The first two days of the four-day motorcycle trip down to the Delaware Water Gap in PA/NJ.

Day 1 – Friday

My pre-trip preoccupation all week was trying to finish and perfect my Pelican case luggage mounting system.  I got it most of the way there by Thursday night, enough so that the luggage was sturdily mounted to the bike, but it lacked a completed locking mechanism and the internal water seal.  I deemed it to be good enough for this trip, and grabbed a cable and some pad locks from Home Depot for some security, until I could finish the project.

I was so heads-down in working on the luggage stuff that I was fairly unprepared by the morning of our departure.   Unusually frantic packing ensued in the morning, and as we tried out various combinations of packing options we discovered that we’d really be better off with an additional piece of luggage for my bike to hold stuff if we did day hikes, etc.  The only place I knew of that had Givi stuff in stock was Twisted Throttle in RI, and a phone call confirmed that they had all of the necessary pieces to make it work.

The weather reports were looking ominous, making it nearly certain that we were going to ride through some rain.  Not ideal, but we weren’t going to let that get in the way of our trip.  We just made sure our rain gear was relatively accessible in our luggage.

We finally hit the road by early afternoon, and stopped for a quick lunch before a short detour to my office to grab the small 12V compressor which had showed up late after a shipping snafu.

As we were pushing down I95, we saw a guy on a cruiser bike blow by us in the fast lane wearing T-shirt, brain bucket, and moccasins.  Shortly thereafter, traffic came to a stop and we saw  fire trucks and ambulances.  As we eventually crawled forward through the traffic, we passed the guy on the cruiser, wheels up, with EMTs working on him.  This isn’t exactly what we wanted to see as we set out for our trip, and we were a bit shaken up afterward.

Between downpours and hitting seemingly every possible bit of traffic, the ride down to RI was a bit arduous.  The 5:00PM closing hour for Twisted Throttle closing loomed, and eventually came and went.   We decided to push on anyway, to at least find out where it was so we could visit the next morning right when they opened.

We were very close to Twisted Throttle’s offices, which are located in a funky old mill building in a small industrial park.  We spent a couple of minutes figuring out how to get from the road, through construction, and to their door.  Of course, they were closed when we arrived, but we waited around for a few minutes and eventually caught an employee as she was leaving for the day.  We asked if she’d help us out and let us buy something if we knew exactly what we wanted.  Much to our delight, she said yes.  After picking out the exact top case I wanted, we completed the sale and then she had to get someone to open up the warehouse since it had been locked for the night.  Everyone there was extremely nice and enthusiastic, and so far my dealings with them both online and in person have been top notch.   We then performed a parking lot installation of the Givi mounting plate and the top case, during a break in the rain.

Jocelyn called her dad to find out where we should eat dinner and stay for the night.  He gave us a recommendation for the Spain restaurant in Narragansett, RI.   We headed over there, encountering more pouring rain, and passed a huge mob of runners in a road race on the way.  At the restaurant, we felt a bit under-dressed in our riding gear and t-shirts, as most people were at least in khakis and polo shirts.  We also lowered the average age by quite a bit.  We ordered the paella for two, and it was fantastic.

We then headed for a motel called the General Stanton Inn in Charlestown, RI.  It was an odd place, built around an old inn dating from the 1600s, with a motel wing, an attached Chinese food restaurant/bar, and a flea market.  Jocelyn’s dad had made the reservation for us as a favor, and found out we’d be staying near “the other bikers,” who turned out to be the leather and chrome cruiser variety.  However, we were assured by the Inn staff that they were “very nice.”  The inn was run by two older sisters who were pretty funny to watch in action.

Once we were checked in, we unpacked all of our gear and took advantage of the poster bed to hang up all of our wet riding gear, and cranked the A/C to try to dry everything out.  We called it an early night, since we were both kind of tired from the ride down.

Day 2 – Saturday

We had a pretty leisurely morning, and eventually got our gear loaded up the bikes in the ridiculously steamy hot weather.  We stopped at the mini grocery store near the motel for brunch supplies, which we intended to go eat on the beach nearby.   We were originally hoping to get into the free state park, but the line of cars was back up quite a ways, so we ended up trying the town beach.  Cars were charged $15 to park, but on the motorcycles we paid the bicycle rate of $5 each and got to park by the bicycle rack, which amused us quite a bit.   We got out of our hot riding gear and wandered down the beach to find as quiet a spot as possible to enjoy our meal.

As we ate our breakfast and watched the waves roll in,  Jocelyn realized she probably left her keys on the motorcycle.  We finished our food and high-tailed it back to the bikes, and thankfully found the keys dangling from her top case.   She grabbed her keys, and we wandered on the beach a little more before deciding we needed to hit the road to meet up with her brothers and their friend Sadie, in East Haven CT.

We had been planning to take Route 1 to 95, but we ended up bailing off of Route 1 early after going through too many annoying stop lights.  When we saw a sign that said “to 95,” earlier than we expected, we decided to try it.  Unfortunately, it turned out to be a long detour before we eventually found 95, probably adding 20 minutes to our trip.

