Day 17

Altitude: 1410 ft.  Stoke level: 2 Temperature: 81-54 degrees  Conditions: sunny, clear, light wind

I was awakened by dawn by the sounds of artillery from the local Marine base and the hot-doggin’ OHV people. The explosion sounds I can live with, the mechanized whining of motorcycles, dune buggies and 4 wheelers, I cannot. There was not going to be a scouting mission to the next BLM parcel, I saw that this whole area was dirt central. I was glad to escape this noisy, kangaroo rat infested place. My stomach issues from the day before still persisted, which really dragged me down.

I decided that I was going to go over to the trail that I had marked as a route I wanted to take while I was here. I needed to stop and pick up a few things down in Yucca Valley, so I went and did that. In the process I uploaded my blog and downloaded some podcasts. The traffic was horrible, I felt like I was back in Santa Cruz! I’ve never seen it like this in the times I’ve been here. I’ve never been in this area during peak season, so I guess this is what it’s like. I have also heard a lot of Angelenos have moved here during the pandemic, I can definitely tell. My desert hideaway has been blown up!

I went over to the Visitor Center and it was just chaos. People were everywhere, I’ve never seen anything like it. On a Friday morning as well! There was a ranger posted up at a table out front and I went to talk with him about getting a park permit. The trail I wanted to run runs through Joshua Tree National Park, so to be legal I needed a permit. The ranger was very helpful in pointing out that the trail I wanted to run was on BLM land and ended before I got on park property. I wouldn’t need a permit to run the trail because of this. According to my maps, he was wrong, but if he said it was ok to camp without a permit I was going to run with it.

It was good to be back in Joshua Tree proper, but man o man, were there crowds! It was just ludicrous. It was with great pleasure I got out of town and headed to my destination off Highway 62 in the direction of 29 Palms. Thankfully, as I got out of town, the traffic got down to a normal level. I rolled through 29 Palms and it was the same as it ever was. I stopped at the Statler Bros. grocery and grabbed a few things. I was really craving pickles so I grabbed a jar of Kosher Dill spears and ate a couple, as well as a swallow of juice. I guess my body needed the electrolytes or something. Who knows?

I headed out of town about 10 miles or so to the east. I found the road I was looking for. It was named ‘Gold Crown Road’ and it led to the ‘Old Dale Road’ I was looking for. I turned off on it, deflated tires and locked the hubs. This was going to be a challenging road, so I needed to go in prepared. As I drove down the road, I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t bad at all, at least at this point. I saw all kinds of places I could camp, and as I had full bars of 5G, I should find a spot here and continue up the road tomorrow. It was around 3 o’clock when I started to scout out a camp for the night.

There was a track leading off the road that looked promising, so I headed off that way. The ground looked rocky and solid, so I had no qualms about driving around on it. I was at an area driving around about a quarter mile off the road when disaster struck. One moment I’ve driving around on solid ground, the next three tires are completely stuck! I leap out and assessed the situation. Immediately upon exiting the truck, my foot falls through the ground about 6 inches. It seems that I have run upon a desert trap! On the surface it seems normal, but it is just a thin layer on the ground. For a depth of about six inches or so it is empty space, and underneath it is powder sand. I just drove right into a batch of this nasty stuff.

I’ve never seen anything like this before in the desert. Three out of my four wheels were deep in sand, and my one wheel that was on solid ground wasn’t going to free me because I don’t have differential lockers. Even with half-deflated all-terrain tires and four wheel drive, The Beast got stuck like a duck! In all the time I’ve had this truck I’ve never been stuck like this. Fortunately, I was prepared for this kind of mishap. I got out my traction boards and hi-lift jack and got to work.

I soon realized that I had made a grave error in only having two traction boards. What I had thought when I ordered them is that if two wheels out of four can grab ahold of something, it can get me out of anything. That thinking was oh so wrong. When all 4 wheels are compromised, you need 4 traction boards. So all of my wheels were spinning like mad. I tried 4 wheel drive to get out but that just made things worse. I realized that with two traction boards I needed to put them under the back two wheels and try to escape this trap with two wheel drive.

