mk5 adventures

A lame start to Page 10: Gas Mileage

I pretty rarely post trip reports these days. Not for lack of adventuring... I just I tend to post the highlights elsewhere, then run out of steam before posting anything here. So, how can we make this neglected thread even worse? Well, how about a whole entire post about gas mileage!

I started tracking my fill-ups not long after buying the truck. Now that I'm five years in... let's check it out:



Yikes--that's a solidly monotonic downward trend in the annual average MPG -- from over 15 in 2018, to below 13 this year. Is my truck wearing out? Factually, it must be... after all, it is old and getting older. But I suspect the trend more likely indicates my evolving use of the truck, rather than a fundamental decline in its performance.

When I first got the truck, I mostly used it for work travel on two-lane state highways, rarely carrying more than myself and a few boxes of tools and parts. But since then, I've increasingly used it for elaborate off-road camping trips, and have slowly performed numerous modifications that have added weight and reduced efficiency. For example, I installed a drawer system in the bed and packed it to the brim with tools and equipment, then added a camp shower setup, and also re-geared to 4.56 ratio. Compared to 2018, the truck is probably 1000 pounds heavier, and it spends a far-greater fraction of time plowing through difficult terrain on aired-down tires. Around town, it's more frequently towing a trailer or hauling equipment rather than fetching groceries. And sadly these recent years spent living in SoCal have led me to drive substantially faster on highways than I used to.

So I guess I'm not super alarmed by this clearly alarming decrease in efficiency. It's hard to be objective, though... your mileage may vary.

But there's so much more data... like this:



I really enjoy looking at this one... I can make out all my major projects (those are the lengthy horizontal lines) and my most-epic adventures (those are the near-vertical steps). But to sum it up, I have averaged about 7900 miles per year on the truck; the vast majority on camping adventures.



The price of gas has varied a lot too, both over time, and by location. Some adventures have taken me through "cheap gas" states -- I sure loved filling up at $2.25/gal in Oklahoma back in 2020! (And I buy 91 octane, so perhaps 87 was less than two bucks there!)

But more frequently, I wind up in remote areas where it's very difficult for gas stations to exist, and I feel very lucky to find gas at all. You might think I'd be angry about that $8/gallon data point last year... but you'd be dead wrong. That one was Roy's in Amboy, the most epic gas station of all time:



This gem of history is clinging onto existence along a disjointed segment of Route 66, long since bypassed by I-40, and cut off from most through-traffic by road washouts in recent years. I would gladly pay $8/gallon any day if it meant I got to hang out at Roy's, even if gas was free in Oklahoma. (And in Roy's defense, at the time, the Chevron on I-40 was charging closer to $9/gal for premium. Fuck those guys.)



So while I don't explicitly strive to overpay for gas--and I'll definitely go out of my way to save a few cents per gallon--the fact is, whenever my adventures lead me to exorbitantly overpriced gas, that means I'm somewhere epic and having a great time. I can't wait for the next time I'm stuck buying $8/gal gas again.



Guess what state I live in. There's lots to do here, but the best state is Colorado, and I drive back there from time to time via Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. Oregon was cool too.

In total I've burned through around 3020 gallons of gas, and spent around $13,400 on fill-ups, which is more that I initially spent on the truck.

Had I bought a used Toyota Prius instead, I would have saved nearly $10k driving the same distance. That's probably enough to buy a used Toyota Prius!

But I don't regret buying the truck, because if I had tried driving a Prius to the same places I've driven the truck, each trip would end prematurely with the vehicle totaled and me hopelessly stranded in the middle of nowhere... and by now I'd probably be dead. So there's a trade-off between up-front costs, fuel and maintenance costs, and not dying of thirst in a remote corner of the desert.

In the future, there will probably be affordable electric cars that can go to remote places, and that will be better for everyone. For the time being, this old pickup truck works well and lets me explore amazing places whenever I want, and that works for me.



