Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

North Las Vegas Travelog #17
Desert National Wildlife Refuge - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 5pm

I wrote two blogs before this one about driving the Mormon Well Road. It's an unpaved 4x4 route that crosses 40 miles through the Sheep Range Mountains of Desert National Wildlife Refuge. We tackled it in our rented Toyota Rav4— a vehicle that I didn't think terribly much of on the pavement. Would it handle the 4x4 route okay?

At first it seemed like the answer was Yes, it would handle the route just fine. I had already checked recent posts on a wheeling website as well as asked at the ranger station in the morning. Both indicated the trail was in fine shape for 4x4s with a bit of extra ground clearance. Indeed, the first nearly 20 miles of the trail were fairly well graded gravel. Then it got tough. And by tough I mean muddy.



As the trail neared its crest of 6,683 ft. (2,037 meters) the gravel surface ended. What a place to stop with the gravel— pretty much at the snow line! And since the snow had fallen several days earlier (remember that storm that screwed up my day getting to Vegas on Tuesday?) it was now melting and forming puddles of mud.

The mud started out patchy at first. It seemed like just one stretch to get through, and I could avoid most of it by staying to one side of the road as I drove. But then that one stretch was followed by another, and another, and then more. And soon the mud spread across the whole trail. I was driving with two wheels up on the berm at the side of the trail most of the time, dodging trees and bushes while trying to keep two wheels out of the goop.

It was tough going. I used all my 4x4 skills, picking lines, maintaining speed, avoiding digging in with tire spin, and steering into the many skids as the vehicle bucked back and forth in the mud. Meanwhile the Rav4 was doing yeoman's work. The AWD selector offered a "Mud and Sand" mode which I engaged, suspicious it was mostly a button for show, but it really delivered the goods. There were at least two spots where I thought we were surely stuck, but between my resolve and the Rav4's unwillingness to quit, we got through.



We pulled aside at the trail's crest. The mud looked a little easier going downhill ahead. Of course, it looked a lot easier coming up before we really got into it!



This is what our vehicle looked like at this point on the journey. I'm only surprised there wasn't more mud on it!

As we were getting ready to continue onward, another 4x4er came up the trail from the opposite direction. Driving a heavily modified Jeep Wrangler he was surprised we'd gotten up here "in this". He meant the Rav4, not the mud. But also the mud, I guess. Anyway, the other driver had good news for us: the route down was less muddy than what we'd already gotten through. Plus, I figured, driving gently downhill in mud is easier than driving gently uphill; the pull of gravity helps with maintaining forward momentum.

The second 20 miles of the offroad trek passed subjectively much faster than the first 20. This is the phenomenon I've warned about when hiking back out on a trail. You feel you've been there, done that, seen everything. You focus on putting one foot in front of the other, at the risk of sort of sleep-walking through half the trek. Here, our adrenaline was spent from slogging through the mud. We had already seen plenty of the scenery, too. Now we were focused on getting back on time— and continuing to not get stuck.

As we crossed over the last ridge coming down out of the mountains we started playing a game of how far the road was. "I can see what looks like a building, it's probably 8 miles," said Hawk. "Now I can see tractor-trailers on the road, it can't be more than 2 miles," I countered. Soon enough we were back on pavement. We turned South and headed back to Vegas.



Once we got back to Vegas we looked for two things before returning the car: gas and car wash.

I thought we'd need a self-wash place to really knock all the mud off the car. Hawk suggested we try automated wash first. I agreed. It predictably got... most... of the exterior clean but did nothing about all the mud caked inside the wheel wells, the wheels, and around the suspension.

So next we found a self-wash place. It was much cheaper than those in our area back home. We started with $3 because that's the minimum back home for about 3 minutes. Here in Vegas $1 bought 3 minutes. We dropped all $3 in, and I got busy with the pressure hose. 9 minutes of heavy spraying was just enough to knock all the dirt off so you'd be hard pressed to figure out how much mud we drove through.

