The Working Wanderer

[Gallowbraid]

The following day we decided to check out the other side of the Hungry Horse Reservoir. We went through Martin City and drove out to the road up to Firefighter Mountain. A nice drive but I really wish I could have aired down the tires on the rental truck to smooth out the ride a bit.

After hitting a gate about a mile or so from the look out tower we struck out on foot and took in the views.

The day after that we went into the park and hiked the trail to Apgar Lookout.

A deer came to visit while we were at the lookout.

Spent most of the hike just soaking in the sites but did get a couple good shots on the way down.

 

[Gallowbraid]

On our last full day in Montana we decided to head back into the park and visit John's Lake and Avalanche Lake. We got there early in the morning and hit the trail just as the sun was beginning to clear the peaks. This made for a brisk and invigorating walk to John's Lake down a great forest trail.

We quickly made the short hike to John's Lake and were treated to a smooth as glass surface with the rising sun just hitting the peaks on the opposite side.

After about 4 1/2 miles of lush forest, more moss than I've ever seen and trees that had been shredded by grizzly claws we made it to Avalanche Campground and the trail head for Avalanche lake. If you visit Glacier National Park and aren't into hiking this is a great place to pull off the road and see some awesome sites without walking 20 miles in a day. Immediately adjacent to the campground is Trail of the Cedars, a handicap accessible walkway that winds through the trees and gets you close to the amazing Avalanche Creek as it cuts its way through the rock.

We kept moving up the trail until we reached Avalanche Lake. If you Google images of this lake you'll notice they're mostly taken in the spring when the snow melt and run off make the waterfalls in the back ground a site to behold. This time of year the water falls are reduced to a trickle comparatively, but the site is still impressive none the less.

This area is one of the more heavily used areas in the park and the trail and shoreline are well worn. The park service is trying to invest funds here to strengthen the shore and protect it for future use along with laying out some long term maintenance projects for the trail. If you have a chance to visit the park throw some donation dollars their way at the visitors center. They're doing some great things to preserve this area for future generations.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Copying and pasting over from February 10th of 2016:

So I've had a few projects since Montana, but nothing very exciting. Charlotte turned out to be one of those project where I work, eat and sleep with some commuting back and forth to the hotel thrown in. Houston was pretty much the same. After that I spent a week in Atlanta and hung out around the house a bit. But now it's back to work...if you call this work:

I flew into John Wayne airport on the 31st and waited patiently for a 4x4 vehicle to present itself in the National Rental Car Executive section. Some guy ran around me to grab a Jeep Cherokee that showed up so I got stuck with this Jeep Renegade. Brand new, only 6 miles on the odometer when I pulled out of the rental car area. Let me just tell you now, don't buy one of these. Pros: Polite road manners, quiet and I suppose it has a fair amount on interior room for something so small. Cons: No power, computer controlled EVERYTHING, and it broke with 248 miles on the odometer. We'll get to that later.

The trip up to Big Bear on that Sunday was eventful. Snow was falling, the temps were dropping and the state patrol was checking for snow chains at the bottom of the mountain. This has to be a California thing as I lived in Vermont for several years not far from the Canadian border and you only use snow chains when you're driving through several feet of snow down a trail that never gets plowed in order to reach a snowmobile trail. Anyway, I pulled up to the State Patrol checkpoint and rolled down the window. The officer asked if I had 4 wheel drive, I said I did. He asked if I knew how to engage it, I said I did. He asked if I had ever driven in snow, I said I had lived in Northern Vermont. He laughed and waved me on. Nice guy. It then took me 3 hours to go 10 miles due to drivers who had no business being in the snow.

I settled into my hotel and began my work project which has been plagued by delays due to weather and road conditions and now seismic inspections and permitting. I have found some time to go exploring though. A co-worker came up two days ago to help me finish off the project and she brought something better than a rental vehicle:

Angela is from Arizona so her Jeep didn't care much for hills, much less mountains and snow was a new thing too although she's from Wisconsin originally.

We had some time Monday to go exploring and headed down to the 7 Oaks area where we picked up 1N09 and drove almost all the way to Redlands. Beautiful area out there.

I got to stand on a dangerous rock.

I really wanted to go down this road but my nemisis "Locked Gate" showed up and ruined the day.

We were out until long past dark.

 

[Gallowbraid]

February 10th 2016 was filled with phone calls, permit questions, drilling new anchors into the floor for shelving, rescheduling deliveries, more permit questions and phone calls, massive emails and grey hair. That was all before 11am. Once we were sure no inspectors were showing up until tomorrow and that all the new seismic anchoring was done we hit the trails once more, this time in search of a bucket list item for both of us: The Pacific Crest Trail.

Found it.

We took a few roads on the North shore of Big Bear Lake that according to my topographical map crossed the PCT and we got lucky with gate closures.

Back east we have signs for when the pavement ends. You Californians are odd.

Great views up here too.

We hiked out the PCT a little ways and climbed some hills for the views, I even climbed a tree in the name of cell phone photography.