I brought out my hi-lift jack and jacked up the back end, then slid my traction boards underneath the rear tires. I got my shovel out and cleared as much of the sand around my tires as I could. I got behind the wheel and reversed until I ran out of board. I repeated this process 4 or 5 times and finally, I got free! I was so happy, I was beside myself. It took me around an hour to get free, I still had plenty of time to make camp.

After getting all my off-road gear packed back up into my truck, I was so happy to be free from the trap that I made a critical error. Instead of reversing in the tracks I had made to that point, I tried to turn around. Guess what? I got stuck again! This time it was even worse than before. All wheels were a foot deep into sand. My tailpipe, which is usually a foot above ground, was only an inch off the sandy surface. I had to dig out a hole just so my truck could exhale. It was messed up! I almost called it quits for the night but I felt I couldn’t rest knowing that my truck couldn’t go anywhere. So I got my traction boards and shovel back out and got back to the grind.

This stuck point was so bad. I tried to jack up the truck but the weight of the truck kept pushing the base of the jack into the sand. There is actually a slot built into the traction boards meant for a jack base, but as I needed the boards for traction I couldn’t use it for that purpose. It was a brutal ordeal, I would jack up the truck as high as I could, put the boards under the tires and reverse. I’d get about 6 inches and then have to do it all over again. It was infuriating!

During this process I really screwed up. I had left my jack engaged while I tried to reverse. I heard a clank and rushed to the back to see what was the matter. The rail on the high-lift jack had plunged into the back door of my camper. I tried to go forward to release the pressure and since I was in a hole, I couldn’t do it. I went back to the jack and tried to lower it, but the end of the jack dug into my back door on my camper and opened it up like a can opener. Not only did that happen, but it ground against my rear-view camera mounted in my bumper and took that out as well. I finally wrenched the rail out of my door, but the damage was done.

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Fortunately my door was still able to open, close and latch properly. As for the camera, it only worked around 20% of the time so no big loss there. It was probably a wiring problem before, now I’ve got to install a whole new system. There goes another couple hundred bucks. I had long hated where they mounted it in the first place anyway. Next time I’ll get it mounted anywhere than right over the hard point.

So inch by inch, I kept jacking up the truck and sliding boards underneath the tires. By this point, the boards were pretty much ruined and my tires had big chunks of rubber taken out of them. I tried to be careful as I could to not spin out, but it didn’t matter. Finally, after two hours of getting filthy and sweaty, I finally emerged from the second trap and had all four tires back on solid ground. By now it was almost sunset, I had been dealing with stuck issues for 3 hours.

I felt that this area was cursed, so I blazed back to the main road to find a place to camp that I know wouldn’t give me any surprises. I got to a spot only about 100 ft. from the main road and set up camp. I was so tired and dispirited that I didn’t bother cooking supper, I just made a sandwich. Oh well, the trip had been trouble-free so far. At one point something was bound to go wrong. I was glad I had managed to free myself rather than try and get hauled out, but it came at a cost. In the future I’ll be sure to take 4 traction boards with me, as well as the kind with replaceable studs. I also need to have a base for my jack so it doesn’t sink in soft sand. Sometimes the only way to learn is doing it the hard way. Every time I go on expedition I recognize the gear I need to have to do this properly, and this time was no exception.

Day  18

Altitude: 1410 ft. Stoke level: 5 Temperature: 84-51 degrees       Conditions: clear, sunny, light wind

Today I was just going to take it easy. I was still rattled by the events of the day before so I just wanted to hang out and get myself ready for the solar panel installation. My birthday was tomorrow, and I wanted to have my new panel up and running by then. After I got up, I brought out all my solar equipment to get things assembled. Unfortunately, the directions were really unclear on how to mount the thing properly. I got on YouTube and watched some instructional videos, and everybody did it differently. I got frustrated and started pounding IPA’s, hoping for some liquid clarity. I soon got pretty buzzed and it got real uncomfortable trying to do this in the heat of the desert sun. I finally just gave up and passed out for a while.