Here is my fuel cost per mile driven, by year, since buying the truck. It seems that my fuel costs doubled from 2020 to 2022. It would be nice if fuel prices continued to come back down, but if they don't, a good strategy for me will be to increase the ratio of time I spend adventuring in the back country vs. the amount of time I spend driving on the highway to get there. That could be by picking destinations closer to home, or taking less-frequent but longer vacations so I can spend more time exploring distant destinations rather than just getting there. If only life made it that easy!



I don't know how to make this any more boring, but I'll keep trying.

My fuel tank can hold 21 gallons, perhaps a bit more, but I've never run it dry to find out the limit. This gives me a range of ~200 miles in slow-going off-road situations, ~250 miles on freeways, and ~300 miles on two-lane highways. I normally carry 6 gallons in Jerry Cans to make sure I don't get stranded, or to help those who run out of gas... but I have a few more cans I can pack if I'm planning a particularly long stretch between fuel stops.

The most I've ever put into the tank is 21.001 gallons --just last week. Perhaps someday I'll find the true limit, but man, that had to be close.

 

Love it. I didn't realize - though I should have, given that I'm the same lame - that you track all your fill-ups. Just one more thing we could have discussed when we were "intelligently" wandering into a hole in the ground. Or can, if neither of us do something overly stoopid like dying of thirst in a remote corner of the desert with our Prius' before we get together again.

Oh, and I'm back from Utah a couple days early - as you may be able to tell given that I'm posting this. You'll be glad to know that you missed a great (but very hot) time. But hopefully your alternate itinerary was pretty awesome as well!

Now, to stay on topic. Here are my graphs. I hope you used Excel.

 

Given the amount of modifications to your truck + time spent off road, that fuel economy is pretty good.

I think I remember reading about your relationship with Excel. Therefore hoping @mk5 used Excel is a conflict of interest

 

Aah yes, the preferred software of people who rant incoherently about hand-collected data on the internet.

I had a VBA script to automatically generate conflicts of interest too, but it only worked through Office 2003. Damn, I miss Clippy.


So the conclusion seems to be... Dan's truck gets better gas mileage and greater range, burns cheaper gas, is more frequently used for recreation, and is associated with consistently higher-quality content on this forum.

What's next, Dan, are you going to claim that all four of your tires still hold air, too??? I'm calling bullshit here.

Anyway, on the drive to the tire store today, I hooked up to the ECU and watched the numbers for the first time in years... It looks like my catalyst is wearing out, or that my fueling isn't quite where it should be. Never throws codes, but it might be time to do some preventative diagnosis and/or maintenance to make sure I'm not leaving that last half-an-mpg on the table. And if that doesn't work... maybe I just need a plate-steel camper shell to improve my aerodynamics.

Here's what you missed while you were screwing around in Utah:



Actually there was even more, but this was all I can fit in a gif.

 

Look man, I have FIVE tires and they all hold air, even if only in equilibrium with the surrounding fluid. (sometimes they are under water)

Anyway, I'd think that by now, with your record, you'd have at least six or seven tires on a trip. I mean, you must store something under that soft topper. WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM US?

I have some good news for you. A bad idea never really dies.

Microsoft 365 Copilot - Wikipedia

Looks like a great trip. I must admit some amount of jealousy as I haven't gotten to that area at all this year, and don't think I will until Nov/Dec.

 

The scarier part is that 2003 was… gasp… 20 years ago.

I still miss the old Microsoft Office format (2003). You got me going down the rabbit hole looking into the difference between versions. Looks like they did the big revamp into ribbons in 2007. (memories fade )

The implication that Clippy was a bad idea is rude. Clippy is a core memory embedded into my brain. Although I will admit I don’t recall ever using Clippy for other than killing time instead of doing school work

And the guy who goes on dozens a trips a year is jealous of others. Go figure

 

At least he didn't say he "wrote an Excel program" for his analysis.

 

We call them "Excel Solutions," thank you very much.