Ended the day with another sunset.

I mentioned before that the Jeep Renegade broke at 248 miles on the odometer. Let me explain. While up on the northern shore we had the Renegade in 4 wheel drive and were heading up some slick roads with no problems. We exited the snow onto gravel and as I was about to switch back to 2 wheel drive the instrument cluster lit up. ABS needs service, Hill start assist needs service, ESC needs service, Power Torque Steering Assist needs service. The traction control was disabled and 4 wheel drive would not engage. We headed back down to the hotel in 2wd at that point and did a little parking lot diagnostic on the rental Jeep. EVERYTHING is computer controlled so we started with electrical. Nothing was unplugged, nothing was wet or full of dirt/mud save for one connector on the rear differential. This connector was sealed so well, however, that we couldn't get it apart to check for water/dirt penetration. All of the fuses for the applicable system errors were fine as well. Pulled the battery connections to reset everything and still had the same errors after reconnecting.

After some parking lot google searching we found that many people are having similar problems with their brand new Renegades and that the most common fixes were multiple software upgrades and/or replacement of the module that controls the ABS. I've sworn that I will not buy a newer vehicle than my Tacoma, and I'm not real happy with how many computer controlled systems it has. This Renegade is even worse. Probably fine for the average person who wants to venture down a dirt road every now and again, but this particular Renegade Trailhawk should be stripped of its Trail Ready badge. I could go on a rant here about how I just traded in my 2015 Wrangler after 8 months because of electrical and transmission problems but I'll just stop and say that Chrylser has ruined Jeep.

After our parking lot diagnostic session I attempted to get National to bring me another 4 wheel drive vehicle. They preferred that I drive 2 1/2 hours back to John Wayne airport to swap the Jeep. While driving to dinner and contemplating a 5 hour drive vs hours of convincing a National manager to bring me a new car all of the errors in the Jeep simply cleared themselves. Makes me long for the good ol' days of carburetors and points. I've opted to keep the Jeep for the drive to and from work and we'll just use Angela's REAL Jeep for the fun stuff.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Copying and pasting again so the timeline is off. This is from the end of February.

Finished up my stay in Big Bear and now I'm back at home until beginning my San Diego project on Tuesday. Now let's see...where were we:

So we had a semi-broken Jeep Renegade and lots of exploring left to do. After an itinerary change I had to turn in the Renegade and get another rental vehicle to be dropped off at my new airport of departure in San Diego. I decided to go big.

Now I'll state for the record that I've never been a Dodge fan. This Ram Big Horn Edition did win me over somewhat though. Very comfortable and even with street tires it was capable off road.

The views around Big Bear are worth the trip there.

A few deer came out to say hello on the trip back up.

Got to see some really cool rocks.

There was even a topless woman running around.

I was pretty disappointed at the lack of respect the target shooters in the area had for the land though. Lots of clean up needs to be done out here.

Anyone know what this R is for?

 

[Gallowbraid]

Copy and paste from February 25th, 2016:

So today started out like any other remodel: I sat in a parking lot waiting on delivery drivers to, well, deliver things. It is nice when things come in the correct order though and today worked out well with my storage container showing up first.

Everything else showed up in order after that and I was done with work by noon. I headed back to the hotel to knock out some paperwork and grab some food and then I hit the road. It wasn't long into my drive that traffic came to a complete stop and I could tell someone had a very bad day.

From the looks of things the Silverado had plowed into the rear of an old Ford Ecoline van at high speed. The inside of the Silverado was covered in items that had been loose in the cab, including an ingloo cooler that looked like it had attempted to go through the windshield. The bed contained rolls of chainlink fence, but as best I could tell none of it had been thrown from the vehicle or gone through the rear window. Certainly a grim reminder to secure any cargo that's loose inside your vehicle. The van had run off the side of the road and was fully engulfed in flames. Hopefully everyone is ok and makes a speedy recovery.

After that traffic cleared up and in no time I was at my destination.

Anza-Borrego is the largest state park in California, and the second largest in the lower 48. There were quite a few folks in RV's and huge toy haulers hanging out and enjoying the off road opportunities in the area. I stopped to take in the sights.

While hiking around I tried to avoid touching anything sharp.

Just for some scale, and based completely off measurements on Google maps, you can see roughly 40 miles to the horizon here.

The people that live here probably appreciate this view, but for a country boy from the south eastern US this is the coolest stuff ever!

 

[wanderer-rrorc]

Loving this!!!!

 

[1leglance]

What a great work/life balance...
Please please keep updating this thread so others can see you can have a job and an adventure with just a little effort put in..
Thanks and looking forward to more.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Loving this!!!!

Thanks! Me too. :sombrero:

What a great work/life balance...
Please please keep updating this thread so others can see you can have a job and an adventure with just a little effort put in..
Thanks and looking forward to more.

More on the way in just a few moments...

 

[Gallowbraid]

Thanks to a brief break in my schedule here in San Diego I had a chance to go out and visit Joshua Tree National Park today. The more I go the more I fall in love with the desert. Nothing like it back on the east coast.

