Words about science and hiking
After a last breakfast at Denny’s I packed up and started walking west out of town. I had thought about trying to yogi a ride over the flat and featureless 10 miles to the Castle Mountains. But there was no traffic on the road (I have seen exactly one vehicle on a jeep road so Read More …
I made the 6 miles into Searchlight by 10AM, passing from desert to derelict trailer outposts to solid homes as I approached the main drag, US95. For a town of 500 people with two motels, rooms had proved remarkably hard to come by. As I was setting out water caches before the trip, I thought Read More …
A clear and windy morning followed the clear and windy night and I was up and moving early. My camp was near the northern terminus of the Piute Range, which then blends into the Castle Mountains, which are in fact a National Monument. One with no facilities or improvements of any kind, but a National Read More …
The wind slacked off after midnight then picked up again at dawn. It has been cold and relentless on this trip, probably driven by a high pressure cell in the Pacific that is also driving storms east and leaving the Mojave brown and barren in what should be its time of greening. After a dry Read More …
Another night of rowdy battering wind, followed by the dreaded sound of raindrops on my tarp at dawn. I was not anxious to get up and get going. I would be heading east through the VonTrigger Hills, then strike out across the mostly flat Lanfair Valley to the foot of the Piute Mountains. As is Read More …
Up at first light, a light dulled by rafts of low clouds. Whether this means bad weather or cool pleasant hiking conditions or something else altogether is impossible to say. In the Mojave, in the spring, you wake up thinking it’s going to be one kind of day and then the wind shifts a few points Read More …
A cold wind howled and tore at my tarp last night, making for a chill and restless sleep. Though secure inside, the violence outside refused to be ignored. It pushed and slapped the thin fabric a few inches from my face, insistent and unrelenting, like a bully trying to pick a fight. I declined the invitation Read More …
I seem to have a talent for drawing nasty weather to the Mojave. Last year’s section hike of the Desert Trail featured rain three of the first four days. The last of those storms was an all-day affair, complete with high winds and flash flood danger. At least today it only rained for half an Read More …
I haven’t posted for a while because I haven’t been out hiking for a while. Normally I would get a couple of fall and winter trips in, but of course nothing about this last year has been normal. I started working last September for a local biotech company (LightDeck Diagnostics), developing a 5-minute test for Read More …