We arrived in early afternoon, despite my phone GPS attempting to mislead us at the last step.  Sadie lives right on the beach, which turned out to be quite a bonus, since everyone decided it was way too hot to push down to the water gap with the heat index north of 100 degrees.  Instead, we opted for cool beverages and swimming in the ocean, which was a refreshing 70 degrees.  Other than cutting the arch of my foot on something, swimming was great, and just what we needed to cool down after the hot rides.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to get on the bikes and ride to East Rock Park, which, after a fun winding road to the top, presents you with a nice view of New Haven.  We relaxed for a few minutes at the top, and then hopped back on the bikes to find a dinner spot in downtown New Haven.  Parking was a bit elusive, and required much circling of the blocks to find spots.  A kid on a bicycle also darted out in front of me against the light and almost got pasted, but thankfully mishaps were avoided, and we did eventually find street parking.

Dinner was at a fancy mixed Asian place called Kudeta, and was really quite tasty.  The giant Lazy Susan in the middle of the table facilitated sharing our dishes of chicken curry, pad thai, cold noodles, and sushi rolls.  Our waiter was looking to break into the nursing field, and networked with Sadie, who works at one of the local hospitals.

Full of our tasty meals, we hopped back on the bikes and headed back to Sadie’s.  On the way we hit one of the draw bridges just as it was starting to go up, so we had to wait.  Once back, we went for another swim underneath the vivid moon and gorgeous sunset.  We lounged around for a bit afterwards, and decided to take a walk out to get ice cream.  We caught a couple minutes of Avatar being shown on the beach, and then wandered back to get to bed so we could get up early and make for the water gap.

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To be continued in part 2!

The weather forecast suggested that Friday would be a beautiful day, if a bit warm, so we woke up early and headed up to the White Mountains, with a quick stop to get lunch and snacks on our way.

Despite the beautiful day, there were only a few other cars parked in the lot for Lafayette… notably a bus from a Christian group, and a van from Franklin Tech.

Given the drive and the stop for groceries we were off to a bit of a late start, hitting the trail at around 11:30, the advantage of this late start was that we were pretty effectively staggered from the few other hikers, so we had the trail to ourselves. We took the Old Bridle Path for the ascent and stopped for lunch at a small outlook a little under 2 miles into the hike. As is so often the case, the great views started right around the bend from where we stopped for lunch.   Gorgeous views of Lafayette as well as the rest of ridge we were about to hike across inspired our ascent. This inspiration was pretty important, as was the occasional breeze because it was definitely feeling very warm.

We finally made it to the hut, where we enjoyed some lemonade and a quick snack.   A particularly annoying and boorish dad and his family group spurred us on towards the final ascent.  On our way up, we found a nice spot in the shade under the 4 foot conifers, just off the trail.   The dense cover offered some protection from the sun and allowed us to scare passersby, because they couldn’t see or hear us until they were even with us, if they noticed us at all.

Our ascent was leisurely, with frequent resting at cairns to enjoy the view and stay hydrated.  We ran across a large group of backpackers that couldn’t have been the Christian group, as they stated, “it’s one hell of a day!”  At one of our rest spots near the top, we spied a glider, sweeping and swooping through the sky.

Once we finally reached the summit, we found a somewhat isolated spot to rest for our second lunch.  After eating and relaxing for a bit, we realized it was around 4PM, and decided to brave the ridge and descent, despite the risk of finishing after dark.  Being right around midsummer, we figured we had a fair chance of getting out in the light, though.

The ridge hike was gorgeous, presenting us with excellent views.  Unfortunately, the lack of a key piece of signage was frustrating, but we found our way.  Once across the ridge, we made our descent via the Falling Waters trail, which was very steep and rocky at first, but it eventually gave way to a more gradual descent and provided us what seemed like a dozen opportunities to cross the running water and view the water falls.

We did manage to get ourselves out of the woods before dark, and hit the road looking for some dinner.  All in all, a stout day hike with some gorgeous views!

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	532 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	568 m	8.717 mi	8h 43m 39s	8h 43m 25s	1.00 mph	1.00 mph	70.48 mph	4236 ft	4114 ft
Summary			8.717 mi	8h 43m 39s	8h 43m 25s	1.00 mph	1.00 mph	70.48 mph	4236 ft	4114 ft

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Jocelyn and I took a relatively long motorcycle trip over the weeked, mostly centered around the Green Mountain National Forest in Vermont. I ended up doing 411 miles over the weekend, and Jocelyn somewhat less because she had to drive a short bit of the trip to fetch her motorcycle.

On Saturday morning we got up, packed up our gear, and rolled out to Orange, MA, partly to pick up her motorcycle which had been in the shop out there, and partly to check out the Orange Engine Show. We stopped at a local moto shop on the way there, and I grabbed a cargo net and some earplugs, and Jocelyn managed to score a free set of earplugs that had been given to the store as demo units by the manufacturer. We eventually made it to the engine show and puttered around a bit and ate some lunch. Met some of Jocelyn’s family, saw some cool old engines and tractors, pawed through some machine tool goodies one of the vendors was selling, and finally decided we needed to hit the road.