 

Transmission service

I have no idea if my transmission fluid has ever been serviced. And I've been meaning to do the job for several years. Finally got around to it the other week!



The general procedure is here. Job wasn't too bad, except for some corrosion on the pan screws, or perhaps some other issue, but they all fought me the entire way out. Was really worried I'd shear off some of the bolt heads, but I gave it several breaks for the oil to work, and eventually they all came out. Maybe someone else dropped the pan before and used a ton of loctite, but as discussed below, I'm kind of hoping this was the factory fill. I saw a bit of permatex at one corner, which might also indicate prior service, but its placement seemed more in line with a shoddy attempt to fix a leak. In any case, I replaced the pickup filter assembly and re-assembled with a new gasket. Given that I had likely approached the yield torque on the old screws to remove them, I went ahead an retapped all the holes and threw in new stainless screws and belleville washers, just to make sure I was wasting as much money as possible.




Four prizes in this box of cereal, but the rest of the box tasted a bit off...

The fluid didn't seem too alarmingly bad for a transmission with at least 40k miles and perhaps up to 210k miles since last fill. Definitely aged, but didn't smell smoked or putrid, so could have been worse. Level might have been low, I didn't bother to check first, but I wound up putting in at least a quart more than I caught coming out. Some of the difference is staining my driveway, but nowhere near a quart's worth.


Binder clips made this part a lot easier!

I went through two "flush" cycles there in the driveway, following the approximate instructions here. I spliced into the lines up by the radiator rather than below the fan shroud though... no way I'm pulling the front skid if I don't have to! Wound up using 13 quarts of fresh fluid. Tried twice to do a level check on even pavement per procedure, but both came up short, then I ran out of time... so I at least got it to overflow cold in my lopsided driveway before throwing the skidplate back on and hitting the trails.


Wow! So many of parts!

I was hoping the fluid change would improve my driving experience, but as of yet, the truck hasn't sprouted a clutch and a proper gearbox. Still a five-speed slushbox, but hey, it works as well as it ever did. And truth be told, I think Toyota did an okay job on these transmissions, and it is nice to have a torque converter in some situations.

Anyway, I wouldn't have bothered writing this up, save for the results of the fluid analysis I just got:



So... um... hopefully that's the factory fluid I drained? Because gee golly, that's a lot of metals!

What impresses me the most is the Pb... are the clutch plates sold lead? If not, how the hell did this much lead make its way into my transmission? That's like... 0.1% lead. Jesus.

Can't quite wrap my head around that, but glad I didn't drink too much of the stuff.

In any case, the truck drives fine, and my plan is to resume neglecting the transmission until it explodes.

 

The Fifth Element


Uhh... ok?

Guess I'm in a posting mood. Here's a trip report from earlier this year, when my old man was visiting. We didn't have time for an epic multi-state adventure like last year, but the summer heat hadn't kicked in yet, which made for perfect conditions to explore the deserts closer to home.


This cut once carried rails

The trip began by heading back to Calico. Not to the grueling yet delightful "Doran Scenic Loop" we'd blundered through earlier that year, but to the nearby Mule Canyon. A cakewalk by comparison, and lacking the spectacular vertical relief of deep canyons cut into bedrock, this route meanders through the adjacent crumbling badlands, yet still offers quite enjoyable driving through beautiful terrain rich in mining and railroading history, which is kind of my thing.


Calico is great, but it's definitely not a national park, and sadly you'll see some pretty marked signs of abuse in these lands. Check out those fucking colors though!

Per tradition, I immediately gave myself a puncture wound fighting the remains of an ez-up into my truck bed for proper disposal. Good news there, though: after losing a similar battle with an derelict ez-up near Ibex Dunes last year, my Tetanus is at least up to date. After some cursing and bandaging, we proceeded along the general route of what was apparently once a narrow-gauge railroad, serving one of CA's earliest Borax mining operations.



