Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Hi Ken, so do you just anti-seize the cams or did you remove the bolt and do the whole thing? Thanks.

 

Removed the whole cam/bolt assembly and applied anti-seize to everything. The front cam is a nesting arrangement with multiple surfaces waiting to seize - sleeve goes in bushing and then bolt goes in sleeve.

 

Thanks for the info! Been searching and really can't find a difinitive answer. So mark the cam tab, remove the assembly and anti-seize. One bolt at a time allows LCA to stay in place so no issues replacing/alignment of the bolt? i should have done this when I installed coilovers. Not many miles on my truck but this issue scares me.

Love your thread, so much win in it. Thank you for taking the time and your attention to detail!

 

On my to do list now.
Thanks!

 

Alright leaving Vegas and off grid for a few days. Will write up other maintenance items and such on return to civilization. Wind calming and suppose to be nice by tomorrow morning.

 

Owlshead Teaser

Well everything took longer than I expected of course, but in the end two nights and two full days in the Owlsheads. Weather cooperated pretty well and the trip while short was an absolute blast. Thank you Nevada for your idiotic smog testing requirements - that's really the only reason I made the trip out this time but it ended up being loads of fun.

The Owlshead area is magical, only my second time there but I'll definitely be back. Will take a few days to get a trip report out as well as write up the mods done on this trip. One teaser photo though - camped at the trail head to Lost Lake which you can make out in the background:

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Absolutely stunning!

 

Wallpaper status af

 

SMOG on new vehicles = $ for the state. That's all, but at least you were able to make a fun trip of it. I'm glad the weather cooperated.

 

Interesting that NV is stricter than California now ... no smog check here for 5? years from new. Beautiful photos, and starting to miss my FlipPac now that I could get a SwayAway torsion bar without FRP leadtimes.

 

Yeah so the smog thing in NV actually doesn't make money for the state. It makes money for the commercial vendors who actually do the smog tests. In fact a few years ago there was a bill being proposed to change the smog requirements to something more sensible - namely first test at 5 years and then every other year after that. Well all the smog testing companies lobbied to kill the thing to keep it at the ridiculous first test at 2 years and annual testing after. You know the poor small business guy, got keep him going with his road side tent with a smog tester in it.

So remember when it comes to regulation sometimes it is actually more efficient to keep a function inside the public sector rather than outsourcing to the private sector. There are absolutely no real regulations against intense lobbying out of the private sector whereas the public sector typically has fairly strict controls on self lobbying. In addition everyone hates public spending and beats up on it but if anyone criticizes and tries to reign in private sector costs the industry pulls out the "small businessperson" (or the equivalent fictitious "family farm") and cudgels any critic with them.

So really either approach can create problems. The private sector issue is so common there is even a term for it:

 

Interesting.

I also love it when the SMOG tester tries to get a tip for his work.

 

Are you serious? Fuck Screw that guy.

 

Owlshead Mountains - Day 0 & 1
February 2017

In early February it was time for some truck maintenance and a smog test - but also some camping too! I flew in Tuesday morning and did the maintenance in a few hours mid-day (to be written up later). After provisioning, smog testing and a few meals I was finally headed out of Vegas around 6 pm.

The plan was to explore parts of the Owlshead Mountains along Owl Hole Springs Road in extreme southern Death Valley National Park. The road is a 25 mile dead end that heads west off of Harry Wade Road along the northern perimeter of Ft. Irwin all the way to the eastern perimeter of China Lake. This is one of the least visited parts of the park and I was looking forward to not seeing a soul for a couple of days.

Tuesday evening forecast was for extreme winds with up to 80 mph gusts where I planned to camp the first night. Fortunately the winds calmed early and as I pulled into my open desert camp south of Saratoga Springs there was just a gentle breeze with occasional moderate gusts. I decided to leave the FlipPac closed in case the winds returned in the middle of the night. It is actually quite comfortable on the raised floor with the FlipPac closed. I had a nice evening snack looking out across moonlit creosote before turning in.

I woke up at sunrise after a nice restful night. The region had got quite a bit of precipitation a week earlier and Telescope peak in the distance was still snow capped. It made for a gorgeous desert morning.

