we car camped friday night. we left LA around 4pm, got to sequoia around 9 or 10 at night. set up base camp at lodegepole and called it a night. woke up the next morning and headed to the visitors information center and got our permit for backcountry. we were very much on our way around 10am, saturday morning. we did a 8 mile hike to our second base camp. the hike was pretty much in snow and fog the whole entire time and it was freggin awesome! due to the freezing temp my camera died out the first day. so i dont have too many cool pictures. here are our pictures documenting the trip:

my poncho

waiting in line to get our backcountry permit.

1.1 mile into our hike. next stop: wolverton cut off in 3.0 miles… 1/2 way to base camp #2

iz dere sumthin’ n mah teef?

eatin’ mah lunch, poor boy sandwich! yum!

how cool do i look…?

some one froze off their balls

fresh bear paw prints in the snow!!

there is 1 deer hoof print…

it cleared up for like 2 mins…

8 miles and 6 hours later.. we reached base!! and this is where my battery dies because its about 30 degrees and snowing. loves it!!

that night we went to be in damp clothes. we didnt know conditions were going to be this bad so we didnt bring enough dry clothes. it was a cold and wet night. but we survived. me and mo had a hard time getting up in the morning. it was like 30 degrees the whole entire time and snowing. the snow came down pretty hard too. the only water proof thing i had was that stupid poncho. so i tried my best to stay dry.

saturday morning, having breakfast

i feel so hardcore

after breakfast we packed up all our shit and headed back to the trailhead. there is no way we could stay another night over here, due to our lack of clean clothes and conditions were only getting worse and worse by every second. the snowflakes just got larger and larger. i was sad to go… but i’ll come back for round two, and i promise i’ll be more prepared the second time around.

on the way back… the trail is covered in snow….

see the snow?!

we hauled fucking ass. we did 8 miles in 4 hours. got to the trailhead around 3 or 4. i stripped off my layers and luckily michael had a pair of dry sweat pants for me to borrow. so i was finally dry and kinda warm. i was able to dump out muddy water out of my boots. i threw my poncho away…

we made the 5 hour drive back to LA. i got home around 9pm, took a shower and knocked the fuck out.

I have the following items

For Michael:

1. I have a huge black tarp in my car, I don’t know what is it, but it’s definitely not mine. I guess that’s your Black Diamond tent footprint?
2. I have your battery pack. A lot of batteries.
3. You cool sunglasses
4. A lot of candies, energy bars. It was in your pack the first day, but you moved them into my bear canister that night.
5. Your snowpeak propane fuel for Jet Boil
6. Oh yea, your water proof-good ass-compressing-stuff sack.. damn it! I wasn’t going to tell you, I was gonna steal it for Zion trip! but since now you know already.. wtf..

initially this was weekend me and mo were supposed to head out to palm spring and do the san jacinto trail… but he got a call from the rangers station last thursday saying the trail is closed due to a possibly that there might be a forest fire. some red alert fire thing, i dont know the proper term. so… a change of plans, we cant simply sit still this weekend especially since we were so looking forward to san jacinto. the easiest option is to do the santa anita loop.

we left around 7:30 am on saturday and had breakfast at denny’s. went over to charle’s house to feed his dogs after a hefty breakfast. after that we jumped on the freeway and headed for a pit stop at REI and stocked up on some freeze dried camp food. i picked up a new pair of trekking pole, a titanium cup, and a new tank top. so we were at rei with kala (the beagle) and they had a sign out there that said “no pets, we welcome guide dogs”. so mo was like, “okay we can make kala into a guide dog, just put some sunglasses on her”. we froze for 3 seconds and was like “dude thats not right”. haha, mo you silly bitch.

after we were done with REI we headed off to the trail head and started our hike around 10:30am. here are the pictures:

we got to base camp (a 4 miles hike) after 2 hours. we got every thing set up and backtracked 2 miles to chill at the waterfall.

the water was freezing!!

my shoes havent been this clean for a long long time. i almost forgot they used to be baby blue.

the water was freezing!! i didnt go in but mo fell in after slipping on a rock. then he had hard nipples for the rest of the time. haha.

then it got too cold. so we hike back the 2 miles back to base camp.

there were a lot of bugs… A LOT. so we gathered a shit load of fire wood and started a camp fire. GREAT SUCCESS!!!

mo wanted me to announce that THIS PICTURE IS POSED. the GIANT fire log was my idea. i hauled into camp from somewhere because as you can see… we are low on fire wood.

see how long that thing was? and see how dirty i get!!

the next morning we hiked Mt Zion and headed down the mountain. it was time to wrap up this trip and go home.

having lunch somewhere along the trail

we found a cave.