Here is the site of its largest bridge span... not much remains today, save for stubs of timber footings protruding from the slopes. I once read into its history in great detail, but I've forgotten most of it, so the following might not be true: I believe that this railroad, its locomotives and rolling stock, and even this bridge span were re-located up to Death Valley Junction, to support mining operations at Ryan as the Death Valley Railroad... thus tying this place's history to that of the Death Valley borax operations. And when those deposits eventually played out, industrial borax mining returned to Southern California, where it will soon rejoin our present storyline, but the infrastructure remaining to the north was repurposed to promote tourism of Death Valley, which ultimately played a prominent role in the establishment of the national park we love today.


I believe, but again can't remember for sure, that bridge spanning the above chasm was relocated to span this one, just off the 190 between DVJ and Furnace Creek, to support mining operations at Ryan (photo from different trip to DV).


I do however remember quite clearly, reading that timbers from the bridge spanning this second chasm were finally re-purposed to construct the bar at the Death Valley Inn, where I enjoy admiring them over a cold beverage whenever I get the chance. Thus I believe I've photographed three unique settings in which the same timbers served California's growing mining and tourism industries for over a century.


Look, a Geology!

The Mule Canyon rail grade isn't particularly prominent, and gaps such as the one discussed above generally preclude driving much of its length; the trail follows the wash to the north. At one point, noting the scar of mining operations high above us to the south, I ducked up a side-canyon in hopes of rejoining the grade. Somehow I fucked up that part, slipped sideways off the trail, and damn near rolled the truck. I was ready to call it and hike up for a cell signal, but my old man in his wisdom (or perhaps not wanting to spend the night in the desert waiting for whatever recovery plan his dim-witted son could devise) coaxed me back into the cab to drive most precariously back to safety. We were soon back up to the rail grade and enjoying the sparse remnants of what was once clearly a massive mining operation.


The trail wasn't that bad, I don't know how I fucked up so badly, but here we are safely up top.



Not much remains today, though, and I didn't find any mine shafts to fall into.


Look, a History!


Minerals!

As the sun set we made our way back to pavement, and to our accommodations for the night:

Apparently, this boron stuff is pretty rare... comprising only 0.001% of earth's crust. Compare that to lead, which comprises 0.1% of my transmission fluid!

Fun fact: Boron plays a critical role in the functionality of whatever device you're using to read this internet page, and in essentially all other modern electronics such as pagers, modems, and dot-matrix printers!

Whoa, the world's LARGEST source of boron??? We better check it out!



But not before a proper meal, and that would have to wait until morning. So instead we watched trains for a while and went to bed.


Not sure what's up with the flicker -- that's a new photoshop bug.

Just as teams of 20 mules once delivered California's mineral resources to the markets of a young nation, the cafe of the same name delivered a solid breakfast to our old and increasingly overweight bellies early the next morning.



Boron is a truly delightful town, and there's no shortage of fine dining and fascinating museums awaiting the avid tourist!



Hmmm.... maybe this one sells it better:


Atop the distant hilltops one can see rocket test stands that once fired F-1 engines for the mighty Saturn Vs that took humans to the moon. Not knowing this at the time, I didn't bother to zoom in for a shot... but not having a good picture has never stopped me from posting one anyway... so here's a crop zoom from above:

See?

We'll start with the US Borax Museum at the mine just northwest of town, where CA's borax mining history culminates today. This is a massive active open-pit mining operation.



Now owned by Rio Tinto, the Borax mine is actually just a small portion of their portfolio, comprising a single-digit percentage of their revenue. Hard to believe that while standing at the edge of the pit... it's HUGE!

Interestingly, they recently discovered viable concentrations of lithium in the overburden, suggesting that operations may soon expand here to recover this additional resource.

The museum is about exactly what you'd expect for a company museum in a company town... just perfect. Cheerful staff... old-timers who once worked the mine or its plant.





Forgive this terrible photo of a photo... but hey, we were just there!!!