Distant Panamints at sunrise
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After a cold breakfast I did a few more truck maintenance items and mods before leaving camp around nine. Soon enough I turned down Owl Hole Springs Road and began an eight mile drive up the long sloped bajada that separates the Avawatz Mountains on the south from the Owlshead Mountains on the north. Behind to the east stretched range after range of dark desert hills, wrinkled mountains and snowy peaks with salty basins and bright dunes tucked in between.

Looking back east
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This section of the road is in excellent condition because it is frequently used by the military to reach a gate on the northern boundary of Ft. Irwin. There were unfortunately the usual few mylar balloons trapped in creosote which I stopped to collect and put in my trash bag. California now requires all balloons be sold with weights on their strings to prevent inadvertent litter like this but a few still get away. There are of course burros out here and they are a little more skittish than your average burro since they rarely see people.

Owlshead residents
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In not too long I reached the top of the bajada and approached Owl Hole Springs. In the past there were active mines in the area and some ore processing happened at the springs. The mines themselves were a bit further up on the slopes of the Owlsheads themselves. The springs are presently a rather disgusting looking pool but the water undoubtedly is critical to wildlife in the area.

Owl Hole Springs
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From here the road turns southwest and in the distant past continued all the way to Randsburg. These days it reaches a gate at the boundary of Fort Irwin and the publicly accessible road cuts west right along the perimeter fence.

Looking south into Ft. Irwin and exploring with binoculars I could find a number of interesting vehicles and targets in a variety of formations spread across the valley containing Leach Lake. Intriguing bright glints shown from ridges and prominences in the Granite Mountains rising in the background. Today nothing was moving out there.

Guests not welcome
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I mentioned this area receives very low visitation and so I expected with a midweek visit I shouldn't run into a single person out here. Well my expectation was wrong but that wasn't all bad since usually the more remote you get the more interesting and unusual the encounters you have. So while I was taking a picture of the fence above a white truck with a shell approached from the direction I came. I thought it might be a government vehicle headed for Ft. Irwin but it ended up being a field cartographer from the AAA named Shane.

Why your AAA maps are accurate
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Shane's job is to literally drive every road on the map. Each AAA map gets revised every few years and so it is up to Shane to check the condition of each road in the southwest region. He was working on the Death Valley map this week. He is the ground truth for such iconic maps as the Indian Country and Eastern Sierra maps. As you might imagine a guy like Shane is full of great stories including the best near death by GPS story I've ever heard (a French guy who downloaded a GPS track from the internet and then attempted to religiously follow it across Utah - unfortunately the GPS track was from an airplane). I was proud I could point out a revision to a map he was unaware of - the removal from the map of a natural arch west of Broadwell Dry Lake - which he was going to find out why it got taken off (he was certain he hadn't removed it but thought it probably got dropped when they replaced the county map series with the region map series).

Most interesting was to understand the level of care and attention to conservation that goes into the creation of AAA maps that cover parks and public areas. The Park Service is usually consulted about areas that while not closed are sensitive and perhaps shouldn't be highlighted on the maps. Shane avoids printing "hot spring" anywhere on a map unless it is well away from a road. In fact the Saline Valley springs are still not noted as hot springs on the AAA map though the internet has let the cat out of the bag on that one. We also talked about Racetrack and he noted that AAA has downgraded Racetrack Road on the map because the washboard is now reliably much worse than in the past. We pondered if the NPS was intentionally grading the road less frequently to reduce visitation.

Shane actually had some questions about the FlipPac as he was thinking of trying to get something like it for his survey truck. Turns out years back he actually camped out in Eureka Valley with Mario from AT and got to see his FlipPac. We chatted about vehicles and camping. He tries to keep his vehicle close to stock since as he said it is the American Automobile Association and not the American Off-road Association. It is 4WD and has good off-road tires plus more durable suspension components. He's extracted a fair number of wayward travelers in over their heads.

Encountering Shane threw a wrench into my agenda as we managed to talk for almost three hours standing along a lonely desert road. Shane needed to get his road driven and I had my own goals for the day so we finally parted ways and I let Shane roll out in front of me.