/end

1. Flying Base Camp
We were at Bad water and Artist Drive, the wind started to picking up. We were worried about our tent, cause we got there late on Friday night, we just pitched the tent freestanding with no rainfly and no stake down! We hurried back to check on our tent, pheww… still there, good standing under sun shine. Then just about we get out of the car, bang, the tent went flying in the sky, lmao. We arrived just on time, or were we just bad luck…

2. Sweating dog. This has to be the funniest stupid joke I ever heard. We were shooting super soaker all afternoon, people were so jealous we got cooled off like that, and this old Hans guy came to our camp, then saw our soaked Advanture Dog, he goes “oh my, your dog must be hot” We were like hell yea, everyone’s hot, then he shot out this stupid comment “damn, she’s all sweating like that, all soaked” I almost cracked up in front of him, but I held it so hard, we were like are you serious Hans….

3. Bad smells…  humm.. actually no more comments on that, LiChin told me to go see Doctors…

this is lichin reporting:

i have decided to elaborate on the “bad smells”. it wasnt just “bad” it was like getting your mac computer run over by a semi bad. it was so bad that kala started choking on the smell… and this is when i busted out the plastic bag… because she was literally about to throw up in the car. so i bet youre wondering where all this “bad smell” is coming from? dont look at me… cuz i smell good and dont look at kala… she’s a dog. yup, its mo. this motherfucker has the stankest feet ever and he blames it on his “sandals”. his exact words: “oh i know, i took it to the beach and stepped in salt water, maybe thats is why my feet smells”. saying that it smells bad is a total understatement. let me try to describe the smell to you: it is like some sort of steamed fish but got left out in a humid climate for a week and has gone bad. his feet had a very salty and sour smell. the drive back on sunday was hell, with the AC going his foot oder was circulating around the whole car, then kala starts choking again, so i bagged her for the 10th time this trip. bottom line: that kind of smell is not normal…. mo, go see a doctor. 

so i’m back from death valley. after being out in 100 degree weather for 2 days with no shade what so ever, i have finally developed somewhat of a tan… with minor sunburn. so here is how it went:

me, mo, and kala left LA around 5:30 pm on friday and headed towards the hottest place on earth… literally. the drive took 4 1/2 hours, its almost the same distance as if i were to go to vegas… except death valley has less slot machines and keeping hydrated is the key to staying alive out there. we planned on camping out at stovepipe but that campground was closed, which sucked because stovepipe is only 2 miles away from the sand dunes. the sand dunes was our first place of interest @ 5:30 am because we wanted to catch the sun rise due to the fact that shadows will be casted making the dunes not so flat on film. since stovepipe is out, we had to drive to the next campsite… which was 20 some odd miles further down. by the time we found an available spot and set up camp it was well past midnight. i had the hardest time falling asleep… i’m still debating if i fell asleep at all on friday night. the night temp was very plesant so we didnt put on the rain fly and the roof of the tent was mesh so we could totally see thousands of stars out in the night sky… it was beautiful! next morning once mo’s alarm went off we left our base camp and headed towards the sand dunes. here are my pictures documenting our whole entire trip… well most of it anyways:

here is mo and kala

hiking in sand is hard work… we worked up quite a sweat that morning hiking from dune to dune getting the perfect shot.

look closely… i wrote something in the sand

*wink*

awww

then the sun got too high and the dunes lacked depth so we headed off to the next point of interest:

badwater!

that white stuff i’m walking on is basically your typical table salt

i was curious so i put some in my mouth and yea… it was pretty salty

salt crystals

next point of interest:

exactly what the sign says. but it no longer looks like the picture… probably due to erosion, well thats my guess.

next point of interst: Artist Drive

its basically a mountin that is in shades of green and purple… like an artists pallet.

and i dont know why i am standing like that

Adventure Dog is looking emo

then we headed back to base camp for lunch, little break, and an all out super soaker war (super soaker war not pictured). it was 100 degrees on saturday and we were burning up. so i changed into my bathing suit and we cooled each other down by shooting each other with super soakers for about 30 mins. then i dumped a gallon of water over my head… it felt soooo good.

after a cat nap we rolled some vanilla flavored tobacco but mo’s turned out looking like something exploded…haha this cracked me up.

then we changed into our running gear, packed up everything and started our 2 hour drive to the racetrack. we parked the car by the explosion crater, which was right before where the off road starts and did a 3 mile run in 90 deg temp @ 5 pm… it was crazy!