If you have any interest in mining technology, this place is worth the stop.



And what desert adventure would be complete with a fighter jet flyover?


Dude was packin'

I think my favorite part of the whole borax museum were the gigantic piles of borates in the back of the parking lot... you can grab whatever you want! Only downside for the rest of y'all: I already picked out the best specimen from each pile!


The source of my newfound mineral wealth!


lol

From there it was back to town for more museums... after of course chasing down some trains so my old man could take pictures of them. He likes trains even more that I do!


Classic paint scheme on unit two...

Boron's museums are well staffed to say the least. We had a great time!


Air-planes!!!


Coco-bean???



Now this I thought was interesting... not only that it's a vividly detailed four-foot-tall painting, but also that it was painted by an inmate at the old federal prison camp up the road from here. This was also the site of an early warning radar installation with an impressive underground bunker system, dating to early in the Cold War. (Sadly all the old early warning radar bunkers have been demolished in recent decades--I showed up to what I hoped was the last one still standing near Julian in maybe 2009, but the bulldozers had beat me there by a day or two!) In any case, we planned to visit the ruins of this federal prison camp near Boron just after lunch.


This too I found noteworthy... and I know, it's just like a bench or whatever. But I recognized it immediately as one of those affixed to the baby-gauge railcars up at Ryan, installed when that place was converted from being a borax mine to being a tourism site. Which is odd, because I can't actually find any photos of these bench seats from when we toured Ryan... but somehow I recognized these oddly colored benches immediately, despite their having been repurposed and upholstered for movie-watching at the museum in Boron.

Here's a photo (of a photo, sorry) of said benches in operation -- this photo is located not at this museum, but the one up the road (at the mine):



And here's that engine, restored and operational earlier this year in Ryan -- a single car adorned with these turquoise benches is presumably out of frame to the left:



And if you're not bored and disappointed yet, here's another photo of a photo, this one from Boron's aerospace museum, of one of those rocket test stands I mentioned earlier:



Tons of cool history in these parts.

With that it was time for a late lunch, enjoyed at the Barrel as trains lumbered past.


Loved this place!

I chatted with a local, and mentioned our plan to drive up to the old prison camp north of town. He told me it was gone! I sure hoped he was wrong, but he told me that in recent years, some sort of major paintball (or airsoft?) organization had started using the place for events, without the government's permission. (Ironically, the place was known to be shot-up as the government had previously used it for FBI training or something... definitely would have been the place for such events!) I'd driven by it on the highway for years and always wanted to explore the place, and it seemed I might have waited too long.



Sure enough, no structures remain at the prison camp site today. The modern FAA radar is still there, but I'm not dumb enough to climb that fence. Couldn't find any trace of the nearby former airfield either. Just some off-grid squatters, so I kept a weary distance.



Luckily there's tons of other cool shit to explore in the desert. Like this:



Cabin is in pretty poor shape these days...





But some history on these walls, for sure...





The hand-dug tunnel to nowhere is definitely worth the hike, so long as you're ok with hiking to nowhere and back.


Finally approaching the far end...


Welcome to nowhere!


Couldn't resist having some fun with the LEDs...


Almost back...

And with that, the daylight was gone, and we headed home.


Stopping to admire the flashing red lights... honestly pretty creepy standing among them at night.


Gotta get to 50 pictures, sorry!

 

A failed trip to Death Valley

Here’s another one from earlier this year... posted the highlights elsewhere of course, but here’s the rest of it.

This adventure was motivated by a desire to photograph a spacecraft in low earth orbit. Not just any spacecraft, but a specific one, and it would be making a pass over southern California this specific night, with favorable weather forecast, and no moon to bleach the skies. To be clear, when I say "photograph a spacecraft," I'm not talking about resolving it through a telescope, like people sometimes do with ISS transiting the moon. I just wanted to detect even the faintest trace of light moving across the twilight sky, originating from this one specific spacecraft, because that alone would be pretty awesome. Sounds like an excuse to head to Death Valley!