Continuing east the road passed down a wash separating the Owlsheads from the Quail Mountains to the south. Passing the Owl Lake Fault a dramatic transition between volcanic and sedimentary rocks occurs. Getting hungry and running late I pulled off the road on the southern end of the valley that holds Owl Lake for a quick lunch on the tailgate.

Lunch view of Owl Lake
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From there the road crossed another low pass separating the Quail Mountains from a lobe of the Owlsheads before entering a valley with Lost Lake tucked at its northern end. This was the goal for the day originally, to hike out to Lost Lake. It was however already almost 3:30 in the afternoon which would make for a late start to a nine mile round trip hike.

I debated what to do and decided that best time to be on a playa is at sunset anyway and a nice moonlight desert hike back to the truck would be just the thing to end the day. The view from the trail head itself is inviting as the playa is just a distant sliver of tan in the distance tempting you to walk across the creosote filled valley. The hike is quite easy going with less than 300 feet of elevation change along a bit more than four miles of old road slowly being reclaimed by the desert. About a third of the way along you lose site of the playa until it reappears about a mile from the playa. The desert was deathly quiet though midway along a flock of songbirds that I'm no good at identifying took flight and vigorously chirped in alarm as trudged by. To the west was cloud cover so the hike was pleasantly cool and comfortable the entire way. I arrived on the southern end of the two mile long playa about twenty minutes before sunset.

At this point I started to scurry about to find a composition for a sunset photo. Sunset however was very much in question. The clouds to the west that I had expected to blow over during the hike had remained stubbornly in place threatening to block all sunset color. Still the playa was a beautiful surreal place with Owl Peak overlooking to the west and the length of the playa pointed north at the southern Panamints. There was the impression of deep trough separating the low hills at the northern end of the valley from the Panamints which a map would indicate was the incredibly remote Wingate Wash. The playa itself is covered in dark small to medium size rocks which from tracks it is clear occasionally move about like the rocks on Racetrack Playa. There was not a foot print to be seen anywhere on the playa surface.

I setup a composition pointed to the north hoping that some very distant cirrus just peaking above the Panamints might be lucky enough to catch some sunset color. Higher in the sky from my vantage but actually much closer and lower in altitude was a thicker and determinedly slate gray bank of clouds trapped in the shadow of the clouds further to the west. You never know exactly what will happen at sunset so I crossed my fingers and enjoyed the slowing changing cold light in this other worldly place. Eventually the obstinate clouds to the west showed a little bit of color while my scene remained stubbornly grey indicating sunset had indeed fizzled.

Every so often clouds and light do the unexpected. After having given up on sunset and moving my camera to a new location I saw a hint of pink on the eastern edge of the closer clouds to the north. From experience I knew that clouds that low getting such low angle light would be a very quick thing even if I didn't understand exactly how they ended up getting that light! Indeed as I dashed back to my original location the clouds went from slate gray to on fire in just thirty seconds. I rapidly setup a composition to include more of the sky than I originally planned and took a series of shots. The light lasted just about ninety seconds before it faded to nothing over another thirty seconds and the scene returned to dull gray.

These rare transformations of a mostly cloudy sky at sunset when the light angles are just right are really breathtaking to behold. The character of everything around you changes from cold, dark, dull to practically glowing with a soft inner light under an impossibly brilliant sky. It all comes with little warning in less than half a minute and is gone within two. Lost lake was already an amazing place to visit but this made it practically dreamlike.

As the light faded I decided to spend the next half an hour on the playa just watching the light fade and the moon takeover the landscape. Eventually I began the long walk back to the truck. The moon was covered by cirrus clouds but still provided plenty of light to walk without using my headlamp. After a bit more than an hour and a half I made it back to my truck and had a pleasant dinner before turning in for the evening.