We parked next to one of the vacuums at the self-wash place to repack our suitcases and change into street clothes before returning to the airport. At first felt a bit self-conscious about changing clothes in a parking lot, but let's just say that self-wash garages tend to be in... not the most discerning... parts of town. Basically we were in the slums. We weren't bothering anybody, so nobody bothered us. Then, with the car sparkling clean and us back in our fancy clothes, we were ready to drive past the gleaming high-rise casino hotels to the airport for our flight back home.

North Las Vegas Travelog #15
Desert National Wildlife Refuge - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 1pm

After our morning scenic drive beneath Mt. Charleston (previous blog in this series) we ate a quick lunch in the northeastern corner of Las Vegas then drove back out to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR). At the visitor's center they had a nice display about Bighorn Sheep.



The Sheep Range is the principal mountain inside the park, so would we see any bighorns? Alas, no. They're generally reclusive animals, and the high desert is a tough environment that doesn't encourage them to take extra risks. We've seen them up close in other places, though, so we'd have to satisfy ourselves with that plus the fact that they'd like be watching us from well hidden positions.

While we scoped out DNWR for today's adventures thinking we might go hiking, it turned out that the hiking was lame, so we switched to Plan B— actually Plan C, as taking that scenic drive below Mt. Charleston was already Plan B— and chose to drive the Mormon Well 4x4 road through the park.



Mormon Well Road is 41 miles of gravel and dirt road between paved endpoints. Would we make it in our rented Toyota Rav4 AWD cute-ute? The rangers at the visitor's center thought the road was in fairly good condition, but I could tell from their wording and body language that they really didn't know. I chose to trust in my skills at offroad driving that I could get through more challenges than most people and also know when to turn back if necessary.

The first many miles of the road, at least, were easy going. We started with a few miles of climbing up to Yucca Gap at elev. 4,000 ft. The road surface, as you can see in the pic above, was graded gravel.



The exposed rock in Yucca Gap features a lot of fossils. We drove down a short side trail and parked the car while Hawk went exploring on the rocks.

We're a little worried about time on this trip so we didn't stay too long. The time issue is that we've got to get back to Las Vegas for a flight this evening. To do that we need to be off this trail by 5pm. To be done at 5pm we have to... well, that depends on how long it takes to drive 41 miles. 41 miles offroad is not like driving 41 miles on pavement. Here we're doing well if we're averaging above 10mph. And that's not counting time we want for stops like this one.



Our next (brief) stop was in a Joshua Tree forest. This pic doesn't look very forest-y, does it? That's because we're in high desert, at 5,000 ft. elevation. There's not a lot of water here. These Joshua Trees— yucca brevifolia, also called Yucca Trees— are hardy, but this is the best even they can manage in this austere environment.

The adventure continues! Read about our drive through Peekaboo Canyon.

5 Days in the Desert travelog #20
Yermo, CA - Mon, 26 Dec 2022, 2pm

Today is shaping up to be as much about the driving as the hiking. But that's okay because the driving is purposefully scenic. The old Native American prayer, In Beauty I Walk, doesn't mean literally walking. It means journeying, as in the journey through life. Sometimes that journey is behind the wheel.

We finished up driving the Mojave Road through Afton Canyon by exiting at Basin Road, about 8 miles east of where we entered. The canyon, with its steep, colorful walls, had petered out by that point anyway. There were no more amazing side canyons like Spooky Canyon or the way nicer unnamed canyon. But it's still interesting to drive through a river. Here's a quick video:


Once back on dry, paved land we headed back toward Barstow, not to call it a day yet but merely to get lunch closer to town before heading back out across the desert. We ate at EddieWorld in Yermo. Yes, it's a bit tourist-trappy, but their food's pretty good and they have the biggest selection of stuffed animals I've ever seen under one roof. We bought a pizza, a chicken fingers basket, a couple of drinks, and a couple of sheep.

Up next: we'll head out east again to drive/hike at Pisgah Crater.

