Back to winter

I spent a fantastic week down in Death Valley with my friend Chris and his friend Steve. Steve lives in DC so he's a city boy now but he did great with the hiking we did down in the desert. The weather was beautiful the whole time we were down there. The only thing close to cold that we had was when we camped at the higher elevations and that was only in the morning before the sun hit us.

Chris had all of his stuff packed into his truck, with a bike on the back and a canoe on top. We got some interesting looks from people considering that we were in the desert with no water for floating that boat. We took the 2 worst roads into Saline Valley at the end of the trip, going down Lippincott and going out of Saline via Steel Pass. There were no problems other than the fact that my second day down there I ran over a small bush which punctured my tire on a side wall so I had to make a 100 mile detour to Pahrump to buy a new tire. That was 200 miles round trip and took most of one day to do it. Next time I go down there I might just bring an extra tire with me in case that happens again.


The hot springs, as usual, were the highlight of the trip for me. It was mid 80's most of the time, maybe a little warmer in the bottom of Death Valley and I came back to Susanville last night and woke up to snow this morning. It's not sticking but the temperature as I type this is 32° and there are snow showers. Talk about a shock to my system... I have to get ready today for my fishing trip down to Shasta, I'm leaving for there in the morning so I need to get repacked, laundry done, and buy some more food... and oh yeah, beer. The weather next week when we will be down there is predicted to be rainy in mid week so the nice tan I started down in the desert might fade some before I get another chance to work on it.

Here's a short clip of the worst spot on Steel Pass..