Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Is it possible to hook up a trickle charger to your battery when the truck is parked?

Using a smart charger on the battery when not in use will probably extend it's life. If nothing else, the battery will be charged and ready to go as soon as you get to the truck.

 

Yep, a smarter trickle charger would be the best thing and I suspect would definitely extend battery life in my case. Unfortunately that's not an option where I store my truck. So somewhat more frequent battery replacement is just another cost of living on the other side of the country from my camping truck!

 

I’ll keep your battery charged if you want to fly into SJC or SFO instead of Vegas, and drive a little further to DV. Of course, the odometer readings may not match between drop off and pick up.

 

If you had solar on top and a roof top parking spot it could work but then you would have to worry about someone stealing the solar panel.

 

These days my truck is stored tightly tucked in with a few other vehicles in a locked garage. Upside is very difficult to break into or steal as well as not exposed to the punishing summer sun in Vegas. Downside is no potential for solar.

When I was at a different spot with just covered parking I knew the sun hit the front of the truck a bit for part of the day and had considered doing solar trickle. In the end though a new battery every three years is sort of the least of the costs associated with the truck...

 

Winch and Front Bumper
Declined Modification

Continuing on the theme of writing up things I've decided not to put on the truck...

What is a bumper mounted winch good for and not so good for?

A bumper mounted winch is often consider one of those "expo build" must haves and there is no doubt there is a lot of potential utility in a winch. Still like most things it comes down to specific needs of the build as to whether it is actually useful.

A mounted winch is super useful for getting other people unstuck. You can position the vehicle with the winch optimally for the pull and it is self anchoring. So if traveling in groups having a couple of vehicles with winches is quite practical.

It isn't so useful for getting yourself unstuck. There is a good chance the winch won't be pointed in the correct direction to help with extraction. Even if it is when you are in a desert there are rarely convenient anchors available so that's something else you need to haul around with you. You can do cool redirection of winch pulls if you have a lot of recovery gear with you, but again the anchors in a desert problem.

There are some routes with extreme steep sections in which you are suppose to winch your vehicle up. Good case for a bumper mounted winch.

Winches can also help move obstacles - trees or boulders. Not a lot of trees in the desert, but boulders do end up on roads. Again - some issues with anchors and needing enough gear to make it work.

A permanently mounted power winch is of course most useful if there is a frequent need to use it so if specifically traveling places you expect vehicles to get stuck like mud holes a winch is probably a win.

Downsides to a winch?

Primarily the weight stuck way out in front.

There's directly connected high current wiring which increases the risk of fire a bit, but presumably with a proper install that risk is very low.

Other "weight cascade" issues of required changes to support the winch such as larger battery, heavier bumper and recovery items to make the winch actually useful (the most obvious being something like a Pull-Pal if you frequent deserts).

Does Diet Taco need one?

I travel almost exclusively solo and almost always in deserts. So a winch isn't going to be very useful for me. In nearly twenty years of bouncing around deserts I've never been in a situation where I needed a winch. Which doesn't mean they aren't useful in deserts, just I don't go places or get into situations where they are useful to me.

Without the need for the winch the question is does a front bumper add anything? Not particularly in my case. I don't need to plow deer out of the way like on the east coast. I've never been entry angle limited with the stock setup either. Clearly for rock crawling with the rest of the rig setup for such the improved entry angles of a different bumper would help but

Alternatives

For the specific case of self extraction where it is a very rare event consider a come-along instead. It can be moved and attached wherever needed for the given situation. With Amsteel Blue it is now quite safe to use a come-along where you are required to stand in the line of the pull. There are however only a few on the market with a large enough pull strength to be useful and they aren't particularly light or compact. You also still need an anchor but besides the heavy and large Pull-Pal there are some lighter options which involve burying a sling instead. I tend to think most self-recovery situations in a desert are likely handled more efficiently by other means though (shovel, traction strips, jacks, etc.).

 

I’m enjoying your Declined Modification articles. It’s very un-TacomaWorld of you! I find myself in the same boat. Dual batteries and a winch would give me some peice of mind, but that’s about all they’d give me. At the end of the day, I don’t want to add the weight, which will diminish the driving experience 100% of the time, for a mod that might help me once in the next five years. I just need to keep telling myself that.

 

The last time I used my HiLift jack was to prop up my fence. That was 20 years ago. It stopped riding in my truck about that time too. 30-40 pounds saved. I do have on board air and sliders, and I’m thinking of getting some real skid plates. My thinking is that protecting the AT pan and transfer case is good insurance. Although the only thing that’s touched the sliders so far is my feet climbing in and out ...