Around sunset I woke up and felt a little bit more clear-headed. I drank some Arizona Green Tea and that helped some as well. By this point I was pretty familiar with all the nuts and bolts I needed to use, and I slowly started to figure out what I was doing. I got brackets on the thing and hauled it up on the roof. Next, I had to connect the wiring and hope I had gotten the right parts. Amazingly, I was right on the money with getting all the parts I needed for the wiring job. Now all I had left to do was apply the bonding tape. This part was critical, because the space I had to install the panel only has about a half inch on either side clearance. If I didn’t get it exactly right, the panel would not lay down properly when I lowered it to a flat position. This would cause it to be exposed to the windstream and threaten to rip it off as I was going down the road. Once the mounting tape encounters a surface it pretty much is stuck there permanently, so I had to get it right the first time.

I climbed up my stepladder and took a deep breath to steady my nerves. I then placed the panel down as lightly as I could and checked the sides. I was over one one side a bit too far, so I wrenched up the panel and adjusted it. I checked it again and I had done it! I had my clearance on both sides. The panel wasn’t able to be budged after this, so I got real lucky it hadn’t stuck the first time. I mashed it down all around so I’d get a good bonding. I was overcome with relief. It took me from 5:30 to 9:30 to get it installed, it was quite the ordeal. Now all that was left to do was wait until morning to see if the panel was fully functional. I should have tested it before I permanently bonded it to my roof, but I didn’t think to do so. I guess I’ll see in the morning if it is any good or not. Fingers crossed!

Day 19

Altitude: 1410 ft. Stoke level: 9 Temperature: 82-55 degrees   Conditions: clear, sunny, light wind             

Happy Birthday to me! The first thing I did when I woke up around 8 was to check my voltimeter. I was pulling 5 amps and the sun was barely up! GREAT SUCCESS! As the morning wore on, my voltage and amperage kept rising. Around noon I was pulling 16 volts and around 9 amps. This new solar panel was savage! Usually around that time with my one fixed solar panel, I’d pull around 13 volts and 3-4 amps so this was a vast improvement. Being able to tilt the panel towards the angle of the sun is a game-changer. I bought another set of tilt brackets for my fixed panel, but I’ll worry about that some other time. I’m pulling all the power I need for now. It didn’t take very long at this rate to fully charge up my battery. It’s such a relief to not have to worry about power issues any more. I was thrilled, it was a great birthday present to myself!

The rest of the day I drank a bunch of IPA’s and watched 90’s grunge videos on my phone. Now and then I’d talk & text with people who wished me well. It would have been nice to be in a better camping spot, but as I stated before, I needed to let my panel adhere for at least 24 hours so I couldn’t go anywhere. That was fine by me, I really enjoyed my day. I spent it the way I wanted to in a place I dearly love.

Day 20

Altitude: 1410 ft. Stoke level: 2 Temperature: 80-56 degrees   Conditions: clear, sunny, light wind

I paid today for the revelry I had yesterday. I had a king-hell massive hangover. The concussions from the bombs being dropped at the nearby Marine base rattled my truck and rattled my head. It got hot and I was miserable. I was going to head further up this road I’m on today but I could barely stand up without feeling I was going to pass out. Looks like I’ll be spending another day at this camp. I just chugged Gatorade all day and kept trying to nap just to not feel like garbage for periods of time.

I really hated to lose another day, as I’m entering the final week of my expedition. I took advantage of the downtime and thought about how I wanted to finish this trip up. I had planned on heading up to Mojave National Preserve and maybe running the Mojave Trail again. It’s a pretty technical trail however, and I really don’t want to be stressed out the last few days I’m here in the desert. Using my OnX app, I took a look at some trails up in the lower part of Death Valley National Park that I’ve never been on. I’ve explored up the area around Furnace Creek quite a bit, but I’ve never been in the southern end of the park. The trails are marked 1-3 difficulty on a scale of 1-10, so that sounds perfect for what I want to get into.

I think tomorrow I’ll head up this road I’ve been camped alongside the past 3 days and spend one more day in the Joshua Tree area. After that, I need to do laundry and pick up the supplies I need for this final push. I’m hoping that this expedition will get back on track and I’ll finish it up in grand style. I just got to watch out for that desert sand in the meantime!