5 Days in the Desert travelog #15
Cima, CA - Sun, 25 Dec 2022, 5pm

I left off in my last blog entry with us descending into the bowels of the earth after an hour+ long drive to the remote lava tubes in Mojave National Preserve. I decided that after all that effort I would not be deterred by having to crawl on my hands and knees a bit, so in I went.



Well, I didn't have to crawl right away. The entryway (above) was tall enough that I could pretty much stand and walk as I carefully lowered myself down the jagged rocks. Not far inside, though....



The ceiling dropped low, not much more than 3 feet high. "Is this the end?" we wondered.

Hawk delved deeper as she was able to navigate under the low ceiling merely by bending over and squatting. It opened up again after 10 feet or so.

"C'mon," she said. "It's worth it!"



On the other side of the low ceiling was this fairly sizable chamber. Overhead are three windows to the outside. Two are obvious at the top of the picture (above), split by a small arch. The third is at the far end of the chamber, where you can see an orange light filtering down. We'd seen the split window along the trail on the surface as we walked to the tube entrance but not the smaller window.

Good new/bad news: While this chamber was a great find, the lava tube definitely ended here. And the other direction from the ladder ended in about 15' with nothing but a pile of rubble from a collapsed roof. Oh, but there was one other thing on the way out....



This rock struck me as looking something like a geode. Well, not a geode because those aren't crystals hanging down from the topside. It's a volcanic rock shell with some smoother minerals on the underside.

Speaking of underside, it was time to leave the underside of the earth and get back to its surface.

We returned to the car and picked our way carefully down the lava 4x4 trail. Back at the Subaru parking area we met another pair of visitors arriving— in a Subaru— and chatted with them about road conditions. We'd seen them arriving from the opposite direction and wanted to know how passable routes other than the Mojave Road (link to my YouTube video) are.

It turned out to be a two-way exchange of information... like the best 4x4 backcountry conversations are. Our new acquaintances were Chinese visitors who spoke limited English. But their English was better than my extremely limited Chinese.

I unfolded a paper map and used that to help frame our halting conversation. They'd come from the north on different roads than we took from the east. Their route was obviously passable, though they warned they had to drive slowly, like 5mph in some difficult parts, and never faster tha 15mph in the best parts. I cast a side eye toward their Subaru and figured that we'd do better than that. In exchange, I explained for them how to drive the Mojave Road. They were using only Google Maps on a phone... and there really wasn't any signal out here, miles from the nearest paved road.

We parted ways; they went toward the cave while we started north.



Right away the road was smoother than the Mojave Road. It was graded dirt and did not have those whoop-de-doos (YouTube video link) that had forced us to keep our speed down— otherwise we'd have been looking like stunt drivers from The Dukes of Hazzard!

There was one tough part about a mile out where we climbed a rocky hill navigating past a mostly defunct mine. Our capable 4x4 walked it. After that it was smooth sailing. We picked up a route following along utility lines (pic above). That confirmed we were headed the right way. If in doubt, follow the telephone lines back to civilization!

A few times a year we visit the local Art & Wine Festival. It seems like the event comes around at least 10 times a year... but that's because throughout Spring, Summer, and Fall there's one somewhere in the area seemingly every weekend. So we stroll around the vendor booths at the Sunnyvale Art & Wine Festival, the Mountain View one, the Santa Clara one, and sometimes the Fremont one. Yes, there's some difference between them. There are basically two companies that run the shows.

What do we do at these festivals? Well, we literally do check out the art! We bought a piece of metal art a few years ago and we've bought framed photographic prints at least 3 times. We always spend time looking through the booths of landscape photographers. I like both photography and visiting the places to make it!

At a show in town a few months ago we found a particular booth run by a photographer whose work we're not familiar with. His subject matter was mostly from the Sierra Nevada range, so we had fun quizzing each other on "Name where this scene is!"

Bridalveil Falls at Yosemite? Easy. Columns of the Giants? Not too hard. Bristlecone Pine Forest? Getting harder.

