Headed Out Again

It was time to get out again. We had been feeling that urge to load up the Tacoma, head up the 395, air down the tires, and drive up a winding truck trail into the unknown. We had a great reason to get out; the nine year anniversary of our relationship. This whole “overland, adventure, camping, outdoors, etc.” whatever title you want to use is especially romantic to us as it is the first major thing that we’ve really gotten into and had the chance to learn together as partners, so it only made sense to celebrate our relationship in the pine trees high somewhere on a mountain. We loaded up our truck, and set out early before the sunrise. As we rolled along the calming 395 highway that serves as a gateway to the Sierras, excitement grew as we got closer to the trail. We stopped at Looney Bean in Bishop to grab some breakfast and another coffee. From there we departed and commuted towards the start of our trail.

We aired down, made sure we had our offline maps loaded, and left town behind us as our Tacoma gained us thousands of feet of elevation. This trail that we drove is nostalgic to us, as it was the first backcountry trip that we ever went on. It takes you hours of offroading away from society, high up on the slopes of the Sierra mountains above the treeline far from cell service and the business of life. The trail was fun to drive as we crawled over rocks, navigated the tight switchbacks, and got to test the Tacomas articulation as we climbed through the deeper holes of sections. After about an hour of wheeling, we made it up to the flat on which we were planning to be camping upon for the next three nights. As it was still relatively early on in the day and we knew exactly where we were going to be camping that night, we took some time to explore a trail which we hadn’t driven before that led to a supposed lake. The drive was stunning. We drove through a vibrant green plain that continued to climb up past the flat, over a river, into a beautiful grove of pine trees, and to the lake that we were looking for. The drive was exhilarating, but that exhilarance was met with somberness as we pulled up to the lake that we were searching for, only to find it completely dried up. This served as a stark reminder to us about the crazy weather shifts that we’re seeing in our world these days. It’s tough to see these beautiful places that we get to explore in such a state of digress. Not only does it teach us to try and do our best to protect these places, but also serves as motivation to get out and make the time to see the marvelous wonders of this planet now, because there’s no guarantee that they will be around in the future.

After checking out this area, we made our way back down the trail to get to the turn off which would take us to the (still existing) lake where we had planned to spend the next few nights camping at. We navigated the terrain to reach the lake, our truck making its way through the technical rock sections with ease, to find the entire lake empty of people. This was a surprise, as the last time we had camped here, there had been probably 15 rigs camped in various spots surrounding the lake. We got out and let Bubba sprint down into the lake to have a much needed swim. At this point, we had wheeled for the better part of three hours, and it tires him out because it's hard for him to chill out when he’s getting bounced around in the back of the truck. Straight away when we first pulled up to the lake, we saw swarms of gnats. We tried to not let this get to us, hoping that the wind would keep them at bay. We leveled the truck out at the most ideal camp spot on the lake, but after hanging out by the water watching Bubba swim, we decided to move the truck to a spot a couple hundred yards away, hoping that being a little farther away from the water would result in less clouds of gnats. We set up camp, and Breanne nestled her hammock to hang from two trees, and was asleep within minutes. With her asleep, Charlie laid down on top of our new beautiful drawer system that our friends at Propsect Overland built for us, which turns out, also doubles as a cozy platform to lounge on. Charlie set about enjoying some relaxation, reading his “La Lucha” book from Graeme Bell, which tells the story of he and his family selling everything they own and deciding to travel overland from Africa, to eventually circumnavigate South America twice, and eventually travel from the bottom of the southern hemisphere to Alaska. It was a lovely afternoon, other than when Charlie would look up to see the ceiling of the GFC coated with gnats. After hanging out for a few hours, Breanne woke up from her nap, and we started to think about making dinner. At this point, everything that we had taken out to set up camp with was covered in gnats. Gnats were squished in between the pages of books from flipping pages, our table was acting as a community center, the table and cutting board of our Ultra Swing was lined with them, not to mention the inside of our camper (fortunately we hadn’t opened the tent yet) was filled with them. It was at this moment that we decided to move camp for the second time, and relocate to an area that was substantially farther away from the lake. With the sun starting to set, we hiked around the area looking for a new spot, and found a camp that had substantially less bugs, and was higher up, making it more susceptible to wind. We wanted to find a gustier spot in order to keep the gnats at bay.

With the truck set up at camp, we ran down and retrieved our items which we hadn’t loaded back into the truck, and set about making dinner. We had an awesome dinner of carne asada fajitas. For us, cooking isn’t one of our favorite things when we’re out exploring. Cooking and doing dishes while on the trail always seems like a hassle to us, and keeps us from doing the things that we want to take advantage of while being outdoors. We typically try to just make healthy food that is quick to make. However, on this trip, knowing that we would be at all of our camps relatively early, we wanted to spend some time on our dinners. It was a nice change to stray away from our typical meals. We sat down around the table relatively bug free and thoroughly enjoyed our tacos as the last bit of daylight disappeared. We finished eating, cleaned dishes, hung our trash high up in a tree away from the possible bears, and watched Star Wars before falling asleep. As we fell asleep, the night was quiet and cool. It is a nice change to fall asleep when it isn’t below 30º outside, however once we fell asleep, it was only a few hours before the wind started howling. If you’ve ever been camping, you know that wind isn’t your best friend.

The lake looked very stormy while we were there

We woke up the next morning, exhausted from the lack of sleep, but we woke up and there were no gnats. Before getting out of the GFC, Bubba gifted us with an upset stomach and threw up, but thankfully it was on his own blanket. He had eaten a piece of burnt wood the night before and well, it didn’t sit nice in his stomach. That morning was a quiet, slow morning of overlooking the lake and reflecting on the last time we came. Charlie made delicious coffee for us both and we decided to make an easy breakfast of banana bread with vanilla RX butter on top. Our plan for the rest of the day changed from what we originally had in mind for the weekend. As we finished breakfast, we decided as a unit to pack up and head down away from the lake to leave the gnats and wind. Last time we came up to the lake we were welcomed with every weather you could imagine. One minute it was sunny, the next was dumping rain that turned into hail, thunder and lightning, then sunny again. So this time around we really weren’t sure what the weather was going to be. With our new drawers in the truck it makes packing up so much easier and quicker! We loaded Bubba up and headed out a different way than we came.

Charlie and bubba Checking out this one of a kind location

Crawling up and over rocks, we ended up taking the more difficult way of getting out of the camp spot we were in. We made it up and over the hill to a new area we hadn’t been to. The scenery was fairly similar, with pine trees lining the trail and rocks scattered along the way, we snaked our way down to a part of the trail that was magical. As we drove on the dirt road, the mountains laid in the background with a sprinkle of snow still covering parts that don’t see much sun. It was us and the mountains with beautiful hills and plains between. There wasn’t another vehicle or other campers in sight for miles. Further down the mountain we found another water source on the map that we wanted to check out. As we headed there, we came to a stop and decided to walk down a bit to see if it was worth camping for the night. It was definitely worth it. We came up on a camp spot that looked like it belonged in the show 1883 or Yellowstone. The camp spot itself was nestled in the massive pine trees, but then overlooked an open field with a creek running through. Charlie leveled the truck and we quickly unpacked. Thankfully, it was fairly early in the day, which meant we had lots of time to explore before making lunch. As we made our way into the field which was a mushy marsh from the water running through, we came to a stop at the creek. Bubba was a happy camper because he still was able to play in the water. we were In awe of what we were staring at, watching fish speedily swim upstream and then looking up and seeing the mountains above with snow tops. The sky above became a little darker and sprinkles of rain began to fall from the sky. For the next couple hours it went in and out of raining, but we weren’t upset that there was rain. It was so peaceful sitting in the back of the truck enjoying our different assortment of food for lunch and listening to the rainfall. The rain quickly died down and we ended up exploring some more heading up the creek to see where it took us. This was another day that we had so much time to relax, read, nap, and listen to the beautiful sounds of the birds and creek rushing through the field. That night for dinner we made bison burgers. This trip we really ventured out to cook more extravagant meals each night. Our dinner consisted of bison burgers, with veggies and for dessert Charlie had HU chocolate chip cookies and Breanne had graham crackers with vanilla RX butter! During the evening it cooled off quite a bit, so we decided that we would have an early night and go watch another Star Wars. After the night before and lack of sleep we got, we were hoping for a calm night with no wind. We fell asleep with the sound of crickets, frogs, the bubbling creek, and occasional marmot noises, it was amazing. The morning was just as magical as the day before had been. The sun was awake and giving us a warm hug while we enjoyed our morning coffee and continued to make the famous camp pancakes we love to make! It was truly such a beautiful morning. After a nice lazy morning soaking up the warmth from the sun we ended up packing up to hopefully head out to another camp spot.

We could spend an entire week on this flat alone

The way this little creek navigated through the grassland was so cool

It was really cool to find this super nice bridge constructed in such a remote part of the mountains

Bubby very excited about his little creek

Believe it or not, this creek had hundreds of fish racing through it!

Charlie making his way through a rock section

Bubba and Charlie having an afternoon stroll

While driving the next day and taking in the beautiful scenery we headed down the trail that would hopefully lead us to an adjacent trail taking us back down to the main highway. Unfortunately we got to the trailhead and saw a fairly difficult section of the trail where we stopped to stare at it for a while. This unmarked trail on our maps had a triple black diamond sign at the trailhead. We try to be more cautious when taking harder routes when it is just the two of us in case something does happen, so in this case we made the responsible decision to turn back around. Charlie marked this trail to come back and do it with other rigs for support. It was a major bummer because we were so close, yet so far from where we wanted to be and now this meant we would have to go back the way we came up days before. However, with this minor detour we were able to see some incredible spots and drive a beautiful trail that we wouldn’t have gotten to see if we took the way we initially came up on the first day. As we backtracked toward the main highway, we were planning out where we were trying to camp for the night and hoping to land a spot by Owen’s river. Once we aired back up and headed into town to refill our water and gas we headed North to try and find this river spot we’ve been wanting. The driving felt endless and we kept driving and driving for a large part of the day. The sun was scorching compared to what we are typically used to when coming up to the Sierras. The drive along the Owen’s river was snaking along the base of mountains with no campsite in sight with “no camping” signs everywhere. So, defeated in that area we ended up turning around and heading back the way we came. After checking that one area for a spot to camp we ended up checking out three other places. One highway we took led us up the mountain which resembled the Swiss alps with the snow covered mountains in the distance. Yet again, we turned around to find another spot down the mountain. Regardless of not finding a camp spot there, the views were unbelievable and it was an amazing scenic drive up a mountain. We ended up driving back down to the Lone Pine area to hopefully find a spot in the Alabama Hills area for the night. Tired and hungry it was about 6:30 pm when we came to a stop. When we got out of the truck it was extremely windy, however, we needed to have dinner so we ended up finding a little spot tucked away by rocks and made dinner. Dinner was something we have never done before and we will definitely do again, we made ramen. Ramen was such an easy, quick dinner to make. Although we did wait for the hottest night to make a hot meal, it was so yummy. Once dinner was done and we had cleaned up, we had to find a camp spot for the night. The morale was low at this point. Driving in and out of places that could potentially be blocked by the wind wasn’t looking too great. After not getting any sleep from the first night of hurricane-like winds we weren’t wanting to go another night of another wind storm. It was almost 8 pm and there was still no luck with finding a spot so we made the ultimate decision of heading home. We made this decision because we had to leave early the next day anyway so we thought well, we can just get home late, or stay in a windstorm for the night. That day was a tiring one.

It is always a bummer not having the perfect camp spots, especially because we have been pretty blessed with finding rad spots, but that just shows not every trip will be perfect. Being outside in nature is what matters, and we still had a rad time being together for our 9 year anniversary. The trip was still one for the books and we got to explore some incredible places with immaculate views. It was a learning experience and character building trip, but we got to be together in our favorite mountains. This trip was also fun to get outside our comfort zone and cook different meals we don’t typically cook and we did a pretty good job at making some delicious dishes.

Sequoia

Sierras

Open Trails Open Minds