 

I loved my ARB bumper and 285/75 KO2s until I bought my four wheel camper. Now I'm trying to find things I don't need and removing them out of the truck. I'm also going to sell the 285s and buy some 235/85s.

 

I assume you disconnect the battery when stored? I'm with you on not adding too much weight, but I dont overnight in my truck. Trailer base camp for the family and I.

 

Yep. And the place I store it pulls the truck out the day before I get there so if there is some sort of issue to deal with I have a heads up before I get there.

Trailer base camps make a whole bunch of sense. I considered going that route myself but thinking back on the types of trips I was typically doing they usually involved moving camp almost every day. I think in another decade or two when we are retired with more time on our hands that trailer might be the route for us.

 

For what your doing you need to be mobile. I get it. My wife told me a while back she didn't want to tent camp anymore. So if I want to take the family out exploring I needed a trailer. So we have this now, and I have to say it's pretty sweet. Folds up like a tent trailer but its hard sided and light weight and fits in the driveway. Trailmanor 2720, both my truck or her Acura MDX can pull it. I can get it out in the backcountry if its not too rough. Just came back from a week in Arizona with it. Highlighted by Sedona and Grand Canyon.
Our home away from home. Happy Wife happy life?? If your lucky. LOL

 

Roof Rack
Declined Modification

Well this one is pretty obvious why I'm going to skip it. Just doesn't work very well with a Flip-Pac though it certainly can be done if you are OK with having to empty the roof rack before opening the Flip-Pac. That could work if you kept in-camp gear on a cab roof rack since you'd be setting up camp whenever opening the Flip-Pac anyway. My campsites though typically have little or anything external to the truck besides perhaps a chair or two.

For a standard shell roof racks obviously can make a whole bunch of sense and are a good place to attach an awning too. A word of caution though is to be careful about how much weight gets put up on a roof rack. Weight that high dramatically reduces vehicle stability and increases the risk of a rollover quite a bit more than one would expect. For example, we all know lifting a truck makes it more susceptible to roll over. Well putting just 100 lbs on the roof of a Tacoma is equivalent to lifting the truck by 1 inch as far as raising the CG goes. And that 1" increase in CG height increases rollover risk by about 25%. So don't be putting your 35" spare tire and a bunch of water up there!

The Flip-Pac itself puts quite a bit of weight up high because the tent is of course smooshed all into the ceiling along with much of the fiberglass and metal frame structure. So I most certainly don't want to put any additional weight up high which makes a roof rack even less of a good idea for me!

 

Once again I have to agree! I can’t believe all the stuff I see people load onto their roof. Along with the CG, the aerodynamics is also a factor. I use the factory rack which is a non factor when not in use and have a roof bag where I put pillows, sleeping bags and pads—lightweight but bulky stuff. It does not look EAF but sure works good to keep things organized. If you have to store 100+ pounds on the roof, you bought the wrong truck.

 

Day Pack/Hiking Emergency Gear

PLANNING: What kinds of emergencies?

A day hike can go sideways very quickly out in the wilderness. Especially hiking solo in remote locations it is best to be very cautious and conservative when deciding what to tackle and what to retreat from. Even with caution though bad things can still happen. There are stories right here on TW of folks walking not very far from their truck just to check out a view and dislocating a shoulder in the process. We all need to plan for the fact that one day a rock as seemingly solid as the thousands we've stepped on before is going to turn unexpectedly and we might take a bad spill. What to do then?

Much like with the truck itself I like to stay as light as possible. Carrying too much weight can actually increase the likelihood of an injury after all. In a desert we want to have plenty of water with us which is already heavy. For a day hike in particular we probably have a really good idea of the weather we are going to expect for the day and the night. That gives us the option of being selective in what we bring. Naturally someone in the perpetually rainy northwestern forests or doing a late fall trek in the Sierras has different threats to deal with than a desert hiker.

We should always be as self-sufficient as practical. What is practical really depends on other decisions though.

Probably the biggest decision is group size. A large group can amortize the weight and bulk of a lot of emergency gear over a number of packs and people. A solo hiker on the other hand is already making a calculated risk just by being solo to begin with. I almost always hike solo so my planning is based on that assumption.

