Tag Archives: desert camping

I Went Backpacking to Find $2 Million in Gold

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Join me for 3 days of Backpacking, Camping and History as we search for the Lost Dutchman’s Gold Mine in Arizona’s Superstition Mountains.

For this desert backpacking trip, I headed south to the Superstition Wilderness, within the greater Tonto National Forest – about 60 miles east of Phoenix, Arizona.  Not only was this a beautiful and scenic hike due to the stark desert surroundings and sharp, rugged peaks, but this particular region has added bonus – a rich history full of intrigue and lore right at home in your favorite spaghetti western flick.

Some of these tales are indisputable facts.  Others, are more debatable – the stuff of legends and mystery.  The most notable and famous of those stories is that of “The Dutchman Jacob Waltz who was supposed to have had a secured a secret gold mine in the area, and that of Adolph Ruth, who met a mysterious demise many years later trying to find the gold after Jacob’s passing.

Whether the Lost Dutchman’s Gold was an actual mine, or a hidden cache that was originally mined elsewhere, depends on which version of several accounts you choose to believe.  In fact, even the fact that he came upon it accidentally is up for debate as well.  Some iterations of the tale suggest that he was given the details of the hidden mine after saving the life of a man who belonged to a wealthy Mexican mining family.

As the legend goes, Jacob managed to live off the gold keep it’s whereabouts a secret from local treasure hunters and bandits for many years.  Until, on his death bed in 1891, he confirmed the gold mine to his caretaker Julia Thomas and provided her with info on it’s whereabouts.  Apparently, it wasn’t quite enough info, because they never found it after years of searching.

Word spread, many more people started searching, and they continue to search until this day.  People have gone missing while searching, some have even had their skull found right on one of the trails we hiked on our loop, complete with two bullet holes and their body found separately in heavy brush 1/4 of a mile away.   That man was Adolf Ruth, who went into the Superstitions on a two week expedition in search of the gold back in 1931.  He never showed up at the end of those two weeks, but he did leave a bunch of strange clues and unanswered questions…

Trailhead Used
Peralta Trailhead
Gold Canyon, AZ 85118
N33° 23.858′ W111° 20.873′

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Facing the Elements: Joshua Tree Backpacking in a Rain Storm

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Join me for 3 days of Backpacking, Hiking and Desert Camping in the Rain while  exploring California’s Joshua Tree National Park.

For this winter desert camping adventure, I decided to do a solo backpacking trip in Southern California’s Joshua Tree National Park.  I chose the Maze zone as my primary area of exploration, with the added possibility of hiking along the storied Boy Scout Trail as well.

Due to backcountry camping permit regulations, I chose to obtain a permit for camping within the Maze Zone, with the possibility of hiking into and exploring the Boy Scout Zone by day.  This was mostly due to the fact that the Boy Scout Zone is the only JNP zone that requires you to specifically get a permit for 1 of 8 specific campsites, and I wanted to have some more flexibility to choose my campsites on the fly.

Getting a permit for the Maze zone allowed me to camp anywhere I wanted as long as I was at least 1 mile from an official trailhead, one half mile from any road, and 200 feet from any trail.  Prefect – that sounded like exactly the solitude I was looking for.

Being February in the Mojave Desert, my expected temperature range would be from roughly 40 to 75 degrees or so.  What about rain, you ask?  Well, 336 days out of the year, the answer would be a solid – “No need for rain gear over here!”.  I apparently arrived on one of those 29 other days.  No worries though. I think it provided a pretty unique opportunity to see the Mojave Desert during one of it’s most vital times for survival of plants and animals in this arid environment – a desert rain storm curtesy of El Niño.

For sleep and shelter, I packed in my Outdoor Vitals Fortius trekking pole tent, a 3-season sleeping pad and my Hammock Gear 40° down quilt.  Reliable drinking water is pretty much non-existent in Joshua Tree National Park regardless of the season, so I was tasked with packing in all of my drinking water for the entire 3 day trip.  For this reason, I decided to skip the usual dehydrated backpacking meal choices in favor of some cheap and easy ready to eat food options.

I also opted to ditch the stove and just go the no-cook backpacking food route, because why not?   Honestly, my pack was jammed to the hilt with water, and I just wasn’t in the mood to carry more fuel and cooking supplies.

Route Overview – Smoky Mountains Little River Gorge Backpacking Loop – Sintax77

A permit is required for backcountry camping in Joshua Tree National Park.  You can reserve them on the Joshua Tree National Park website here.

Full GPS track data, including campsites, water sources, etc, for this trip and many others can be downloaded on my Trip Data Page.

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My Wife Dropped me at the Mexican Border – Yuma County Backpacking

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3 Days of Desert Camping and Backpacking in Yuma County Arizona.