Lost Lake​

 

epic. love your stories. Trying to plan a two nighter with my 5yr old next month. Never been. What stops would you recommend for a first timer and kid. Coming in from LA

 

As a long-time fan and user of AAA maps, especially CSAA (Northern California), but also Auto Club of Southern California desert maps, I'm so glad to hear they continue to do true field work. Sounds like a wonderful encounter. One question about sleeping in your bed with the FP closed; I don't recall if you'd mentioned this before, but do you find the 5' bed adequate for solo sleeping? I've slept in mine once or twice, without a platform and hence squeezed a bit by the wheel wells, but I'm not sure I'd want to do it regularly. I'm about 5'10".

 

My first advice would be to pay attention to the temps and adapt based on that for comfort. There is a lot to see at many different elevations so don't be stubborn and roast yourself and your kid if it ends up being warm. Temps can be all over the place in March so difficult to predict but at sea level an average day would be in the mid-90s which if standing in the sun feels quite toasty. Move up a few thousand feet and it is a pleasant mid-80s or get into a shady canyon and it is really nice.

Park is big so it is easy to do too much driving. Keep that in mind when planning. That said two nice drives to do with a young one are Titus Canyon and Dante's View. For short hikes shady canyons are good that time of year. Mosaic Canyon up by Stovepipe is a popular one.

There is an unnamed canyon at the second dip on the road along Artist's Palette Drive which is really awesome. A five year old might need a boost right at the start but my 3.5 year old at the time did fine. Further along there is some more significant obstacles that I didn't take my daughter up but if you can make it the canyon is quite nice beyond for a bit. That road is suppose to be closed until March 16th so double check road conditions before planning on that one.

If it is quite toasty then I'd plan on doing a few things up along Emigrant Canyon Road in the Panamints. The Charcoal Kilns are fun for a little one and the road to Augerbury Point has some old buildings and a mine to explore and then the nice view at the end of the road. This is all up at about 4000 ft so nice temps. You can do this on the way or out if you come up the 14 or 395 on the west side of the park.

Keep your eye on flower reports as that might dictate where you want to visit and how you want to enter/leave the park. Often the southern part of the park blooms first. From LA you can come up the 15 to Baker and enter from the south or you can come up the 14 and 395 and enter from the west via 190. For variety you can come in one way and go out the other.

For camping if you don't like campgrounds (and they can be crowded that time of year) you can dispersed camp along Echo Canyon Road which is real close to the center of the park and other campgrounds.

Probably good to read the Death Valley Off-Road Adventures thread and ask the question there too.

Hope you have a great trip and feel free to ask specific questions!

I'm 6'1" and it works fine for me sleeping diagonally. The raised floor is what makes it work though since that gets me above the wheel wells so I can take the full diagonal. If I lie flat on my back with me legs straight then my feet are almost making contact in one corner and my head almost making contact in the opposite corner. It feels a little tight laying like that but I'm a side sleeper primarily which means my legs are usually bent a bit at which time there is plenty of room. I think it would be a no go for a stomach sleeper of my height since sleeping posture like that is usually arms up and elbows out which would probably starting bumping the bedsides when diagonal.

Usually if I sleep with the FlipPac down I take out my two action packers but leave the cooler in one corner. This actually leaves a fair bit of room to get changed, loll about reading or using a computer, have a snack and sit up cross-legged. Cozy but comfortable if holed up in foul weather. I've never done it but I suspect if I ran the catalytic heater it would get real toasty in there too.

I have slept once in "full stealth mode" removing nothing from the bed by putting the cooler in one corner and the two action packers stacked on top of each other in the opposite corner. That feels a bit claustrophobic but as far as sleeping goes really doesn't change the comfort level at all compared having the packers outside.

 

thanks for all the info. I have two of the big death valley books that i'm currently looking through. And holy smokes! I just looked through this thread for the first time on a high res big computer monitor, the photos are amazing. viewing them on the phone is no good. amazing snaps buddy

 

Owlshead Mountains - Day 3
February 2017

Thursday morning I woke up well rested a bit before sunrise. In the early morning hours I could hear coyotes yipping in the distance and a fair bit of burro braying in the opposite direction. I never saw any of the coyotes or burros this far out on the road as they seemed to be keeping their distance but sign and sounds of them were plenty. Definitely more skittish than those that live in higher visitation areas.

The previous day I hoofed it towards the lake bed as soon as I parked racing the light and got back to camp in the dark. The morning light revealed my simple open camp at the trail head for Lost Lake to be quite a pleasant spot.

