her practicing the stick shift and encountering a bit of snow on the road between Big Pine and Ubehebe. To be fair, I also had a great trip with our son when he was in college, with some good exploration of Owens Valley backroads on my T100. Enjoy these times … for whatever reason I have done no trips with just one kid or the other since I got my Tacoma almost seven years ago.

 

Northwest Death Valley
September 2022

A trip hardly worth mentioning, less than 24 hours in and around the park actually. No hikes or anything, just some driving and a night spent in the wild.

Uncommon vista into Death Valley


Colorful rocks in bad light


Neighborhood Watch has their eye on me
​

 

Mojave National Preserve
December 2022

Inopportune weather, colds and family schedules had kept me from doing any good fall trips until December. While I usually do DVNP in early December I decided to hit some spots in MNP that I had wanted to do on an earlier cancelled trip. For extra fun I spent some time at the NV DMV before heading out!

I decided to spend some time in the less accessible parts of the preserve, especially with some remaining road closures that made things even less accessible. I got to my camp in the late afternoon after a very full day of travel and was thinking of just chilling out. There was, however, a fairly modest hike to a peak right nearby, and I wasn't sure how the clouds and sun would play out, so I decided to grab my camera and a very undersized tripod just in case the views and light were good.

Well, I'm glad I did that. I spent a delightful couple of hours watching the light change. Sheltering the camera on an extremely flimsy tripod from the wind with my sun hat, I managed to get a nice shot of this empty part of the Mojave.

Mojave Twilight
​

The next day I did some backcountry driving, some of it frustratingly slow, to another peak hike. I got a later start on my hike than I had hoped, but it was pretty cloudy so I didn't expect there would be any sunset photos to miss anyway. The hike up Kelso Peak is probably more of a desert rat kind of hike. The peak isn't grandly impressive, but the approach has some fun route finding with only a compact section of steep climbing. Mostly it is following an old road and washes.

Kelso Peak
​

I had actually scouted a sunset/twilight photo location to drive to in case the sky looked like it might put on a show, but given my late start and slow ascent, there was no way I was going to make it there in time. With low clouds still everywhere that didn't seem like much of a loss, but I pressed on quickly in hopes I'd at least reach the section of the hike that follows a mostly overgrown old road while there was still some light to navigate by.

Well, of course it then suddenly appeared there would be a little bit of a light show after all. So now a mad dash over rough terrain to try to find a location that might provide some scenery in appropriate directions. I managed to cover a lot of ground without twisting an ankle and found a gentle rise with some potential foregrounds.

Unexpected Fire in the Sky


Plan B
​

The irony was that the shot I had originally planned to take if I had gotten back to the truck in time would have completely fizzled based on how the clouds and light worked out. Sometimes ad hoc works out best.

With some shots in the bag for later evaluation I packed back up and quickly found the old road in the last bits of twilight. The walk back to the truck was uneventful and I made a moderately long drive in the dark to my camp for the night.

One of my plans for this trip was to attempt to work on a photo concept I've been meaning to get to for years. Moon rise near twilight in the desert is something magical, often even more so when there is the right terrain and using binoculars. The terrain in this area is nearly ideal for such shots (Death Valley is too dang deep for what I was aiming for) and I was here right at full moon. The particular timings of moon rise/set weren't super favorable but I decided to give it a try and had brought an old 500mm catadioptric lens (aka mirror lens) for the purpose. I woke early in the very cold morning for my first attempt. It wasn't really quite light enough at moon set to get what I was looking for and it was extremely difficult to work with such a long manual focus lens in very low light. The results weren't all that great and required a lot of work in post to try to recover much of anything, but it was a first try and I learned some things for next time.

Mojave Moonset
​

The rest of my day was one only a desert rat would enjoy and which most sane people would consider a waste of time. I was going to hike from nowhere to no place for no reason other than to be around no one. The vista at the start of the hike was satisfyingly empty:

Nowhere
​

Of course even in such an empty place you come across things that don't seem to make much sense.

What and Why?
​

Eventually I got to my chosen lunch spot, a sand covered hill in a patch of nothingness with a pleasant view of not much.

No Place
​

Returning from no place back to nowhere I made the slow drive to my camp for the night in the middle of nothing.

With all the clouds of the day before long since past I was going to have an entirely clear sky at sunset, which is usually not that promising photographically. Still, even the clear desert sky in twilight holds a bit of magic.

Clear Evening
​

This was also another opportunity to fight with the moon as it worked out that moonrise would be at just about the right time of twilight to maybe get a result. Well, the terrain kind of sucked and the light just wasn't what I was looking for when the moon was right on the horizon. Once the moon rose though, well things were a bit interesting as it resided right on the night/day terminator in the sky. So despite having brought a 500mm lens I tried a composition with a work-a-day zoom at 120mm and I actually while it was not at all what I was originally envisioning, it came out reasonably nice.

Mojave Moonrise
​

Having gotten three good hikes in (one a bit short on the first day) I was left to decide if I was going to do a fourth. I had one planned but I was feeling like slacking off for my last day. There was a section of road I had been meaning to check out and so I decided to drive that instead of doing a hike and treat myself to an evening of civilization afterwards. It was an entertaining drive with some views and an ancient turquoise mine as well.

Backroad Views


Ancient Mine
​

I also realized that besides the lens I packed for the moon that I had also brought along a bit of a "specialty lens" which had so far gotten no use (largely because it was probably totally inappropriate for landscape photography). I couldn't lug it back and forth across the country for no reason, and so now dear reader, to conclude this trip report you will be subjected to an Instagram worthy series I call "Behold, I have a lens with a ridiculously wide aperture which I shall use to the point it becomes an annoying affectation."

Tremble before its ludicrously shallow depth of field!


Back light, monochrome and too much contrast hath created An Art


Wait, is it a real truck or a close up of a toy? Ouch! My brain!


Oh alright, I do admittedly kind of like this last one...
​

 

Awesome reports! Really enjoy the photography narrative... and the photos too.

I picked this bad boy up for pocket change last month--not the fastest lens on earth, but almost two stops faster than my only other autofocus, and way less pizza grease and beer gumming it up. Get ready for some serious dookeh, yo!

 

Excellent choice! A bog standard autofocus 50/1.8 really is a no brainer for everyone’s kit. Most, like the Sony FE, are a lot of bang for not much buck nor too much bulk. Getting faster usually involves a lot of compromises or a lot of expense (and sometimes both).

I was shooting with a silly manual focus 90mm F/1.25 that I picked up at a good price used. Would never have bought new since I know I won’t keep it in the long run. Too stupidly heavy to take most of the time. I’ll play with it for a year or two and sell it for about the same as I bought it for.

 

Another great report. Nowhere can be the best place to be with no one around.