Another huge factor is the length of time required for rescue. Someone who likes to hike at high elevations in the fall in the Sierra and doesn't want to carry satellite communications really needs to plan on potentially waiting a few days for rescue as they need to wait to be declared overdue and weather may make it impossible to be rescued for a period of time as well. On the other hand a person in someplace like Death Valley who can be almost 100% certain of satellite communications and a protocol that would lead to them being declared overdue in less than 10 hours really only needs to survive a night.

STRATEGY: SATCOM reduces rescue time significantly

My day hiking emergency gear is based on the strategy that I only need to survive a night. A huge enabler to this strategy is modern satellite communications gear. I carry two SATCOM solutions with me on day hikes.

The primary is an inReach Mini which is an Iridium based two way messaging service. It has an SOS feature which is certainly super useful but in addition to that I use it to send status messages as I hike. My family therefore knows that I am doing a day hike and they know to expect a message from me by a certain time if I get back from the hike OK. If they don't get that OK message (which by the way I send multiple times in case a single message fails to get delivered for some reason) they know to immediately contact the relevant authorities. Therefore even if I fall and am unconscious or get trapped in some place SATCOM isn't going to work there will be a rescue call made the evening of my hike.

The secondary is a PLB which uses an entirely different satellite constellation that is more robust to receiving an SOS in poor terrain and also acts as a terrestrial beacon to aid SAR. Assuming I'm conscious I'll activate this along with the SOS feature on the inReach and have an extremely high probability of an immediate message getting to SAR. Again even if that weren't to work I'd be declared overdue that evening based on the protocol described earlier.

GOAL: Survive one night

If I'm in a desert and certain to be declared overdue by evening then really I just need to survive a single night. There aren't multiple day blizzards in a desert that might prevent a timely SAR operation. The inReach "breadcrumbs" that I leave along the way will get SAR very close to me even in the event I'm not able to send a precise position from where I'm stranded (again covering the case it which I might be unconscious or in a deep slot).

The gear to survive a night in a desert is actually not all that substantial. Primarily it means bringing adequate water and enough clothing and shelter to survive a brisk night. In addition some aides to help SAR find me and the ability to start a fire are about all it takes.

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In the photo above is what I always have with me on a day hike. This is in addition to whatever clothing I might be wearing to deal with the daytime temperatures.

• Compass - Always useful and I usually have a hard copy map of the area with me too
• Whistle - Simple aid in getting SAR the last fraction of a mile to me
• Mirror - This is one of those fancy ones with a pointing device to better flash a helicopter
• Fire Starter - Magnesium striker
• Tinder - To get a fire going even in damp conditions
• Rain/Wind Pants - An extra layer for the legs
• Wind Jacket - An extra layer for the top, useful for chilly summit stops too
  
• PLB (SARSAT) - Backup emergency only SATCOM
• Warm Hat - Helps a lot at night, the wind jacket has a hood for wet protection
• Mini First Aid - This is an extremely limited first aid kit but better than nothing
• Tweezers & Comb - Added to the first aid kit these help with getting out cactus spines. The comb is how you remove a jumping cholla branch.
  
• Mylar Emergency Sleeping Bag - Just enough to help keep me alive overnight
• inReach Mini (Iridium) - Primary routine update and emergency SATCOM
• Headlamp - It gets dark at night

In addition to this I always have my phone with me which includes GPS and mapping applications of course. Since I'm only potentially out for a night and I start each hike with it charged it is likely to still be helpful in an emergency situation but naturally I plan for it to be not working.

The inReach is actually kept in my pants pocket so that I always have some form of SATCOM on me even when I set down my pack or just step away from the truck for a moment. The headlamp and the wind jacket get frequent use as well and are kept handy. The rest of the gear is either rarely used (pants, hat, first aid) or hopefully never used. That rarely/never used gear is kept in a single bag so every packs up pretty nicely:

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That dark blue "hope to never use" bag weighs 21 oz. The inReach, headlamp and wind jacket are another 9 oz. This is pretty light and compact insurance.

Again for a desert the next biggest factor in survival is plenty of water. To be honest I'm still not as adept at this as I should be and have been surprised a few times by just how much water I've used on a day hike ending up with no reserve at all for an emergency.

Non-Emergency Gear

There are few other "always with me" items that don't relate to emergencies. Two of them have to do with enjoying what is around me.