Second night camp
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I had a cold breakfast as usual and rearranged my day pack from the previous evening's hike and got camp packed up. Today my goal was Owl Peak. I am pretty out of shape these days so I was surprised that the nine mile hike the evening before seemed easy and I wasn't sore or tired at all in the morning. I hoped Owl peak which was only a couple of miles and barely a thousand feet from the end of the road would be a breeze.

I drove the rest of the road which terminates at an old microwave relay station on a shoulder of the extreme southwestern Owlshead Mountains. The cross country trail to Owl Peak starts just a quarter of a mile from the end of the road and heads due north along an undulating ridge.

The hike starts pleasantly enough with easy open cross country hiking along the ridge with great views starting almost immediately. Burros have created a few amazingly efficient paths along sections of the ridge line that expertly contour and dodge unnecessary climbs. At one spot I questioned the footing contouring around a minor peak and so went over the top instead. This was the point at which I realized that I was in fact incredibly out of shape.

It was shaping up to be a rather warm day but up at 4000 feet it was pleasant and there was a breeze most of the time. After the one minor peak the climb was relatively gentle again for awhile. The last 500 feet or so is a very steep scramble and this really kicked my ass. It shouldn't have at all but being out of shape and having done the nine mile hike just the evening before left me drained. In the not too distant past I used to knock out a hike almost exactly like this most days during my lunch break back on the China Lake ranges. Today I took a lot of breaks along the way and felt very winded. In the end the 2 miles to the summit took me about 90 minutes because I was in no rush and decided to rest very frequently and enjoy the copious views. Made mental note to develop a more robust aerobic exercise plan back in Maryland.

There were great views to the west the whole way up, but finally reaching the top the views to the east opened up. Continuing down on to two lower shelves just below the rounded peak provided a breathtaking view of Lost Lake below and range after range out to the east.

View east from Owl Peak
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The views in all directions are epic from this peak. I spent nearly an hour on the summit eating a snack and exploring the landscape with the monocular I always carry in my day pack. Because the summit ridge is rounded and multi-peaked you do kind of have to walk around a bit to best appreciate the views in all directions. While I did shoot a 360 degree panorama series it really doesn't do the experience any justice.

The winds began to pick up as I was on the summit so I decided to descend. The best views to the northwest also looked to be further back down the ridge. I took a slightly different line on descent to reach a good viewpoint in that direction. From here the extremely remote and mysterious Wingate Wash stretches from west to east right below a steep precipice. The western end of the wash is on the China Lake South Range and closed to public access. The eastern end is in a wilderness area and so only accessible on foot. I've read that up until the mid-1980's when the eastern end was not yet wilderness you could on weekends request a key to the gates at either end on China Lake and actually drive the historic route through Wingate Wash. These days you can only access the eastern end via a long backpack.

In the photo below on the far left are the Crystal Hills. These are still accessible sitting on a little peninsula of public land that sticks into the China Lake South Range. My wife and I hiked to them five years ago and it was quite a treat. The hills are the starting point for the amazing epsom salt monorail. Near the hills there are still a few A-frames and remains of the monorail but not much else. Now sitting on on the shoulder of Owl Peak I could see through the monocular a thin dark line paralleling a dirt road on the China Lake range for many miles. That dark line is a long section of still intact monorail now beyond public access. I'll have to figure out a way to get to that one day. Perhaps with enough scheming we could get the Maturango Museum to arrange a tour with the base archeologist some day in the future...

The now mostly forbidden Wingate Wash​

Eventually the increasing winds drove me off the ridge and back to my truck. I still wanted to explore a few more things on the drive out. I drove the truck the remaining quarter mile to the end of the road where there are views that would normally be jaw dropping if I hadn't just been on Owl Peak. As the wind was getting pretty strong I oriented the truck with the tail downwind and had a pleasant sheltered lunch with an amazing view to the east.