We took 78 north from Orange (nice moto road!), and picked up 119 in Winchester, NH. Following 119 northwards, we picked up Rt 9 east in Brattleboro, VT, and eventually made our way through the southern part of the GMNF. Route 9 took us across the park, and through a fair amount of rain. We stopped and donned our rain gear, and continued on, eventually hitting the town of Bennington, VT right around dinner time. We parked the bikes downtown and didn’t have to wander far in our search for food. Madison Brewing Company served up some tasty fare, including some of their own root beer (alas, neither of us drink alcohol when riding is on the schedule). Over dinner we finalized our plans for the evening, deciding to head north, looking for the Emerald Lake campground, with a few other options as backup plans. While we were suiting back up for our ride out of town, we got chatted up by a guy who told us about a motorcycle accident he had, and how he had sustained major brain damage but still rides anyway. He was a strange one, for sure.

We headed north out of town on Route 7, which gave me my first taste of highway riding. I suppose if you’re going to have to be on a highway on your motorcycle, you could do a lot worse than Rt. 7 in VT! It offers gorgeous views, and at that hour there were basically no other cars on the road so we had it more or less to ourselves. Not having solid directions in hand, we got off of the highway and took Rt 30 north, as dusk was approaching, thinking we’d find the camp site. After riding through some absolutely stunning farmland (and more rain), we eventually determined that we were not finding what we were looking for, and our cell phones with GPS/Google Maps were nearly useless with no signal. We decided to head back to Manchester, where we figured we’d have cell signal and could figure out where to go. Retracing our ride on Rt. 30 was no great punishment, as the road was equally beautiful the other direction, though considerably wetter on our way out. Arriving back in Manchester, we were able to obtain better directions, and discovered we just needed to go up Rt. 7 a bit further, and the camp site was right off of the highway.

A short jaunt up 7 later, we found the Emerald Lake Campground, in scenic and lovely Dorset, VT. It was after dark by this point, and starting to rain fairly heavily. We were past the normal hours for check-in, but helpful instructions told us to pick one of the open spots, and register/pay in the morning. Unfortunately, there was a distinct lack of helpful signage to tell us where the various sites were located, but we motored up some hills, through the campgrounds and eventually found an adequate, available spot, and hastened to set up our tent in the rain and get all of the gear off of the bikes. We got the tent set up quickly, and performed all of the necessary evening rituals before retiring, just in time for the rain to really pick up considerably. We both had somewhat restless sleep, but it was nice to eventually drift off to the sound of the raindrops hitting the tent fly.

Morning was a bit drier, thankfully, and despite a tentative and brief sprinkle, the sun was peeking through. After the all-important breakfast of oatmeal, we broke camp, and re-packed the bikes. Jocelyn wanted to see what all of the fuss was about with the lake, so she strolled down to look at it and came back reasonably unimpressed. Making our exit from the state park, we stopped to pay the $20 camping fee, but nobody was around, no forms were available, and nowhere obvious to deposit money was to be found. Basically we were left with no option but to skip out without paying, which wasn’t ideal, but sometimes life doesn’t present you with the option to do the right thing.

From Emerald Lake, we headed back down to Manchester in search of a more complete brunch meal. We found it at a place called Up for Breakfast, a small breakfast joint located upstairs in a building in downtown Manchester. The food was tasty, and the wait staff was friendly and enthused, and it made for a good start to the day. Heavily laden with our brunch meals, we executed on our roughly prepared plans that were made over breakfast. Remounting our faithful steeds, we decided to again head north on Rt. 30, since it was such a gorgeous road, and take it north until we could hook up with Rt. 4A, just south of Bomoseen. When we were looking at the maps, I had realized that I had been up to Bomoseen in the late fall, a couple of years ago, for a Rallycross. In fact, it was where the Corrado blew a coolant line during the race, and it had to be nursed back home with no heat after a bodge job. Good times!

Route 30 would prove to be just as gorgeous for our third trip, with the added bonus of being considerably brighter and drier than the night before. 30 is really a fantastic stretch of road, and full of what we considered to be quintessential Vermont: red barns, rolling farm land, cattle, hills, and not much else.

We encountered Route 4 more quickly than we expected, and hopped onto the highway, only to jump back off after one exit, preferring the slower pace and better scenery of Rt 4A east. Around Rutland, we decided to ditch our plans for a hike further north, and started to make our way south again so we could get home at a reasonable hour and not have any mishaps on the motorcycles due to fatigue. Route 7 carried us south, until we picked up Rts. 140 and 155, which skirted all along the northern and eastern borders of the National Forest. We found these to be some seriously great motorcycle roads as well, with many miles of fun twisties and trees. Perhaps not as scenic as Rt. 30, but every bit as enjoyable in different ways.

We eventually hooked up with Rt. 100, which carried us south, down into Londonderry, NH, where we found a seemingly out-of-place little bistro/cafe serving food, and catering to the froofy health/beauty/yuppie market. Interesting local beverages and other products were to be found, at least, and the wraps we had for lunch were actually quite tasty, if a bit pricy. With our stomachs filled and our energy levels improving, we headed south on a different chunk of Rt. 30, winding our way down through the eastern part of the park, and into Townshend, VT, where we rode up to the Townshend State Park headquarters. The last couple miles of the side road were unpaved roads, but pretty well maintained and neither of us had any real trouble. We rested for a bit, and decided we really couldn’t do any of the hikes they had to offer in the time we had remaining, so like true American tourists, we got back onto our bikes and headed out, continuing our journey home.