I figured Lee Flat would make for a good destination... a bit closer to home, and offering darker skies then DV proper owing to its greater distance from Vegas/Pahrump. Plus, Joshua Trees always make for a fun foreground. However, a characteristically late departure, combined with some en-route confusion, led me to abandon my hopes of reaching Lee Flat that night. (The NPS road status page indicated that North Pass, South Pass, Steel Pass, Hunter Mountain, and even the access road from CA190 towards South Pass, were all closed!) So I settled on Santa Rosa flat, a few minutes closer, and a bit less likely to be gated off...

Even then I had to do some spirited driving, culminating in near-disaster shortly after leaving pavement, when I inadvertently careened into a washout at highway speeds, having misjudged its depth. This instantly bottomed out my suspension in a cacophony of terrible sounds, then sent me airborne and into a wildly sideways landing which could have wound up a lot worse than it did. (In fact, the result seems to be that my steering now tracks to the opposite side than it did before, so I'll write the whole blunder off as a strategic maneuver to even-out the wear on my tires?).

Anyway, with about 10 minutes remaining before the pass, I decided to hit the brakes and set up roadside with my little telescope and camera.



Things didn't go as well as I had hoped. The telescope's azimuth motor was slipping, and owing to its open-loop design, I couldn't get it to calibrate, so I had no precision reference with which to pinpoint the satellite's expected location as it emerged from eclipse towards the horizon. I had prepared backup star charts using an online tool, but discovered later that I had failed to set the time zone correctly, so I wasted my final precious minutes trying in vein to orient myself to stars I couldn't see. Finally I made a last-ditch effort to point the camera in the right general heading, using the road as a reference, but even then somehow missed the correct part of the sky. With a fisheye lens! I’m actually kind of impressed, it takes skill to fuck up something this simple.


I thought this might have been it, but I later checked the ephemeris and star charts, and NOPE. Missed it!

I did, however, observe a most-impressive train of starlink satellites emerging from a different direction, which quickly subsumed the entirety of my attention. So closely spaced were these spacecraft, I couldn't resolve them by eye; instead they appeared to be a continuous string of brilliant light rising from the horizon. Even recognizing what this must be, I have to say, it was a bit unnerving. I quickly repositioned the camera to catch the show, but in my excitement, managed to open the shutter before the tripod had stabilized. So here's what you get:



Here's a frame grab from a cellphone video I took... Venus to the left, starlink to the right. That's not motion blur; that's dozens of satellites trailing each other in orbit. Wild times.



Well, having already failed at the trip's impetus, I set about finding a camp spot so I could nurse my disappointment via binge drinking. Rather than backtrack to Lee Flat, I pursued whatever random road I had been driving to its destination, which turned out to be the Santa Rosa Mine. Sweet.

I couldn't find any mining relics of interest in the darkness, so I wound up hiking the hillside hoping to compose a palatable dark-sky photograph using the nearby stunted Joshua Trees as a foreground.



Not my best work, but good enough for TW.



Then I played around with a new light source. Several years ago I acquired some novel LED-like devices, but which utilize a GaN laser (rather than a GaN LED) to pump the phosphors to produce white light. This produces a light which isn't any brighter than any other modern flashlight LED, but which is wildly smaller in area, and thus more intense. The result is that its light can be focused into an incredibly narrow beam. Recently, I finally got around to mounting one of these laser-LEDs with some focusing optics and a driver circuit, and I have to say, the result is quite impressive. To be clear, it is utterly useless as a flashlight. But holy crap, it can light things up hundreds of yards away!



So fun was this contraption that I’ve since purchased an actual laser-LED flashlight, even better than the home-built contraption... yet another fun camping gadget to keep in the truck.



I’ve read and seen videos confirming there’s plenty to see underground at the Santa Rosa, but you have to squeeze through a collapse to get in there, and I didn’t feel up to doing this alone... even in daylight the next morning.