For this backpacking trip, I headed even farther south to a remote corner of Arizona not too far from border with with Mexico in an area known as the Kofa Wilderness.

For sleep and shelter I brought an ultralight trekking pole tent, 3-season inflatable sleeping pad, and a 40 degree sleeping bag, as the forecasted temperature range for this December adventure would range fro highs in the eighties down to as low as the upper 30’s depending on wind conditions and where I chose to set up camp in the vast array of mountains and valleys found in this corner of the American Southwest.

My choices for camping food on this backpacking trip would be pretty simple – mostly because there are no reliable water sources in this desolate sampling of the Sonoran Desert. Since I would have to pack in and carry all of my own drinking water from the start, there was little reason to spend money and effort on traditional dehydrated backpacking meals.

Instead I chose to hit the local dollar store for some calorie dense, if not nutritionally diminished, food sources. The end result? 3 days worth of calories for under twenty bucks, and no water or stove required. …there will plenty of opportunities to eat salad back in civilization. If I manage to get back there…

Trailhead Used:
King Road Access, 1/4 mile north of Yuma Customs Checkpoint on AZ Rt 95

Trails Used, Day 1

  • Horse Tanks Jeep Trail
  • None

Trails Used, Day 2

  • None
  • Random animal trail (?)
  • None

Trails Used, Day 3

  • None
  • Kofa Horse Tanks
  • None
  • King Road

 

 

A Strange Find in the Forest – Wood Stove Camping at 9,000′

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Backpacking & Solo Camping in the Snow Covered Mountains of Utah.

For this 3 day fall backpacking trip, I headed to the Wasatch Range to explore some snowy higher elevation trails in the mountains overlooking Utah’s Great Salt Lake.

The Wasatch Mountains span roughly 160 miles from the Utah-Idaho border down through central Utah, forming the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the Great Basin region. I chose to do an end to end hike for this trip, starting near Ogden, UT and utilizing a portion of the Great Western trail to hike along the ridge overlooking the Great Salt Lake nearly 5,000 feet below.

Route Overview – Wasatch Mountains Backpacking Trip – Sintax77

With a daily temperature range in the upper 70’s down to a bit below freezing at night, I decided to try my luck and still keep my backpacking load-out relatively minimal with just a 3 season sleeping pad , sleeping bag, and a light weight trekking pole tent. There’s nothing quite like wearing a t-shirt to keep cool during the day, only to wonder if you’ll be melting snow for drinking water later that night. Those desert like temperature swings really do keep things interesting.

To deal with the cold nights and mornings I packed three supplemental clothing items – a pair of synthetic base layer bottoms, puffy jacket, and lightweight knit hat. I also made the smart decision to hike wearing mesh trail-runners. I may have regretted this once I ascended past 8,000′ and into the heavily shaded pine forests…

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Hiking Zion National Park – Camping & Backpacking in Southern Utah

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Come along for 5 days of Hiking, Camping & Backpacking in Southern Utah’s Zion National Park.

For this adventure, I’ll be spending 5 days exploring Zion National Park with my friends Derrick, Dave, and Tayson from Outdoor Vitals and Randy from Outdoor.Detour on Instagram.  We’ll be doing 3 different backpacking / camping trips: A backcountry West Rim Backpacking Trip, Exploring & hiking the Frontcountry Zion National Park area while car camping in Springdale, Utah, and a backcountry camping trip on a top-down Narrows hike, ending at the Zion visitor’s center back in Springdale.

Note: All backcountry camping in Zion requires a permit. For details, visit the Zion NPS website.

Limited time offer from Outdoor Vitals – Get the camping pillow I’m using in this video for FREE by clicking here.

Objective #1: Backcountry camp on Zion Canyon’s West Rim

Trailhead Used: West Rim Trailhead, Near Lava Point Overlook.
GPS coordinates N37° 22.899′ W113° 01.370′

West Rim Itinerary, Day 1

  • Park at the West Rim Trailhead parking area on the dirt service road near Lava Point.
    This is a gravel lot with parking for at least a half dozen cars or so.  It’s about a 40 minute drive from Springdale, Utah. The latter part of the drive is on a dirt road, but non 4wd vehicles should be fine with a bit of care.
  • Head south on the West Rim Trail
  • Setup Camp at West Rim campsite #4 GPS N37° 17.144′ W112° 59.030′

West Rim Hike Elevation Profile- Sintax77

West Rim Hike-In Mileage: 8 miles
West Rim Hike-In Gross Elevation Gain: 1,073

West Rim Itinerary, Day 2

  • Backtrack north on the West Rim Trail
  • Return to the trailhead parking lot near Lava Point.
  • Ghost town pit-stop in Grafton, Utah
  • Continue on to Springdale, Utah.
  • Check into the Quality Inn campground in Springdale, within walking distance of the Zion visitor center and park entrance.
  • Have some tacos at the Whiptail Grill, right next door to the campground. I got the “Fire Asada” tacos and they were great. If you like spicy food that’s actually spicy, I would highly recommend the Whiptail Grill. Heck, even if you don’t like spicy stuff – they have milder options, plus a fun & unique casual atmosphere as well. Oh, and the view is amazing too 🙂

Objective #2: Explore Zion National Park’s Frontcountry & Springdale, Utah.