The drive back through the next few valleys was uneventful and in the late afternoon I was back at Owl Hole Springs. Here a short spur road climbs to the Black Magic Mine and along that ridge there are many other mines and interesting geology (not to mention views). That last bit of the road got very rough as it winds up a small wash with some deep ruts. The truck made it up fine though. On the ridge I discovered it was getting very windy. I also checked myself in the mirror and was surprised to see I was getting quite pink. While I had sunscreen on I probably sweated some of it off during my hike but most of the pink was probably building windburn. The road up here was questionable in both directions along the ridge. It looked to be a really neat place to explore though.

After a quick look around I decided this site really deserved a few hours of exploration on foot and I didn't have the energy and certainly didn't feel like doing it in 40 mph winds. So one day I'll have to return to this ridge for a nice day of exploring. It won't be hard to convince myself to come back to the Owlshead region.

Friday was suppose to have a front come through and based on how the winds were acting it seemed things were a bit ahead of schedule and I could be in for a very windy night. So I altered my original plan to came Thursday night and drive to Vegas in the morning. My schedule on Friday was a bit tight as I wanted to do a few truck things in preparation for an Easter trip with my daughter so I decided to grab a cheap hotel in Vegas tonight instead of camping. That still left a few hours of light for exploring though!

I returned to Harry Wade Road and decided to take a less than ten mile detour up to where the Amargosa River crosses the road. It is pretty rare for the river to flow at all and while the flow rate was probably down quite a bit from the previous weak I still wanted to see it. Temps were now almost 90 as I was below sea level a little bit. Low afternoon sunlight lit up the bright sediments around the riverbed while to the south dark clouds from the approaching front dominated the sky.

Amargosa River
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Looking north there were some nice clouds and a few lenticulars over the Panamints and Death Valley itself. It was very unlikely that there would be any sunset color today but you never pass up a sunset when there are pretty clouds around. Given the direction I'd be shooting and by waning energy I decided to just head to the cliche and take a photo from Saratoga Springs. It is a nice place to visit anytime.

The springs are a pretty amazing place. Usually the desert is deathly quiet but around twilight the springs are a deafening roar of frogs interspersed with bird calls:



As expected all the clouds to the west prevented any direct pink light from hitting the clouds over the valley. It was still a very pretty scene though. The light in very deep twilight sometimes has a "hidden" color to it though. Our eyes can't really see it because it is too dim and so our rods are mostly at work rather than the color sensitive cones. The camera can of course see color regardless of light level it but often the camera has trouble automatically showing this color because the color temperature is so high (i.e. blue) in deep twilight that the automatic white balance doesn't adequately correct for it. But if you have some faith and take the shot and then adjust the white balance appropriately in post processing you can get a view of this semi-secret delicate light that bathes the landscape well after the sun is down. This shot was taken a full thirty minutes after local sunset, and no it didn't look like this at all to my eye which only saw a dull bluish gray.

Saratoga Springs​

From there it was an easy drive back to pavement. Aired up in about 18 minutes and nearly lost all my valve caps again. I returned to Vegas via Baker as my tank was getting low. Pulled into Vegas around 8:30 and had a late dinner at Outback. Of to the hotel to shower and a cozy bed out of the wind. Friday did some truck cleaning and re-arranging so I'd be ready to roll with my daughter in a couple of months. Flew back to Maryland that afternoon feeling like a much happier person after a wonderful few days in the desert.

 

Oil Analysis
February 2017

One of the maintenance tasks I did before my Owlshead trip was to change the oil. This is the third oil change for the truck since it tends to be quite low mileage. I did not bother analyzing the first oil change since it was factory oil and additive package plus a lot of break in. I did send out the second though and just got the analysis back from the third. Report shows everything fine and break in coming to an end.

I asked on the form about doing change intervals based on time rather than mileage since the truck is becoming very low mileage. You can see the answer in their notes below. I'll probably do the next change in 18 months based on these results.

I really like the Blackstone Labs analysis service. Besides just the raw numbers they have a guide on their site as to what each item relates to. Each analysis also includes comments on the analysis from one of their techs. As you can see they also track the prior analyses on the same vehicle.

Oh, and I managed to drop the catch bottle I had under the filter this time so I got to clean up a bunch of oil. Sigh. Need to come up with something a bit more reliable there.

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