Instead I did some areal recon, confirming there was nothing much to see further up the hill, but ultimately decided to hike up there anyway. Why not?


And why not instead drive up the perfectly-good mining road to get there? Because of this bullshit:





The parking lot attendant



Caught some cool... um, birds of some type. Colorful. Took like a hundred shots to get this one. Fucking birds wouldn’t sit still for me.



The lizards were a bit easier to photograph.



Some old drill tooling up there...



And these mysterious plastic caps... some googling suggests this company makes things like this:



So I guess that makes sense.



Grated shafts dot the hillside... likely substantial workings beneath me here.

With no plans formulated for the rest of the day, I eventually decided to head north to San Lucas canyon. There’s a cool old roadbed down there I’ve always wanted to see, but it would be a several mile hike from the wilderness boundary. Hoped I was up for it.





Conglomerate mesa in the distance


But along the way, some mining roads departed to the west, and I couldn’t resist the urge to check them out. I eventually worked my way up to the Belmont.



There’s some interesting mining ruins up there, but nothing to write home about. Epic views out over Saline Valley though, and I heard the occasional thunder of distant warplanes zipping over the desert that constantly had me gazing in all directions trying to catch glimpse of them.


Rails protruding from this collapsing adit got my hopes up, but I squeezed in there and there wasn’t much to see. Presumably it’s all caved in.


Not going to fit through that one...

My old topos actually show this road continuing up and over to Cerro Gordo on the other side of the ridgeline... not too far from here, but I had concluded from satellite imagery the route was almost certainly impassible. And indeed, after climbing the many switchbacks up to the largest workings of the Bellmot, the roadbed became definitively too narrow for a pickup. Too bad, that would be a cool drive!


Not quite a highway

But as often happens at such elevations... my oxygen-deprived brain wanted more punishment, so I set out on foot to see what else the area had to offer. Made a quick lunch, grabbed a water bottle, and kept hiking up the old road. After a while, I checked the map and realized I could potentially make it all the way up to summit Cerro Gordo peak from here. Cool!





Some colorful... ore?

It was a delightful hike, but a bit grueling, and I ran out of water pretty quickly. By the time I got to the saddle, I knew better than to hike any higher. It would actually have been an easier and shorter hike down to Cerro Gordo, but I couldn’t get them on the phone, and without knowing whether or not they had drinking water to offer, I decided to double back.


So many of lizards today!


View back from the saddle, the old roadbed visible to the right


I could have packed either enough water, or additional cameras. I have no regrets.



A bit later... San Lucas Canyon

The hike had taken a lot more time and energy than planned (perhaps because I hadn’t planned it all), so by the time I got down to San Lucas canyon, I decided to save this one for another day. Not only was the canyon freshly washed out, which would have slowed me down... but I also stumbled on a wilderness marker in the rubble, a good mile or two before my map showed wilderness... making the proposed hike that much longer both ways. Saw a nifty airplane though.




Not sure if my map is wrong, or if the wilderness is growing... or maybe this thing just washed in from somewhere else? Either way, I was too tired to hike from here.

Mulling it over, I figured a nice alternate destination for the remaining daylight would be the salt tram summit station... I've only been there in darkness, and if I rushed I could make it by sunset. Wasn't sure if the road would be open though, but it seemed worth a shot. Unfortunately I got lost amidst washouts not far along the road up to CG, so made generally poor time up to the saddle, before heading into town to inquire about the status of the road (it had been closed last season due to washouts).


Views kept getting worse!

Cerro Gordo was a ghost town, though (lol, get it?) and I couldn’t find anybody to ask. I milled around for a while though, because I was also hoping to buy my wife a CG t-shirt. Eventually Brent emerged from somewhere and we had a brief chat. It turned out the salt tram road is still closed... dang!





It was nice seeing the progress on the new hotel building though.