Then there were one or two pictures we couldn't place. One was rows of natural stone columns that looked like a colonnade from Moorish architecture. But it was all natural; formed by erosion. We were stumped. It sure looked like something we'd have read about if it were anywhere near where we've visited.

"It's the columns at Crowley Lake," the photographer explained.

Yes, one of the cool things about these art & wine festivals is that frequently the artist is in the booth. I always love talking to them about how they compose their art. (BTW, when you're talking to a photographer, asking what camera they use is... unsophisticated. I strike up conversation by asking what choices they made in how to compose the photograph and complimenting their use of color, visual texture, etc.)

Well, you can imagine what happened next.



Haha, no, we didn't jump in our car and drive straight to Crowley Lake.... I mean, first we had to look it up on a map! But then we changed around our plans for our next three-day weekend trip, a few weeks later, from visiting eastern Washington and the Idaho panhandle to visit Crowley Lake and other places on the eastern Sierra Nevada instead.

It turns out Crowley Lake is not that far off the beaten path. US-395, the main route up and down the eastern Sierra, runs along its far west edge. We've been past it numerous times without knowing there's something amazing to see.

The columns aren't right by the highway, though. They're around the remote southern end of the lake. To get to them you have to drive several miles on local roads, then either hike— or drive, if you've got a high clearance 4x4 and the skills to use it— another couple of miles.



We meet the latter qualifications, so we drove to the top of the cliff. From there it's less than 1/2 mile walk down to a sandy pocket beach where there are natural columns carved out under two cliffs.



In beauty I walk. Whether it's at the Art & Wine Festival in Sunnyvale or the real thing in the wild.

Colorado Travelog #15
Telluride, CO - Monday, 4 Jul 2022, 5:30pm

Despite getting a bum steer on staying Telluride the next few nights we decided, "We're here now, let's make the best of it." There was a waterfall we could basically drive to, so we visited that first. ...Mind you, it was one you could drive to with 4 wheel drive and high clearance. Thus why I paid, like, 3x the price of renting a sedan to get a Toyota Tacoma 4x4 (and also why I was frustrated when it came shod with poor tires).



Bridalveil Falls is big enough that we could see it a few miles back in the valley around Telluride. I just kept driving in its direction. Soon paved road turned to dirt and gravel. Then there was a parking lot where most people parked. The trail to the base of the falls was just over a mile with about 800' of ascent from there. But the road continued for the skilled and well equipped. I switched into 4-Lo and drove another 2 miles up rocky switchbacks. We parked in a small lot at the base of the falls alongside mostly Jeep Wranglers.

The road continued up a bit from the base of the falls. It goes to the top of the falls. There's a power generating station up there. I'm not sure how it generates power as it's atop the falls.

The road continues beyond the top of Bridalveil Falls. It's one way the opposite way, though. It comes over the Black Bear Pass from Red Mountain south of Ouray. We parked the truck and walked up the road a bit to catch a better view of Ingram Falls.



Ingram Falls has several tiers. The drop shown in the photo above is near the top. Further down it falls in a series of small cascades. In total it's over 2,000' of falls, basically from the top of the ridge to the bottom of the valley.



Speaking of top and bottom of the valley, here's a pano from where we parked our truck on the Black Bear Pass road. That "tiny" waterfall off on the left is 200'+ Bridalveil Falls.

Hawaii April Travelog #28
Mauna Kea Visitors Center - Thu, 14 Apr, 2022, 8pm

Mauna Kea. A dormant volcano. The highest peak on Hawaii, at 13,803' (4,207.3 m) above sea level. Argued by many to be the tallest mountain in the world counting the fact that it starts almost 20,000' deep in the Pacific Ocean. And there's a hiking trail at the top— what a perfect place for us to visit!

...Or so we thought. It turns out we couldn't go all the way to the top. The park says you need a 4x4 vehicle, with low-range gearing (so no "cute 'utes" allowed), to traverse the last 8 miles of road. Rangers had a roadblock at the visitors center at 9,000' and were strict about stopping people from driving onward. This trip, like most trips where we fly and rent a vehicle, we didn't have a serious 4x4. Oh, well.