​

Seeing things better far away is incredibly useful. Besides wildlife a modest power monocular really can aid in route finding as well. The tiny 7x18 one I carry is of course a bit of an optical nightmare at all but the center of the field of view but I find it comes out quite often on many of my hikes. A more recent addition is a high quality hand lens (magnifier) which is great for examining rocks and plants.

Lastly there is of course the pack itself along with a hydration bladder.

Dry Weight 3 lbs 6 oz​

This all comes in a bit under three and a half pounds before I start adding water, food and typically some camera gear. I almost always have a sun hat with me but exactly which one depends on the kind of hike I'm doing and the expect wind and sun exposure. Sometimes I go one step further and bring an umbrella as well for even more shade.

Why no pocket knife? Well because of TSA. All of my day hiking gear ends up as airline carry-on and no pocket knife of any kind is allowed. I do have a pocket knife in the truck and if I remember I usually add it to my pack or my pocket.

TO ADD: I think I'd like to add a small pair of scissors again because of TSA. While we can't carry a pocket knife of any size at all we can carry small scissors. If I forget to bring my pocket knife from the truck it would be nice to have at least something sharp in my little blue emergency bag!

UPDATE: This pack was stolen and so I put together a new one with minor changes and improvements.

 

Thanks for the well thought out list. Maybe some extra (beyond your regular snacks) allotment. Thanks for the doing, especially since I mostly hike solo.

 

Dry Bone Canyon - DVNP
April 2019

My last trip for the season really just had one hike of consequence and otherwise mostly sitting on my tail so I'll focus on the hike. Driving from Vegas I encountered a pretty severe thunderstorm going up the 95 but the storms were forecast to stay well south of my destination. Coming over Daylight Pass the valley was clearly a bit windy.

Blowing Sands
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I shot up to Ubehebe Crater from there and down Racetrack Road to get to Teakettle Junction. There was a large crop of kettles there as usual. I turned left up towards Hidden Valley and then left again onto White Top Mountain Road. This road was in excellent condition. Finally I got to my camp for the night where the road crosses the wash that leads to the head of Dry Bone Canyon. Camp was well sheltered from the prevailing winds. It had been a long day so after some hot dogs I collapsed for a long night's rest.

Come morning I took it easy and was slow getting started. It was actually foggy up here at about 6,000 feet! The hike was going to be a most of the day affair I suspected because it includes a nasty 800 foot bypass to get around over 600 feet of impassible dry falls. I packed extra water for the long day with the intention of caching some along the way for the return. I also brought trekking poles for the extremely steep bypass. As I started a bit after 9AM the fog and clouds were slowly rolling away.

Cloudy Morning
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The hike starts down a funnel of washes almost like an upside-down alluvial fan. Dotted with Joshua trees it has a mysterious feel to it. I actually did part of this hike about 17 years ago but only to the very head of the canyon. Today the goal was to get below the series of impassible falls just past the head and explore some of the lower canyon. The temperatures were actually chilly for the walk but there were swarms of butterflies just waking up as the sun warmed the ground. In just about 35 minutes I reached the head and tucked a liter of water in a shady spot for later in the day. Without exploring the head I continued immediately up 200 feet or so to the top of the bypass.

One hell of a bypass...
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Typically bypassing a dryfall in a canyon is a small detour involving maybe a 100 feet of climbing and descent to get around the obstacle. The dryfalls of Dry Bone Canyon are of an entirely different scale where the upper narrows descend 600 ft in less than a quarter of a mile over multiple vertical falls some over 100 ft in a single jump. As a result this bypass is a single giant 800 ft route down a nasty mostly talus and bolders ravine of suck. The photo above is actually slightly below the ridge and yes that wash down below is the destination but the base of the bypass is actually hidden a bit in the foreground so the ravine is much steeper than it appears here.

The bypass sucked just as expected and took over 1.5 hours to go down. I managed to slide and fall a few times despite having trekking poles with me. Near the very bottom I actually needed to leave the ravine as it choked down to its own set of dryfalls a bit too technical to down climb solo safely. Though I missed them at first a pair of cairns marked a good exit over a low rocky ridge to a steep sandy descent of another 80 feet or so. As a parting insult I managed to slip on this last 80 feet...

Finally on the canyon bottom I stashed another half liter and my trekking poles and headed down canyon to get to the 2nd narrows. These were not really all that impressive but had some very interesting geology in parts. Along the way I was able to find evidence of how the canyon got its name.