*bump bump bump*

we saw a destination sign decorated with tea kettles, we had to stop for pictures:

thats us… +kala… i left out her name, i am a bad person.

by the time we got to the only camp site  by the race track it was already dark. luckily there was only ONE more available camp site, the other FOUR were taken. the racetrack campsite is extremely small due to its remoteness. racetrack valley isnt even really in death valley… the racetrack has its own valley. we set up camp, cooked dinner, drank monster/vodka, and did some trick photography. i will post those later. we planned on waking up at sun rise again to take the best photos. with alcohol in my system i slept very very well.

the next morning:

this is the mountain-ish rock that i will climb to take the next shot

that speck… is mo

we got our shots and the sun got too high, so we headed back to base camp 2

by this time kala (aka Adventure Dog) is dead tired. its probably 8 o’clock in this picture and she’s knocked out on our sleeping bags. she is the biggest sleeping bag hog ever. whenever we lay out our sleeping bag kala jumps on it and just crashes. she wont get up unless we force her to… i guess she likes down bedding.

after breakfast (coffee and cup o’ noodles) i join her.

we chilled in the tent for a little bit, then it got too hot. messed around camp some more then around noon we packed up everything and it was time to go. but before we left the racetrack valley, we stopped by the racetrack again to get pictures of the famous “moving rocks”:

and the train is never late:

then kala takes a dump right on the fucking racetrack… but i decided to make the best of it:

so i made it artsy fartsy! this is when mo goes “why are you playing with shit?!”. yea… then i got rid of it.

racing rocks + mo… mo is coming in last.

then that was the end of the race track. i was sad to leave. the trip is almost over. i really really really didnt want to go back to LA. there are still so much to do here in death valley and sooo many more pictures to take. *sigh*

but lucky us the land rover took a shit! so we hitch hiked to nevada…. um actually i lied. the rover is fine and this picture is posed.

one last stop: Scotty’s Castle

by this time we’re already dead tired and kala’s beginning to refuse to come out of the car with us. we took a short nap on the lawn of the castle before we went to go check out the structure.

spirl staircase. this officially marks the end of our death valley trip. it took us 5 hours to drive back to LA. after 2 days of not showering, the first thing i did when i got home was drop all my gear and headed straight into the shower. as much as i miss being in death valley and didnt want to come back… it feels good to be home.

its 4 lbs and 11 oz. thats pretty light!! its for 2 ppl and i’m loving the 2 pole design. on top of everything its free standing. i got it off of steepandcheap - one deal at a time, until it sells out. i got it for $75 bucks… plus $10 for shipping because SAC never offers free shipping. which is still a pretty good deal in my opinion. now i have my very own tent!!

i still havent found the footprint for this tent yet. the model i purchased is 2007’s model, from information that i’ve gathered on other websites i’ve learned that the new footprint (2008 model) for the tephra doesnt fit the old model (2007’s, my model) due to a redesign. i cant find the 2007 tephra footprint anywhere!!! augh. so this is a problem… HALP!

Anywy, I think there is a slight chance I might stay here in LA… Sharon can’t decide. She want to open so bad, but like everyone is against her, so she doesn’t have the fund to open? Anyway, still not sure.. but if I really going to stay, we’re going to have a blast of summer fun. Right now I am already thinking of Apr 25th weekend Death Valley, May 23rd weekend Zion Narrows, and San Jacinto Peak over night trip again in between, then Aug 7 HCSC yay~ let’s do this. I am going to update my iCal when I get back home and sync it to this calender here.

One last thing since you guys like to use strike that much, let me just try one.

i wonder if we can bring the dawgs… i doubt it, but it would be soooo cool if we could!!

but since we’ll be hiking through water and what not… our fecal matter will be a problem. we have to carry our own poo the whole time, there is no place to bury it. how sexy.