Since we couldn't drive to the top we had an extra hour or two before sunset. Our plan was to get all the way up, hike around the top just before sunset, then watch the stars come from from next to the famous Keck Observatory up there. Instead we rested in the car (it's cold outside at 9,000'!) and waited until close to sunset to hike up a ridge near the visitors center.



From atop this nearby ridge at 9,200' we enjoyed the sunset. A ranger at the station told us they expected the cloud cover to lift just before sunset. It did... kind of. The clouds lifted above us but not below us. That created the weird "above the clouds" effect you see in the photo above.

I lugged my nice camera and tripod— minus, of course, the lens that was stolen— up the hill. I was surprised overall how easily I handled the ~200' of ascent considering a) the high altitude with next to no acclimation and b) my legs still being mostly wrecked from the Koko Head Tramway trail earlier in the week.



Anyway, with those tools in hand I was able to capture some fun pictures in the dusk light. The photo above shows the view up to the summit of Mauna Kea. In the midground are two small craters.

What happens, BTW, when you turn the exposure compensation knob on your camera to +2 stops? It makes sunset look kind of like a nuclear explosion!



...But in a good way. Clearly nobody here's being nuked. 🤣

People started filtering down from the ridge after the sun set. We stayed on, waiting to see stars come out. It was cold, though; about 40° vs. a high of 84° down in Waikoloa earlier in the day (4.5° C vs. 29° C). Our part-year-resident friend Dave quipped when we told him where we were going, "I don't even have a long pants on the island." We'd packed long pants and a few light jackets just so we'd be ready for things like this.



In this last photo (above) the moon is rising. I'm not sure what that other photographer is shooting. The moon and stars are up there, bub.

We headed back down the ridge in the total darkness. I had a bunch of small flashlights in my pack so I lent one to Hawk— whose backpack was stolen, remember? But it turned out our iPhones provided way better light via their flashlight tool. So we picked our way down the dark mountain, phones in hand. In beauty we walk... with the ghost of Steve Jobs.

High Desert Weekend Trip-log #10
Red Rock Canyon State Park - Sun, 27 Mar, 2002. 1pm

For years I have used the tag In Beauty I Walk to mark posts about hiking in the great outdoors. My inspiration is a Navajo prayer, In Beauty I Walk. That phrase is both the title and the refrain. In that prayer walk refers not just to the literal act of walking but to the whole of life. It's about the journey of life and how best to take the journey of life.

In the modern world journeying often takes place by car. Thus In Beauty I Walk extends to In Beauty I Drive my 4x4. And that's what we did in Red Rock Canyon State Park after hiking Hagen Canyon (previous blogs).


The brief hill climb shown in this video is from a section of the main loop the park ranger warned us is "very rough". As you can see in the video it looks like a walk in the park (heh) for our Nissan Xterra 4x4.

Toward the end of the video you see me waving out the window. I have a peregrine falcon puppet on my hand! It's one of several birds-of-prey toys we own. We took the falcon puppet on this trip because we know there's a nesting area for peregrine falcons in the park.



One of the marked 4x4 trails in the park goes through the nesting area. It's closed in the springtime (spring starts in February here) to protect the birds as they raise their young.



If i were a peregrine falcon I'd totally want to nest in those cliffs, too.

Saturday, 25 Sep 2021. 12:15pm.

On our trip to Sierra Buttes today we drove most of the way. ...No, I don't mean just the fact that we drove about 50 miles from Truckee to the base of Sierra Buttes this morning. We actually drove most of the way up the buttes, too. Since our first visit here almost 25 years ago, when we hoofed it up a climb of almost 3,000', we've learned where paved roads and 4x4 trails are that can take us virtually all the way to the top.



Here's a photo from a stop at the shoulder of Sierra Buttes. It's approximately elev. 7,900'. From here it's still quite a climb to the summit at 8,591'. The view out over the distance shows how much climbing we've already saved.