From that point, we decided it was probably not a bad plan to hook back up with Rt. 119 in Brattleboro, and follow 119 back to Massachusetts, back to my home turf. Before we crossed into MA, we stopped for a break at a little general store sort of place, where there was a small vegetable stand. Jocelyn picked up some strawberries, which we planned to have for part of a celebratory dessert later. Yet again mounted the bikes, and hit the road for the final push. We were both feeling a bit tired, but the riding was still nice, and we both commented to each other that we felt like we were in a nice groove cruising Rt. 119 through Ashburnham and Ashby in MA. Winding up through Rt. 113 in Pepperell, we stopped in at the grocery store quickly to grab dinner supplies, and made the last few miles back to my house pretty quickly.

All in all, it was a really good trip. We were both tired, but not too tired when we were done. It would have been nice to break up Sunday a bit with a hike in the middle, but we both felt we had to plan that better for it to work. I was pretty happy with the distance we covered, though by no means an iron butt type of trip. I’ve only been riding for around a month, but I’m fast approaching the 1000 mile mark.

The champions of the trip proved to be the Interphone F4 Bluetooth headsets that I picked up so we could talk to each other on our moto rides. I am rarely super impressed by consumer electronics, but these headsets really do the job fantastically. They ran for over 10 hours of road time, with the communications link “on” the whole time. We occasionally got pretty far apart, and except for one instance where I had rounded a hairpin and we had a big chunk of mountain in between us, there was no breakup in audio quality. I will do a more complete review of the product some time soon, but suffice it to say I am very happy with the purchase. It is really, really nice to be able to chat with your riding partner as you wind your way around, and discuss what you see, mention you need to take a break, etc. Highly recommended, both in concept and particularly that unit.

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On Sunday morning, we woke up with the sun, and were both pleased to note that temperatures overnight had dipped, but were probably only in the 30s, despite having set up camp at about 6500′ elevation. J had an uncharacteristic burst of morning energy and decided to get up and tromp a bit to a rock she had discovered the day before, to watch the sun rise over the local ridges.

While watching the sun come up, we decided our best option for day hiking was indeed the South Ridge trail, since we were already permited for it, and we were within a mile of the trailhead. We enjoyed a warm breakfast of oatmeal and cocoa up on a rock near our tent, then set about striking camp and heading off for the day’s adventure.

We decided it would make the most sense to swap some gear around and ditch my pack in the woods, and take J’s ultralight pack as a daypack. She volunteered to play pack sherpa for the day, so I was able to hike relatively unencumbered.

Once finding a suitable spot for my pack, we headed off to the trailhead. Conditions were similar to the road at first, with a mix of snow and occasional patches of bare ground. We only noted one other pair of footprints that had gone up and down the trail since the storm earlier in the week, so we were hopeful for a peaceful day.

As we made our ascent up the heavily switchbacked trail, we started to encounter more and more snow. At lower elevations, the trail was still easy to follow, as the snow cover was minimal and we had footprints to follow. Eventually we came out to a nice open expanse of rock, and discovered our friends who had made the footprints had turned around at this point, long before reaching the summit of Tahquitz (8828′). Our original plan had us possibly turning back here, or at least not far from here. However, J’s drive to reach peaks, my desire for more adventure, and the early hour all added up to us attempting the peak.

The snow had been getting deeper, and was also starting to soften up as the day warmed up. We had seen a few signs of postholing from our previous travelers downhill footprints, but it was nothing compared to what we would soon start to experience. As we pressed upwards, the snow continued to get deeper and somewhat more variable in consistency. We punched through more and more frequently, but the trail was still passable enough for us, even without snow shoes.

At higher elevations, the snowfall was enough such that the flat bed of the trail was getting harder and harder to spot. J put her backcountry trail-finding expertise to good use, and started to use the pruned bushes as a sure sign we were on the trail corridor. On the couple of occasions we felt like we were off-trail, we consulted my topo maps loaded onto my GPS for a second opinion.

The ascent was getting quite challenging once we were approaching 8000′, due to the depth of snow and frequent postholing, having difficulty following the trail, and also noticing the effects of the altitude on our bodies. As we were approaching the last part of the climb to the peak, the trail was so buried, and the ascent getting more vertical, that we started to think it would be smart to find a spot for lunch and turn back. With ice axes, crampons, and a little more food, water and time, we would have pressed on to the peak.

Lunch at 8500′ was a quick meal of bread/tortillas, gouda, and energy bars. I replenished some of my water by melting some snow in my Nalgene before we decided we should start our descent. We knew the postholing was going to be worse on our way down due to the even softer snow and extra force of our footfalls. Indeed, we were right – despite our much quicker pace, we both found ourselves well over knee-deep many times. It was also helpful to not have to find the trail on our way down, as we could trace our footsteps.

Unfortunately, due to all of the postholing and warm weather, we both found ourselves with very wet hiking boots. We decided to take a break at the flat rock where the previous hikers had stopped and attempt to at least partially dry out our socks and boots in the warm afternoon sun. This worked, though it was particularly unpleasant to put on the cold and clammy socks and boots after getting our feet dry.

The rest of the descent went fairly quickly as the snow became shallower and shallower. We soon found ourselves back at my pack, and proceeded the last mile down the road. On our way out we encountered a large group of parents and kids playing in the snow, sledding and tubing, lounging about in lawn chairs and drinking beer. It struck me as a cross between the party atmosphere of the closing Spring days at a ski resort and a beach gathering.