With water in Owens Lake, conditions were setting up for a beautiful sunset over the valley, so I decided to just take my time coming down the road to Keeler to round-out the trip.






Still a lot of snow up there!



At some point, efforts were made to access ore bodies below Cerro Gordo with a huge base tunnel... and based on the amount of tailings and structural remains here, I assume they did actually find some worthwhile deposits to haul out. But from what I can find online, the base tunnel never actually connected through to the Cerro Gordo shafts, despite coming within ~400 feet of the lower levels.


Quite the tailings pile!



What I can tell you is that this is one fuck of a long, straight tunnel!



Apparently it once extended 8,000 feet straight back. A lot further than this nifty laser flashlight can reach, that’s for sure. It was spooky as hell and I noped out pretty quick. Cool spot though.





Nope.

Guess that’s it for this one, a failed photography attempt, and a failed trip to Death Valley in general, as I don’t think I ever actually set foot within the park. Still had a great time, and hopefully I’ll get that stupid spacecraft someday!





Airing up

Fuck! I didn't even get to 50 pictures! What a FAILURE!!!

Here, have another lizard:









Edit: here's another leftover photo from the last trip report:



Dammit, still not to 50!



I give up.

 

Map is wrong and marker is in the correct place. I ran into the same issue when planning that hike a number of years back. Double checked the wilderness area GIS maps and indeed that road is not cherry stemmed. Just have to park on White Talc and walk the extra distance.

 

Well at this point that marker may well be buried at the bottom of Saline Valley... but I'm definitely looking forward to this hike. (edit: and to be clear, by hiking in legally!) Just gotta manage to get there with enough daylight and energy remaining... this was like my third abandoned attempt. All those mines on the way are just too tempting!

I suspect this area might be one of the first to become accessible in the park. If and when the 190 opens. CG people were able to make it up the back side after Hillary at least.

 

TALES FROM THE SEAS OF THE HIGH SIERRA

With deepest apologies to the single-digit readership of this thread: This is a blatant rehash of recently posted content to the 395 thread. I consider it among my most creative contributions to TW to date, and I wanted here too.

AND NOW, I CAN REPORT WITH GLEE THAT I HAVE TAKEN COMMAND OF A NEW VESSEL:



THAT'S RIGHT, I GOT ME CAPTAIN'S HAT BACK!!!

THE NEXT VOYAGE BEGAN WITH A MOST TEDIOUS PORTAGE, CAREENIN' UP THE 15 ON A LATE SUMMER MORNING, IN THE MOST UNSEAWORTHY OF VESSELS: A SILVER TOYOTA PICKUP TRUCK! CLEARLY DESIGNED SOLELY FOR PARKIN' ILLEGALLY AT SHOPPING MALLS, HER AXLES WERE HOPELESSLY OVERLADDEN, HER BUYOANCEY RIVALED THAT OF A SIEVE... AND SHE WAS CROWNED BY A MOST POMPOUS SNORKEL AS IF TO ADVERTISE THE MENTAL DEFICIENCIES HER CAPTAIN. BUT IN TOW... THE MIGHTY INTEX EXPLORER 300...

WISH ME LUCK, BOYS!

 

Knowing your history with inflatable tires, I have some serious misgivings about this.

 

Hey guys, I'm bushwhacking 9 miles in the dark to the cosmic ashtray tonight.

If I haven't posted a cool photo by tomorrow afternoon, could one of you come out with a rope for me?

Also, I randomly caught a rocket launch. From central Utah!

 

But do you have the BOAT?

Have fun!

 

And the Captain's hat?

 

Sadly no. Fuck, I didn't even bring the stupid rope ill need to climb back out!

Only the bare essentials on this one...
Camera
Tripod
Headlamp
Phone
750 mL of 60% water
Fruit snacks

Currently ledged out half a mile off course, too stubborn to double back.

 

That was brutal. Way too much of hike. I'm alive though.




Made a nice little campfire with all the petrified logs here: