Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 3

I unzipped my tent to an early, dim sky.
We agreed to an “alpine start,” waking up right at sunrise. I didn’t sleep too well last night. The winds were terribly loud. You could hear strong gusts ready at the top of Pyramid Peak, then barrel their way down, across the surface of Johnson Lake, and then crash into our tent. It was somewhat fascinating to hear the entire process. Crawling out of my tent, daylight had yet to emerge upon our campsite near Johnson Lake. I threw my arms up high and slowly stretched.

It was a pretty cold at 6:30am, standing below Pyramid Peak and embracing the pure silence. The others soon were rising, and I put on a few layers, being that temperatures were probably in the low twenties. A crazy thing I’ve been aware of while backpacking through Great Basin National Park, was the swing in temperatures. Atop the saddle yesterday, temperatures were hot and not necessitating my down jacket or beanie. But once we descended to Johnson Lake to set up camp for our second night, as soon as the late afternoon sun fell behind the mountains, temperatures plummeted.

Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 2

The sound of crashing rockfall woke me up from inside my tent on the northwest shore of Baker Lake. It was a loud, fast, and trembling rumble. For a split second, I worried if whatever cascading boulders would reach our camp, but I was half-asleep still. Compared to twelve hours prior, I felt much better health-wise. Last night's battle with altitude sickness honestly scared the living shit out of me. Again, more details on that to arrive in a future blog post. Opening my eyes and cautiously moving around in my sleeping bag, the mix of extensive rest, water, and a handful of painkillers was the magical combination I had desperately needed.

I crawled out of our tent and stretched, Feeling more alert and conscious, I was finally able to actually admire our temporary forested abode in the belly of the rocky amphitheater above. We had pitched our tents no less than fifteen feet from the mirror-like surface Baker Lake, with water so unimaginably clear, transparent enough to see every single stone beneath. The water was brisk too, dipping my hand in it and washing it over my face to wake up. Drew had gotten up at dawn, capturing the morning light illuminating the lake and the glow cast on the surrounding members of the Snake Range. I grabbed my camera and mindfully began hiking around the perimeter of the lake. Looking south, I could see Pyramid Peak, the mountain the four of us were hoped to bag later this afternoon, and on the northern edge of Baker Lake, I could stare straight upwards and gawk at the sheer marvel of the amphitheater. Patches of still-lingering snow covered some of the rock.

Backpacking Great Basin National Park: Day 1

Our phones' alarms rang loud far before sunrise and we gathered all of our gear before heading downstairs to the hotel lobby for breakfast. We had spent the night at a Ramada in Provo, Utah where we slept two to a bed. With less than five hours of sound shut-eye, I was exhausted and devoured as much coffee, pint-sized blueberry muffins, and questionable eggs as I could before we began our 190-mile drive west for Nevada. All four of us and our gear filled Drew's Toyota Highlander Hybrid, and we followed U.S. 50 for hours as it penetrated its way into the vast openness of western Utah. The road flawless road carved around burnt red rock formations and past mirages of Sevier Lake, and the almost fictional mazes of BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land.

U.S. 50 was dubbed as "The loneliest road in America" by LIFE magazine back in 1986, and it really is. As it stretches from the dry western flats of Utah into the deserts of eastern Nevada, the road is perfectly straight and for the most part completely flat. Even as a backseat passenger, it was hypnotizing. Feelings of monotony and vertigo evolved we pushed towards Baker, the gateway town to the entrance of Great Basin National Park. Cell service nonexistent, we crossed the state line into Nevada on HWY 159. The road switched from pavement to gravel and judging by my guidebook, we were accessing the park from its southern boundaries. Drew pulled over somewhere off of HWY 487 and I hopped out to stretch and orient myself with the paper map I had been resorting to. I expressed to the others I could already feel how thin the air was. It was a dry, hot air too. I gazed up at the forested Snake Range mountains on the near horizon, it had been a minute since I'd seen any minutes and it was a great, bittersweet feeling.

Pausing quietly for a few seconds, I got my bearings straightened out and explained to Drew which road we needed to head down to reach the main park entrance. We hopped back in the Highlander Hybrid and continued towards Baker. There wasn't a lot in Baker; two standalone gas pumps, a few homes to the town's 65 residents, a restaurant called Kerouac's, and a general store with groceries that doubled as a lounge at night.

We followed signs for the national park, and I couldn't contain my excitement. For years I've dreamed about exploring this place, and I was stoked to finally step foot in it. I got my camera out had Chadd take a picture of me smiling and standing in front of the "Great Basin National Park" sign, then carefully propped it on the hood of the car for a group picture. The mutual eagerness to get out on the trail was growing and we were all thrilled at the immediate mountainous scenery that filled every corner of our eyes.

Gearing up for Great Basin

Greetings, it's been a minute! August and all of its busyness is gone while the fresh month of September has now arrived. Anywho, there's an adventure on the horizon soon! Crunch time begins in less than a week I'll be hopping off the plane with three of my best friends in Salt Lake City to begin a three-day backpacking trip through Nevada's desolate Great Basin National Park. I've always strived to explore this under-the-radar, quiet national park (the only one in Nevada), and bask in its rugged wilderness.

This Thursday, three of us will be scooped up from the airport by another friend and we'll spend the night at a hotel in Provo, Utah because well... that free continental breakfast before our drive west to Nevada. When we arrive at the 77,100-acre national park located in the deserts of Baker, NV, we'll join a cave tour before strapping on our packs and heading out into the backcountry for three days.

Our plan is to loosely follow the Pyramid Loop, a 13-mile trek that passes through thick subalpine forests, groves of aspen, crosses creeks, includes a craggy exposed ascent above treeline, and stops at two serene glacial lakes. It all sounds like heaven to me. The folks at Backpacker Magazine have put together a solid overview of our rough route. Camp one will be on the shores of Baker Lake in the shadowy amphitheater below 12,298-ft Baker Peak. Saturday morning we'll begin our push up the steep, rocky alpine saddle atop Nevada's Snake Ridge that divides Baker Lake and Johnson Lake on the other side, no doubt the most difficult and risky part of the trip. If we're clear of storms and conditions allow, we'll attempt to scramble up to the west ridge of 11,926-ft Pyramid Peak. Bagging that peak, next we'll carefully descend down the saddle towards smaller Johnson Lake at the bottom, where we'll likely set up camp two for our second night. A nearby grove of aspen may be our best bet to pitch tents and cook dinner on Saturday night. Sunday morning, we'll wake up early and press forward on the Snake-Baker Pass through more clumps of aspen and flowery meadows, cross Baker Creek a few times and return to the trailhead Sunday evening. On our way back through the deserts of Nevada to Utah, we'll make a pit stop at a restaurant called Kerouac's (how perfect is that, right?) for celebratory beers and pizza. It'll be an adventure for the books, that's for sure, and I can't wait to blog about it on here.

But, there's a lengthy list to get done in the coming days before we get to Great Basin. A massive box from Mountain House arrived the other day with dozens of dehydrated meal packs that need to be sorted, last-minute studying of the map and plugging in various backcountry coordinates into my handheld GPS unit, verifying our Spot Satellite GPS beacon works to track our progress and if we run into an emergency, laying out all of my gear on my apartment's dark hardwood floor and determining what to stuff inside my 65L Gregory Baltoro pack, monitoring the weather, and of course training. Since our expedition on the park's Pyramid Peak Loop will command nearly 4,000 feet of elevation gain, much of it in altitudes past 10,000ft, I've been training as much as I can by hiking for miles with a weight vest on.


Cheers,
Robby

Farewell to my first adventure mobile

At the start of June, I was doing an oil change underneath my beloved 233,000-mile"Adventure Mobile." On my back, I looked up and noticed a catastrophic amount of rust on the frame, so bad I could put my entire hand through it. My heart plummeted. I knew that was it. The time had come, and for the sake of safety I needed to say goodbye.

I’ve bought and sold a few cars over the years, but I honestly didn’t expect it to be that difficult and hard for me to get rid of this one. I credit the fact that this small black wagon has been with me through some of the best and triumphant peaks in life, and also the hardest and unsure. For six years and 127,000 miles, I relied on that 2005 Saab 9-2x to get me to both where I needed and where I wanted to go, and the thought of it being absent felt mortifying. “But come on, Robby, it’s a just car,” I kept telling myself, looking for excuses to shake the sad feelings I had become overwhelmed with after taking insurance off of it, hypothesizing over how much it would cost to fully fix, and then accepting that it’s dangerous to drive. This was an important car for me, so here's a tribute.

I learned that it could serve as a refuge of warmth during my first solo camping trip in the north woods of Governor Thompson State Park back in late October 2013. It was possible to spread out across the middle row in a sleeping bag, even being over six feet tall. I learned patience when it came to repairing things big and fixing things small. Some things on this car were easy DIY tasks, others were cumbersome and a journey For example, having to remove the entire front bumper just to change a burnt-out headlight, was harder than installing a new alternator.

So I bought a $49 tent at Target

One year ago, I took a gamble and bought a cheap tent at Target. 

I was heading north to spend four days at Amnicon Falls and Pattison State Parks located in Superior, Wisconsin and an ear-shot from Duluth, Minnesota. and was tired of using my beloved, trusty backpacking tent for car camping. I wanted a simple tent for only car camping, something spacious and basic that I didn't need to worry about or care if it gets abused and tattered. It also had to be cheap. Coleman's Flatwoods II was on sale, so I quickly scooped it up for $49.99, threw it in the back of my station wagon, and hit the road running for the northwest corner of the state.

While you can read my initial first review here, after spending more than 30 nights in this budget tent over the past year, a long-term update was due. Here's a take chronicling all of the good, the bad, the surprises, and of course any future predictions I may have about this inexpensive, entry-level tent.

At $49, Coleman's Flatwoods II has proven itself to be a reliable tent that's easy to set up, roomy enough for a queen-sized air mattress and other belongings, plus after a few gos in unfavorable weather a worthy place to retreat to when dark clouds loom above. In the 14 months of ownership, I still always grab it from my cache of outdoor gear whenever I've got a Friday night to Sunday evening car camping trip on my calendar. The big doorway makes getting in and out effortless, there's storage pouches and hooks above to hang things, and its two-pole design allows for it to be pitched in less than ten minutes.

As expected, a cheap tent brings mediocre-quality components. Out of the bag and almost immediately, the disappointing thin tent stakes bent after a few taps with the back of my axe. To fix this, I picked up a set of heavy-duty, thick metal stakes that anchor the Flatwoods II more firmly into the ground. Also, the metal rings attached at all four corners of the tent (where a stake slides through when stretching your tent out on the ground) were flimsy and began uncoiling during my third or forth trip. I think I may try to repair these broken loops with metal key rings found at my local hardware store. Thankfully, the rain fly has held up, as have the mesh screened windows, rugged polyethylene tubbed floor, and surprisingly all the plastic zippers which feel shoddy.

For the most part, the Flatwoods II stood its ground through the elements. During a recent extended holiday weekend camping trip at Potawatomi State Park, we kept dry in a fierce Door County summer storm and at Council Grounds State Park a few days ago, not a single rain drop entered the tent after it downpoured all night. Its tubbed floor means no ground-level seams help in keeping any pooling or rushing water out of the tent. Now let's talk about wind because Coleman claims this tent has been tested in and rated for wind speeds up to 35 mph. Last fall Brenna and I spent a night camped in South Dakota's sprawling Buffalo Gap National Grassland, which borders Badlands National Park to the north. The solitude was like nothing else I had ever experienced car camping...as was the wind. We woke up the following morning to our tent almost flattened by constant, violent wind gusts easily pushing past 50 maybe even 60 mph. I was honestly shocked the tent didn't get completely destroyed. The flimsy fiberglass poles surprisingly held their shape with minimal bending, but a growing rip big enough to put four fingers through had formed at the arch of the tent on the seam above the zipper for the door. I called up Coleman's customer service to ask about a possible replacement and a frustrating, unsuccessful email exchange led me to purchasing a tent patching kit from REI. We'll see how long that lasts. The lesson learned? A quality tent will keep you safer, more comfortable, and last when conditions turn for the worst like my Eureka Taron2 backpacking tent. I would not trust the Flatwoods II in any kind of backcountry endeavor, despite its "Good For Backpacking" marketing ply on the carrying case. This is a product meant for a traditional sheltered campground.