Once back at the car, we sloughed off our packs, thoroughly exhausted and damp and sun-exposed. We figured we did about an 8.5 mile day, under fairly difficult hiking conditions, with about 2000′ altitude gain.  Here’s a map of our hike for the day:

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1986 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1777 m	8.129 mi	6h 35m 16s	6h 20m 44s	1.23 mph	1.28 mph	73.45 mph	2710 ft	3396 ft
Summary			8.129 mi	6h 35m 16s	6h 20m 44s	1.23 mph	1.28 mph	73.45 mph	2710 ft	3396 ft

We decided our best bet would be to drive a short ways down the road to the Mile High Cafe to grab some replenishing calories before heading out of town back to LA. Our drive out was over Rt. 74 and CA60, which took us through some gorgeous farm country. Lush greens were a contrast to the snow we had just come from, and from the desert of a few days before.

We hit relatively little traffic by CA standards, and got near LAX around 6:30. Gassed up the rental car in a semi-sketchy gas station which refused to give me a receipt (which my rental company claimed they needed as proof of a fillup within 10 miles). We then headed for our semi-fancy hotel, and did the annoying and vaguely stressful dance of check-in, car load-out and cleanup, and car return. A quick 0.9mile walk back from the car dropoff and we were finally able to take some much-deserved hot showers.

It was well past the time when we both should have had dinner, so between J’s low energy and my cranky mood, we were a fun bunch. Dinner at the hotel restaurant proved challenging with J’s gluten allergy (our waiter didn’t know what gluten was, and worse yet didn’t know there was wheat in pasta). Underwhelmed, but at least fed, we headed back up to our room to finish packing and get ready for our early flight back to BOS.

We woke up in Desert Hot Springs after a night in a hotel, and finalized our decision to head to the San Jacinto mountains and figure out someplace to camp and hike. We loaded up the car, grabbed breakfast at the Salvadoran place again, picked up a few supplies at the grocery store, and hit the road.

We set off for the town of Idyllwild, which took us along Hwy 274, a twisty mountain road with nice views. Upon pulling into Idyllwild, we headed for the State Park rangers office/campground to see about camping and hiking. We were both pretty displeased with the campiness of the campground, and wanted a better option. We were directed across the street to the Forest Service ranger office, and found much more useful help.

After some discussions with one of the rangers, we settled on trying to hike in to one of the “yellow post” primitive campsites, which is normally accessible by car. However, in winter, the road is closed off. We were told this might be a good bet for solitude, and ultimately it did work out that way. After filling out the requisite paperwork (you need a permit for each day of hiking you do, noting the particular trail you will be on, and another permit for a camp fire), we headed back to the car and drove to the gate of the closed road that lead to the South Ridge trailhead.

After sorting gear and filling water, we set off with our backpacks, up the snowy and occasionally muddy road. The snow was soft enough to slow our progress as we hiked up the road, but not too deep. There were a few other footprints and a set of snowshoe prints on our way in, but it looked like it would be relatively quiet. We found the first site relatively soon, but decided to press further in to see if the other spots were better. We eventually came to a large flat area with some nice views, and we decided to stop for lunch before pressing further in.

After a nice lunch alone in the quiet and gorgeous area, we pressed on, looking for an even better spot. It was early in the day so we had plenty of time to spare, and we knew we could always come back to one of the other sites if we didn’t find something better. The road became a bit hard to follow, but we eventually came upon a very enticing looking site, with a fairly dry and flat snow-free spot for the tent, nice views and rocks for basking in the gorgeous weather.

We dropped our packs and headed up to a nice sunny rock, to relax and get our feet out of our boots for a bit. After some time soaking in the warmth, we decided to set up camp and go for a walk around to explore the surrounding area. Nice views, and not many signs of other people were in abundance. We were happy that we would have another night with nobody else around.

After exploring, we headed over to a rock that overlooked Idyllwild below, and provided the perfect spot to watch the sunset while eating dinner. After procuring some lighters at the store, and double checking that I remembered them, we were able to feast on hot dinner, and even had some acceptable-for-backcountry flan for dessert.

We caught a very pretty sunset, and as the sky darkened, we saw the lights of the desert towns below begin to twinkle. A few long-exposure photography experiments ensued, and then we hung our food and called it a night. We talked a little of plans for the next day, and had pretty much ruled out doing the 3.5 mile (one-way) South Ridge hike, so we drifted to sleep not really having a solid plan for the next day.

Unfortunately, my relatively new lightweight ProLite Thermarest seems to have developed a leak after only about 10 uses, so I knew I would be in for a less comfortable night, with some twigs and debris jabbing me in the back.

Here is a map of our hike up the closed South Ridge Road (Forest Road 5S11), with our camp site for the night.

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1720 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1988 m	1.673 mi	2h 32m 08s	2h 31m 45s	0.66 mph	0.66 mph	84.96 mph	997 ft	115 ft
Summary			1.673 mi	2h 32m 08s	2h 31m 45s	0.66 mph	0.66 mph	84.96 mph	997 ft	115 ft

After a long but fairly comfortable night of sleep, we got up fairly early and struck our camp. Fueled by an energy bar, and lured by the thought of a hot breakfast back at the car, we set off.  The morning sun felt good, and the skies were much clearer. We retraced our steps relatively uneventfully, and as we were nearing the last stretch of the hike out, J decided we should explore what looked like an old mine up on the hillside. We scrambled up the crumbling remains of an old mining road, and discovered around six old mine shafts in various states from open-but-sketchy, to bricked off, to incomplete. Unarmed with guide books, we speculated about what they might have been mining. Lots of iron-heavy rocks, near some mines, lots of quartz near others. J thought the quartz was a good sign for gold, and it turned out to have been a gold operation that operated from about 1900 to 1938.

A map of our hike out is shown below.  You can actually make out one of the mine shafts, which shows as a dark elongated hole surrounded by lighter colored rock, just north of the “mine” waypoint on the map.

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	903 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	998 m	3.454 mi	2h 14m 25s	2h 13m 59s	1.54 mph	1.55 mph	21.58 mph	420 ft	112 ft
Summary			3.454 mi	2h 14m 25s	2h 13m 59s	1.54 mph	1.55 mph	21.58 mph	420 ft	112 ft

We eventually made our way back to the car, and decided to press on and have breakfast elsewhere at a day use site. We had to drive out by finishing a loop of the dirt road, and then driving back up the sketchy part of the Geology Tour Road. We spotted a pair of coyotes on the loop drive, which was cool, since we had seen paw prints on our hike. The loop road was a nice drive, and dumped us back where we expected.

We drove back a bit and stopped at Squaw Tank to check out the funky rocks, and pressed on further up the sketchy road. Things were mostly fine, but I did have to find and use the traction control disabling feature to get out of the loose stuff without the car trying to be smarter than me and cutting the accelerator because the tires were spinning.

We made our way back onto the main road and decided to stop at Split Rock day use area to make some oatmeal and figure out our day’s plan. We were both feeling a bit low blood sugar and probably fried from too much sun exposure, and we needed to be back near civilization for our evening plans, so we decided to be touristy and drive our way out by way of Cottonwood, and stop at a couple of interesting places. This, despite picking on people a bit who “experience the outdoors” from the air-conditioned comfort of their cars.

We stopped for a bit and wandered through the Cholla Cactus garden, which despite being touristy was kind of neat. Pressing on towards the exit, we stopped at Cottonwood Springs and decided to make our other freeze-dried meal from the failed dinner the night before for lunch. We enjoyed it from the shade of a palm tree in the oasis, and rested a bit before pressing on.

From there, we set our course on the GPS to the hotel that we stayed on Tuesday night, hoping to snag a room for the night. It was much pricier on a peak Friday, but it was a known quantity so we went for it.

We lounged around a bit, enjoyed hot showers, and made plans for our final night near LAX. We also thought about various plans for Saturday/Sunday, and leaned towards venturing to the San Jacintos.

Our evening observatory plans were coming closer, so we headed out, stopping at two different equally sketchy liquor stores looking for a bottle of wine to go with dinner.

We had no idea what to expect for the evening, since the observatory was at a private home. We were surprised to find our directions depositing us in a valley city in a gated community. J called the woman as directed, and she ran out to let us in. A little strange, we thought to ourselves…

The “facility” turned out to be in the very fancily landscaped suburban backyard of a couple, who run dining and viewing events four nights a week. Calling it a “hobby gone awry,” our host has a 12 foot rotating/tracking dome with a 14″ tracking scope, with another smaller scope with nicer optics mounted on top. Very impressive for a hobby setup, to be sure.

Dinner, as pre-arranged with our hosts by J, was a gluten-free meal with a salad, tomato/mozzarella/basil, shrimp, chicken, and bruschetta. Everything was tasty, and it felt a little B&Bish as our hosts dined with us and regaled us with tales (nice though they were, more than a bit colored by their own social and political perspectives). Still, after a couple of glasses of wine and dinner, we felt comfortable enough to at least enjoy the experience for what it was. Weird, maybe, but definitely an experience.

After dinner and dessert, we retired to the observatory, and our host showed us about a half dozen objects. We looked at the Pleiades, the Andromeda galaxy, the Orion nebula, several of the numbered Messier objects, and ultimately ended looking at Mars, upon which we could make out the polar ice cap. We then said our goodbyes with the hosts, and J and I exchanged knowing glances as we walked out of their home.

We headed back to our hotel in Desert Hot Springs, and we crashed pretty quickly since it was close to midnight and we had been going to bed at sundown around 6:30 for the previous couple of days.

Writing this post at the end of day 4… yesterday was our busiest day so far. We woke at Jumbo Rocks campground after a pretty chilly night, probably in the upper or mid 20s. When we got up the first time around 6:15, everything was covered in frost. We stared at the sunrise for a bit and decided to go back to sleep until it warmed up a bit.  It was much warmer when we got up the second time, so we set out sleeping bags and tent to dry in the sun while we had a hot breakfast and sorted gear for the day’s adventures.

We decided we would do a day hike to the peak of Ryan Mountain in the morning, and later in the afternoon drive down to the base of the Hexie Mountains and backpack out along the Fried Liver Wash and sleep out in the backcountry.

The Ryan hike is about 1000′ of vertical gain, and about 1.5 miles long. We made decent time on our way up, pausing occasionally for water and photo ops. As we got near the top, we passed someone that said it was about 10 more minutes, and we’d have it to ourselves. He was correct, and we got to enjoy the stunning views of the different deserts, rock outcroppings, and mountains both near and far.

We had packed supplies for lunch, so we found a good spot and feasted on bread (corn tortillas in J’s case), avocado, manchego cheese, and in my case, chili covered mango slices. That is definitely one for the as-yet-nonexistent sandwich blog. Yum.

We had the summit to ourselves for most of lunch, and then people started showing up. It was also getting much windier, and even though we had brought appropriate layers, we decided to make our way down and continue our day’s adventures. Here’s a map of the Ryan Mountain hike:

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1284 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1345 m	3.009 mi	2h 40m 50s	2h 40m 40s	1.12 mph	1.12 mph	4.14 mph	1430 ft	1227 ft
Summary			3.009 mi	2h 40m 50s	2h 40m 40s	1.12 mph	1.12 mph	4.14 mph	1430 ft	1227 ft

After the Ryan hike, we set our course for the park’s famed Geology Tour Road, which started out as a very nice smooth sandy road, on which I had the requisite fun driving the little rental car. Large puddles still remained from the rains earlier in the week, but they were easily avoided. Things got a lot more interesting when we hit the “4 Wheel Drive Recommended” section, and indeed the road was in much sketchier condition. Loose sand, big rocks, ruts, etc. Indeed, I needed to get out of the car a couple of times to groom the big rocks, but we eventually made it to the backcountry sign-in board. I am glad I have had a lot of experience from rallycross driving on loose, slippery conditions, both because we made it down in one piece, and because it was fun in the less sketchy sections where I had to be careful.

We signed in at the backcountry board, loaded up water and the last bits of gear we needed and set off on the backpacking trip. We were planning a fairly short hike in, maybe about 3 miles, and finding a good spot to camp for the night. The trail followed an old mining road, and often found its way through sandy wash. This desert was much more “proper” desert, with none of the funky rock outcroppings of Jumbo Rocks, but lots of desolation. Even the Joshua Trees were in short supply for much of the hike, as if to say, “hey, you know, the desert is a harsh place.”

All through our trek we spied signs of old mining activity on the Hexie hillside, and occasionally strewn on the desert floor. Indeed, our ultimate aproximate destination was the start of a hike up to an old abandoned mine, and just beyond we found very telling artifacts of that era. An old stone house, either collapsed or simply incomplete, stood a short distance away from what I can only describe as a canned goods graveyard, littered with hundreds of rusting, opened cans.

We pressed further, looking for a good spot to set up camp, and eventually we did find something that was sufficiently out of the obviously recently damp wash, but flat and large enough for our needs. We quickly set the tent up, and J offered to unpack the sleeping bags and sleeping pads while I started on our planned easy freeze-dried dinners.

Well, that would have been all well and good, but in my repacking and reshuffling earlier in the day, I managed to stow the aforementioned flame-proof matches with the wrong stove. Unfortunately the piezo igniter on my little stove failed during a very cold backpacking trip a couple of years ago, so that wasn’t going to be any help. As a last-ditch effort to redeem myself in the eyes of my by now, long-suffering backpacking companion, I attempted to MacGuyver a solution using six NiMH batteries in series and shorting them to make a spark. It did in fact make sparks, but apparently not hot enough to ignite the isopropane gas. Fail and fail.

J, who mercifully is an understanding and experienced backpacker and has had to suffer various miserable nights in the past, urged me to give it up and we’d feast on cheese and energy bars. As my penance, we would hydrate one of the freeze-dried meals and it was my job to warm it up with my body heat, marsupial style. I can’t say the end result was good exactly, but it wasn’t awful – and we needed calories.

After that miserable flop for dinner (and much-deserved teasing), and with a cloudy sky unfit for star gazing, we decided to turn in at the late-night hour of 6:30. Thankfully this night, and this lower elevation, made for warmer conditions. At the very least, we might be more comfortable on a quiet night, as the only souls out on Fried Liver Wash.

Here is our hike in from the back-country board to our backcountry camp site:

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	999 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	948 m	3.759 mi	2h 23m 30s	2h 22m 06s	1.57 mph	1.59 mph	88.76 mph	318 ft	486 ft
Summary			3.759 mi	2h 23m 30s	2h 22m 06s	1.57 mph	1.59 mph	88.76 mph	318 ft	486 ft

Good morning from sunny and cold Joshua Tree National Park! We finally managed to get our act together yesterday and make it out here after many errands. We grabbed breakfast at a little hole in the wall Salvadoran place in DHS and it was incredibly good. We then hit the Stater Bros. Market in the same plaza to pick up food supplies. J had randomly run across an ad for a private observatory, and emailed for more info. Turned out they had an opening for Friday night, so she booked us for an evening of dinner and star gazing. We are both pretty psyched for it!

Eventually, we made our way out of town and started to head to Joshua Tree. Made our way through a couple of scrappy little valley towns, and finally found ourselves at the visitor center. We chatted with one of the rangers for a bit and he helped us put together a plan. Car camping at one of the campgrounds for the first night (either Hidden Valley or Jumbo Rocks), and a backcountry excursion the second night, perhaps in the Fried Liver Wash at the foot of the Hexies.

We headed out and into the park… it was a relief to see the last remnants of the valley town give way to the unique beauty of Joshua Tree. We encountered an amazing contrasting landscape – brown rounded rocks, snow covered ground, snow covered peaks, bare hills with deep folds, and an ominous sky with occasional blue patches. As one would expect, Joshua Trees dot the landscape. Definitely a homely looking tree, but it complements the landscape somehow.

After a bit of driving, we came upon the Hidden Valley campground. We drove through both of its loops, finding mostly reserved or occupied sites. Those that were not reserved were pretty well damp or flooded from the rains. We decided to try our luck at Jumbo Rocks, so we pressed on.

Jumbo Rocks looked a lot less full right from the start, so we were pleased. We drove around through its many side loops, got out to check out a couple of spots, and finally decided on one in a group of four, none of which were occupied. We picked out the best one, set up the tent, and looped back out to pay at the self registration kiosk.

Once back at the site, we grabbed a couple of things, and decided we had enough light for a quick walk around one of the short loops nearby, one that went past the famous Skull Rock. We had hoped to climb Ryan Mountain, but it was shrouded in fog, and we definitely didn’t have enough daylight. We are considering doing that this morning, before we venture into the backcountry.

Dinner was interesting, as neither of us were feeling particularly organized at the market. We made a strange but pretty tasty dish, involving chunks of cactus, chicken, brown rice, monchego cheese, and avocado. Foolishly, I had forgotten the lighter I keep with my backpacking stoves, so I had to use my backup waterproof matches. These should be renamed “flameproof matches” they are so useless.

After post dinner cleanup, it was well after dark and quite chilly. We decided to turn in and call it a night. We both slept okay, though we were quite cinched into our mummy bags. It dropped under freezing for sure overnight. We got up around 6:15 and saw the sunrise (already in progress) from atop one of the rock outcroppings near our site. We decided to crawl back into our bags to let it warm up more before we get up and make our breakfast.

Here’s a GPS map of our short loop.

	#	Elevation	Distance	Time	Movingtime	Speed	Movingspeed	Max Speed	Climb Up	Climb Down
	1	1326 m	0.000 mi	0s	0s	-	-	-	-	-
	2	1328 m	2.098 mi	1h 26m 03s	1h 26m 01s	1.46 mph	1.46 mph	27.86 mph	449 ft	446 ft
Summary			2.098 mi	1h 26m 03s	1h 26m 01s	1.46 mph	1.46 mph	27.86 mph	449 ft	446 ft

I’m writing this post from the comfort of a warm bed in Desert Hot Springs, CA. Yesterday was basically a very long travel day that started at 4:30 eastern time and didn’t end until after 10pm west coast time. Cars, shuttle buses, a 6hr plane flight from BOS to LAX, more shuttle buses, picking up a rental car, and driving quite a bit… Lots of travel.

Once I picked up the car, I drove out to Anaheim to pick up J at Disneyland, where she had been for a few days at a conference. From there we surveyed our options for places to stay for the evening. She was thinking a night in the San Jacinto mountains would have been cool, but they were in the middle of a snowstorm, and tire chains were required to get there. Of course, our rental car didn’t have any… so we decided on plan B, which was to head towards Joshua Tree, our ultimate destination for much of this trip, and stay the night in somewhat nearby Desert Hot Springs.

We first needed to grab some lunch, so we stopped at a random taqueria (Panchos, I think) in Santa Ana. Food was awesome – I alway forget how lackluster east coast Mexican food is. After lunch, we hit the REI in Santa Ana for last-minute supplies, and went on our way.

On our way to Desert Hot Springs, just outside of Riverside, we hit a bad traffic snarl on the freeway, and soon discovered why… A truck had lost a bunch of lemons! It was the most lemony-fresh road mishap ever, as we drove over the pulverized citrus.

It has been raining out here quite a bit, causing all sorts of problems. As we got closer to Desert Hot Springs, we ran across what looked like a small mud slide and a car accident, on the other side of the divided highway. And, as we were nearly to our destination, we drove through the largest wind farm either of us had seen… Hundreds and hundreds of large windmills lining the hillsides, ducking in and out of the gray fog and rain. It was a very neat sight.

The other interesting thing to me was that the desert hills were green! They almost looked lush, which is quite a contrast to the brown I normally associate with California.

J had picked out a hotel to try out, so we pulled in and checked availability and rates. Both were good enough, so we decided to stay the night. After unloading our gear and relaxing a bit, we decided to venture out for dinner. I used the Google Places app on my phone and found Thai Palms, quite nearby. It turned out to be a funky hole in the wall sort of place, with excellent food. I got a duck curry, and J got a lamb curry. Both were very fresh and tasty.

The rain was really coming down once we left the restaurant, and it was immediately obvious why flooding might be a problem out here! Hopefully the town didn’t wash away overnight. We were glad our hotel is on top of a hill…

Today, once we get going, we’re going to sort some gear, pick up some food supplies and think about heading to Joshua Tree… hopefully we can get in some hiking and at least car camp tonight. We hope to do a mix of car camping with day hikes, and a night or two of backcountry backpacking as well… We may also try to fit in some time in the San Jacintos, if we have our fill of desert.

Till next time!
No exciting photos of the sights, but I did grab a picture of our ridiculous oldschool punch card keyless entry keys at the hotel.