Zion Frontcountry / Springdale Itinerary. Day 1

  • Wake up at the car campground in Springdale,
  • Take the free Zion shuttle, or a short walk north to the Zion National Park visitor center / entrance.
  • Take the Zion NP bus from the visitor center to Big Bend.
  • From the Big Bend bus stop, take the trail south along the Virgin River to Weeping Rock.
  • Road hike a bit along the Mount Carmel Highway to soak in the sights.
  • Hop another free Zion bus back towards the Springdale Visitor Center.
  • Explore Springdale, eat some ice cream at the Zion Candy Company on Zion Park Blvd.

Objective #3: Hike and Backcountry Camp the Narrows, from the Top Down.

Trailhead Used: Chamberlain’s Ranch Trailhead (aka Zion Narrows Upper Trailhead), Duck Creek Village, UT
GPS Coordinates N37° 23.121′ W112° 50.339′
Note: This was an end-to-end hike that required us to park a second vehicle at the Zion visitor center in Springdale to use as a shuttle back to the starting point.  The drive from the visitor center back to the Chamberlain’s Ranch Trailhead is around 80 minutes.

Zion NP – The Narrows, Top-down Hike Itinerary, Day 1

  • Park at the Narrows Upper Trailhead in Duck Creek, UT.
  • Head southwest on the trail, which is actually dirt road, closed off to vehicles, for the first 3 miles.
  • Continue to follow the trail along the Virgin River, through the Narrows.
  • This trail is very easy to follow, as it is literally the river. A majority of the time will be spent walking in the river bed in ankle deep to knee deep water depending on conditions, depending on current water-flow conditions.
  • Note for reference: The ccf reading during our trip was roughly 40 CCF.  Anything under 50 ccf is considered to be relatively ideal. Above 100 cfs, conditions can be difficult and hazardous. At 130 ccf, top-down narrows hikes will be closed. At 150 ccf, bottom up Narrows hikes will be closed.  During a flash flood, flows can exceed 1000 cfs.
  • Setup camp at the Narrows campsite #12.  N37° 19.982′ W112° 57.373′

Zion NP – The Narrows, Top-down Hike Itinerary, Day 2

  • Break camp and continue south along the Virgin River.
  • Exit the trail and catch the free Zion bus at the Temple of Sinawava shuttle stop.
  • Return to the Zion NP Springdale Visitor Center
  • Drive back to retrieve starting vehicle (~80 minute drive)

Notable Gear Seen:

A Tour of Texas – Hiking Big Bend & Mexican Border Road Trip

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Join me for a Tour of Texas, from the Gulf of Mexico all the way to a Hike in Big Bend NP, via an adventure along the Mexican border. 

For this adventure, I’ll be travelling (via air) from Philadelphia to San Antonio, Texas.  After landing, the plan will be to grab a rental car and immediately travel 7 hours west, following a route along the Mexican boarder, to Big Bend National Park.  Big Bend holds the distinction as America’s largest protected swath of Chihuahuan desert.  Another of Big Bend’s unique distinctions is that around 118 miles of the Mexican / American boarder lay within it’s boundaries, hugging the deepest point of the Rio Grande.

My plan is to arrive at Big Bend National Park before sunset on day one and make a mad scramble for the Window Trail, which is said to boast some amazing sunset views across the Chisos Mountains.  Assuming I pull this off, my next task will be to awake just before that burning globe comes back around again, and make way for the tallest peak amongst the Chisos Range – Emory Peak.  After that – a quick retreat to the car, a modest rehydration and clean up, and then it will time to hop back in the rental car once again.

Just to keep thing interesting, my plan will be to take an alternate 7 hour route, further to the north, to return to San Antonio.  At that point, I’ll scoop up Sara and head an additional 3 hours west to the Gulf of Mexico.  More specifically, the Corpus Christi region, for some beach front camping, which would be a first for us.

Of course, all of these plans assume that everything goes as expected.  I mean, they never get unexpected or sever weather on the Gulf Coast, do they?  Wait…  do they?