If I can get another year of car camping use out of this $49 tent with minimal to no issues I'l be impressed. Like with any piece of outdoor gear, routine upkeep, and maintenance almost grantees a long lifespan, and while the Flatwoods II is on the cheap end of the tent pricing scale, I still treat it as if it were a multi-hundred dollar tent. At the end of every camping trip, I let it dry fully, patiently refold it, sweep the inside, and sometimes even wipe down muddy spots with a hot towel. It's kind of common sense, if you don't take care of something, it's bound to break. I plan to continue using the Flatwoods II for all of my car camping trips, because at this point it's gained my reliance for that purpose and that purpose only. It's carrying case though? Doubtful. Coleman really dropped the ball in providing a small, frustrating tight zip-up bag to house your tent even when folded neatly and correctly. An inch or two of room would make a drastic difference.

Cheers,

Robby  

A June update

One of the greatest perks of a home-based job is having time in the morning to sit down and blog for a bit before jumping into my busy workday. 

Usually this happens right as I pour my first mug of coffee out of the pot, crack open a window to let the fresh Shorewood air in, and let the creative side of my brain start waking up. The fact too that today these early thunder are making things even moodier helps. As this Friday begins, I wanted to reflect on my favorite morning routine whenever I go camping because looking through my apartment's bay windows at the stormy gray sky outside has me reminiscing of dreamy moments at the campsite on a Saturday morning, like the scene pictured above. That moment was captured at Nelson Dewey State Park, where my girlfriend and I spent a wonderful weekend of late summer camping last August along the western edge of Wisconsin, atop the Mississippi River valley.

What's your go-to agenda in the morning once you crawl outside of your tent? I like to take mine as slow as humanly possible. After stretching, I'll fire up my camping stove and cook a hearty breakfast of usually eggs or oatmeal. Sometimes bacon joins the menu, sometimes not. There's always delicious fruit on-hand, an occasional donut, and the mandatory hot coffee. Over the years I've mastered the art of collecting the single-serving coffee pouches you find in hotel rooms, which work perfectly for car camping and backpacking. I'm telling you, it's the easiest hack ever and perhaps life-changing. Give it a go.

With my fingers gripping a ceramic mug of steaming coffee, I'll unfold my camping chair, set it up with a view of a picturesque forest view, and spend an hour or two silently reading. I'll divvy my reading between the state or national park's visitor newsletter learning as much as I can about the park's history, activities, fauna and flora, study the trail map and plan out my day's itinerary, and jot down any notes I may have in my travel journal. Last year on a trip to Badlands National Park, I brought a pack of colored pencils with me and began intricately sketching memorable scenes of the unfathomable landscape I was temporarily living in. That's become a key part of my morning routine at the campsite, too.

Then there's the hardcover books. My go-to book I bring with me on camping trips is a vintage copy of C. Frank Brockman's Trees of North America, a gorgeous, hand-illustrated field guide written in 1968 to the major native and introduced species of trees in the United States and Canada. It's a real gem, published by Golden Press of New York, and packed with information about the hundreds of different tall arbor friends I hope to all someday meet. I picked this up in 2014 ago at a used book store and its since traveled around the country with me. While it's definitely weathered and tattered, it brings me upmost happiness to sit down in the morning at my campsite, with the aroma of fresh coffee billowing out of my french-press, and try to match the trees I see beyond my tent, with what's drawn out on the pages below me.

I feel like having a solid, golden morning ritual you can create, develop, and then practice on your own is important to really being present with yourself and the outdoors. What do you do in the new day's beaconing sunlight that brings you peace, joy and comfort?

Cheers,
Robby