That small lake in the foreground is Young America Lake. Though it's a steep drop below our feet from this viewpoint it's actually very high up on the mountain. You can't even see it from points below. In fact you can't even see it from a few hundred meters to either side; other ridges block it. It's like a secret lake you get only at this spot.

A certain number of 4x4ers know how to get to this point. Today we saw 6 other rigs here. Hikers and bicyclists huffing and puffing up the foot trail stared at the coterie of vehicles parked here like alien life forms. But this isn't the end of the road. There's still more climbing we can let our SUV do for us.



I know from hiking all the way to the top a few times that technically we could drive to the point where the trail ends and ladders begin. I also know that it's narrow up there and there's room for, like, one car. So we stopped here about 1/4 mile down the trail where there's still room for another vehicle to pass us. I've never seen another 4x4 up this far, though. Dirt bikes, yes; four-wheelers, no.

This isn't just a good place to park the car, it's also a worthy place to get out and look around. After all, the specialness of Sierra Buttes isn't just being at the top; it's everything about getting there, too.



As the trail rises to our right, off to the left is a great view on its own. This is one of the lower spires of the Sierra Buttes. We hadn't really thought about climbing it, but a pair of hikers standing at the top today show that exactly that is possible. (BTW, we later saw them struggling to get down without slipping; that dampened our desire to go up there.)



Pivoting back around from the lower butte on the right shows again how high up we are. Down below in the distance are Lower Sardine Lake and Upper Sardine Lake. The first time we hiked up here, around 25 years ago, we started from near the lower lake. You can see some of trail climbing the first ridge above the lakes. That's how much huffing and puffing we've saved with this 4x4 drive!

In beauty I walk.... Even the parts I drive.

But we're not all the way there yet. Stay tuned!

Next entry: Stairway to Heaven

Olympic Peninsula Travelog #11
Olympic National Park, WA - Sat, 4 Sep 2021. 3pm.

We wrapped up our hike to Hurricane Hill (previous blog) by 2pm today. We knew when we planned the hike that it would be only a part-day activity, that it'd be the first part of a two-fer... possibly even a three-fer! We weren't sure, though, what to do next. Or rather, which to do next. We had lots of ideas!

We chose the newest idea, one that was only introduced to us this morning when we talked to a ranger at the visitors center. "Drive out Obstruction Point Road," he suggested. "There are trails going left and right from there with lots of stuff to see."

Obstruction Point Road hadn't even been on my radar until that conversation. I don't think I'd even seen it on maps. Possibly that's because it's a dirt road, 8 miles long, is clear only a few months a year, and can quickly get treacherous in poor weather. But today it would be mostly dry... if also mostly gloomy.

The main selling point for us turned out to be that it's a drive. We were tired and achy from hiking 5+ miles along Hurricane Ridge. We weren't ready to commit to more hiking yet. Letting our car do most of the work for a while was a good idea.



The Obstruction Point Road winds around ridges and knobs heading southeast from the visitor center atop Hurricane Ridge. A few minutes out we stopped at a wide spot on the road (it's generally tight for two vehicles to pass) for a few pictures. In the photo above you can see Hurricane Hill on the left; it's the tallest brown hill on the left. The rugged brown peak on the right (I think it's volcanic, geologically) is Mt. Angeles.

What about our "constant companion", Mt. Olympus?



It's still there. Somewhere. The cloud cover has gotten a bit worse as the day's gone on, so the 7.980' (2,432m) peak is hard to spot.

At another wide spot on the road a new kind of vista opened up. This one's a view to the east:



Looking down through this valley from over a mile above the water level below you see the Hood River Canal and, beyond it, the Puget Sound. If this were a clear day you could probably see Mt. Baker, one of Washington's highest peaks, far off in the distance.

After 8 miles, as promised, the road came to an end at Obstruction Point.



Since this is America we need signs reminding people guns are not allowed.

Up next: a ridge so enticing we have to hike it!