On the drive out I took the opportunity to tour the March Airfield Museum. Some very cool history there and a lot of displays to look at. As someone who was once planning on an airforce career this was very cool!

They even had things that don't fly!

It wasn't long before I hit Joshua Tree and started taking in the awesome views.

The views further into the park get better and better!

Made it out of the park as the sun was going down and headed back to San Diego for the night.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Friday brought the end of another week of project management and a brief break for some exploration of southern California. I briefly debated a hiking trip to Horse Thief Trail, but decided against it after reading some strongly worded warning about illegal activities in the area.

I opted instead to drive up into the San Bernardino mountains on Friday morning with no real destination in mind. On the way up some of the snow melt was filling up a road side creek and I stopped to take a look.

It seems there are some endangered frogs here in the mountains. Even though the notice was out of date and it's probably too cold for any frog spawning I kept my distance from the creek. The frogs were reintroduced to this area after being bred at the San Diego zoo. The tadpoles must have undisturbed access to water for two years while they develop. The species decline has been attributed to drought, pesticides and the introduction of trout into their native streams that feed on the tadpoles.

I perched on some rocks and logs above the water to make sure I didn't disturb their environment.

If I were a frog this is where I'd want to live.

I then went higher into the mountains enjoying the cool temperatures and the show the clouds were putting on.

Near the top of one ridge I found a service road that cut back down the mountain. Some very nice areas to camp out here.

Flowers were in bloom everywhere at this lower elevation.

Soon I was back into range of civilization and wishing I had rented a sports car for some of these mountain roads.

After heading back down the mountain I pointed the Jeep toward San Diego and called it a day.

 

[Gallowbraid]

Saturday (3/12/16) I was up bright and early and had decided to go to Valley of Fire state park in Nevada. I hit the road headed up interstate 15 toward Las Vegas. It wasn't long before I was enjoying wide open desert views.

On the way I stopped by Zzyzx, an odd little town in the borders of the Mojave National Preserve.

The area was used by prehistoric man with stone tools and art having been found along the shores of the evaporated lake. It's been the site of several military garrisons and the Tonopah and Tidewater Railroad also passed across the evaporated lake bed. Today it's home to California State University's Desert Studies Center. There were plenty of students there when I visited.

Zzyzx is probably most famous though because of Curtis Springer who gave the area it's name in 1944. Springer was a con-artist who had run schemes all over the country, claiming to be the dean of many made up colleges, a doctor and the holder of several fake degrees. He claimed to have the cure to baldness, cancer and several other ailments. Most of his cures ended up being carrot or celery juice. He opened a health spa at the Zzyzx location in 1944 and charged travelers for their stay and his remedies there. Springer didn't believe in paying taxes however, and in 1974 the federal government reclaimed the land.

The dry lake bed of Soda Springs and the surrounding mountains are quite a sight.

Many of Springer's buildings still remain and are used as classrooms and offices by the California State University. There's a short trail with markers about the historical activities in the area. The students seemed busy with what they were doing and I didn't stick around to explore too much.

I did take the opportunity to walk out onto the lake bed and check out the rail road grade.

I got back on the road and headed for Valley of Fire. Photos don't do this area justice and if you've never been you need to put it on your list. It's the oldest state park in Nevada being dedicated in 1935. It covers almost 42,000 acres and features Aztec Sandstone formations that were created from shifting sand dunes when dinosaurs called the area home. The colors here are just brilliant.

The rock formations take on many different shapes, and there's plenty of hiking in the area. Some of the easily accessible areas near roadside stops are covered up by people, but like most State and National Parks if you get off the beaten path and explore a little you'll find hidden things most visitors never see.

While not as brilliant as the super bloom going on in Death Valley the recent rains here had brought out the wildflowers.

Further into the park the landscape changes with the Aztec Sandstone butting up against volcanic rock and sandstone making for some brilliant transitions in color. Even today geologists don't fully understand how some of this landscape was formed.

There was plenty of breccia around. Resembling concrete, breccia is rock made up of broken fragments of mineral and rock cemented together by other fine elements.

 

[Gallowbraid]

The canyons in this area are stunning.

Watch out for the prickly stuff as you hike here.

More canyon porn.

Further into the park I was able to stop and see some mountain goats chowing down.

Part of me wishes the park still allowed visitors to stay in the cabins, but another part of me realizes they'd be filled with families and their screaming children that were visiting while I was there.

With screaming children and frazzled parents darting around I hit the road again and headed out of the part toward the Lake Mead Recreation Area.

After scouting some camp sites down on the edge of Lake Mead I went a little further and found Bittersprings Rd leading out into the wilderness.

I settled in for the night and waited for sunset to put on a show.

 

[Gallowbraid]

I woke up the next morning to watch the sun put on it's show on the other side of the valley.

I started heading back toward San Diego and stopped along the way to take in more views of the landscape. Certainly nothing like this back in the south east where I live.

 

[Aussie Iron]

Just love the Photos, keep them coming.

Dan.