Dry Bones
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The lower canyon while perhaps not super impressive was delightful as a very remote desert spot to explore. The amount of birdsong was quite impressive. High walls at twists and turns had interesting patterns and created a number of cool alcoves for a snack and brief respite from the sun. Butterflies were plentiful and many bushes were covered with Western Tent Caterpillars.

Colorful caterpillars soon to be boring brown moths...
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These guys hang out together in a silk tent they continually expand as they grow. Eventually they disperse and each form a cocoon until emerging many weeks later as unremarkable moths.

I hate hikes that involve going down on the way in and up on the way back. I think typically this hike is done by folks stopping along the way to explore on the way down and then doing one continuous miserable hike back up. Instead I skipped all the sights on the way down so that I could have exploring breaks on the way up.

Returning to the bypass I walked a bit further up canyon past it to get to the bottom of the 1st narrows. The base of the 1st narrows is in fact quite a bit narrower than the 2nd narrows down canyon. I climbed a few easy falls until reaching a 20 foot fall that looked to be a bit too challenging to tackle solo in such a remote location. Both Digonnet and Steve Hall identify this fall as a stopping point but it looks tempting to try. About half way up is what would probably be a really easy climb to the side and there are some good holds to get oneself to the base of the side route. I got myself up within reach of the base with my feet only six feet off the ground but on my first try getting another leg up realized the crux move here was very awkward and a down climb past the crux would be likely to end in disaster. Also it was almost certain that above this fall would be nearly immediately another impassible fall so there was little point to pressing my luck.

I had a nice lunch in the shady cool narrows. The bottom end of the first narrows are definitely true narrows and certainly have some appeal but aren't particularly special in themselves. With lunch done it was time to climb back up the bypass. Oh joy...

Bypass of Suck
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From below one can get a better appreciation for how tall and steep this unfortunate route is. The ravine walls are steep and with the afternoon sun angle it did at least mean I found a handful of shady rest stops on the way up. It was a long slow haul up but at least involved less sliding and falling than the way down had. I was elated to eventually get to the top.

It was finally time to explore what is really the crown jewel of this hike - the upper end of the first narrows. The entrance to the narrows is grand. After following the Joshua lined wash it takes a sharp left turn and enters a narrow gap then suddenly drops down a polished rock chute that is easy to climb up or down. Tall walls twisted and overhanging create a series of rooms and halls that are all deep dark and mysterious.

Dry Bone Upper Narrows
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It is all reminiscent of Marble Canyon further south in the Cottonwoods except narrower and tighter like parts of Grotto Canyon. This must be a pleasant refuge in the summer when the permanent shade and chilled walls would be so welcome. In not too long an overhung twenty foot fall blocks the way. It appears from some other trip reports this could be bypassed with limited canyoneering gear to the left but then one would almost immediately run into far more technical challenges. This marks the beginning of the extremely challenging and technical route that descends 600 ft in a quarter of a mile. In fact just this past December someone was rescued by helicopter from below here.

After spending a good bit of time in this special place and having an end of the day snack it was finally time to head back to the truck. The walk back up the wash is quite easy, only a mile and a half with 500 ft of elevation gain, but after such a long day with the nasty bypass to deal with I found it rather fatiguing. Around 5:30PM, or 8.5 hours after I started I made it back to the truck. I had a light dinner and collapsed for another night of heavy sleep.

Dry Bone Canyon is definitely a special place and the relatively short hike to the upper narrows is most definitely worth it even if you can't penetrate very far before they way is blocked. The setting is somewhat surreal and the pay off is high. It can be done in just a couple of hours being only about 3 miles round trip with 500 ft elevation change. The descent to the lower canyon on the other hand is probably low payoff for all but the most determined desert rats. The bypass is utterly miserable in both directions and nothing in the lower canyon is as impressive as the more easily accessed upper narrows. That said I'm glad to have done it and checked it off my long list of hikes to do in Death Valley. I'll definitely return someday to the upper narrows with my daughter when she is a bit older. I doubt I'll ever return to the lower canyon though!

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@DVexile Thoroughly enjoyed you narrative and photos (esp the b&w clouds).
What was the range of temps for your trip?

 

Pretty mild actually. It was unseasonably warm the few days before my trip and then a bit on the cool side right as my trip started. Up at 6000 ft the highs were low 70s and upper 60s and the lows around mid 40s. Down in the valley itself it was just barely getting to 90 around Furnace creek. I had hoped to do Fall Canyon as well given the valley temps were so mild but the schedule just didn't end up working out.

 

Great write up as usual. Never say never.