camping – PhotoKent's Musings

2024 Key Activites and Moments

I know, this is 2024 and i forgot to publish so here it is. Stay tuned for 2025.

January 2024 — Dealing with a back flare up from early winter which pretty much knocked me out of commission for about 8 weeks. Stenosis due to old age and the body out of warranty prompted numerous trips to doctor(s) followed by injections and meds and PT and lots of body deep tissue massage. I started to come out of it but no travel. Able to serve in several capacities not requiring much physical effort. the good news is by late 2024 it was under good pain management with out serious drugs involved and i have learned how to function pretty much as before (this is written in Feb 2025). Didn’t get to take birthday trip to Morro Bay tho 😕 as i couldn’t ride bikes

February — Began to feel more normal again but still not going anywhere. Sold our mountain bikes, and road bike and bought Gazelle Step through e-bikes. Ananda held its week long Inner Renewal week with many guest speakers and activities. Was able to attend morning talks and serve in my usual capacities. Tax season looms as usual. No trips yet. Last trip was October 2023.

Limping out on Badwater Basin in Death Valley.

March — Light at the end of the tunnel here. Some additional medical procedures and, of course body work helped me begin to feel this body might last a few more years. We headed south to our usual haunts in Tucson. Catalina State park and McDowell Mountain County park NE of Scottsdale. I was able to ride the new bike easily and began to recondition the body for longer rides.

April —- a few more days of cycling and walking in McDowell Mountain saw us canceling the Grand Canyon part and heading for Colorado river only to find way too many speed boats loudly driving river all day long. So we bolted after 2 nights and headed over thru Carrizzo Plain to Morro Bay for a belated birthday visit. Loved it. End of May saw me in Gualala on the north coast of CA for Ananda Velo bike trip with the guys

May —. Began on North Coast then back home then a spontaneous trip to Grand Canyon since we got snowed out in March. Spent last week of May including Memorial Day camping hiking, ogling, and cycling.

Riding the Gold Country Challenge 56 miles, over 5k vertical

June — Did the Nevada County Gold Country Bike ride. 54 miles. Then also 50 mile RT Downieville to YUBA Pass. Then Up to Truckee area for a few day at elevation to enjoy the Tahoe area. Sraddha and I cycled 25-40 miles every day of trip. End of month was Ananda Village’s annual weeklong Spiritual Renewal week. Many guests from all over the world come for this event and we spend a lot of the week helping out in various capacities.

Part of the herd watching World Cup soccer on my iPad.

July — Annual “gathering of the herd” as i like to call it. Sraddhs’ sister’s family gathers for a week in July and we usually join them for a few days. This year it was in Loeb State park in southern Oregon coast. We drove up North coast and stayed in the Redwoods first for a few days then afterwards ventured up to Nehalem Bay and Netarts and then back down the coast via Bullards Beach and home. Almost 3 weeks of travel

August — first half of August busy at home serving and other responsibilities. Last part was an impromptu trip via car to Bozeman, MT, for a rendezvous with the Nunn family, my cousin Tom and his daughters and families. A total blast. We will be returning.

September — back up in Tahoe Truckee area for a few few more refreshing days of cycling before the snow sets in. As i look at my months calendar it is packed with visits, meetings etc. End of September we head north again to Portland for some specialized service on our camper van. Need an outside baggage door repaired. Had the starboard side repaired here last summer and now the port side needed hinge replaced. So up we go. Then headed across Oregon and Idaho thru Sun Valley area to Salt Lake Utah to see nephew and family. The down to Goblin Valley Utah. Amazing place. And over to Moab and Dead Horse point state park

October— we hit 6 National Parks in 2 weeks. All of them! Including North Rim of Grand Canyon. This was the big trip of year! In order, Canyon Lands, Arches, North Rim, Capital Reef, Bryce and Zion! Plus we encamped Dead Horse point SP next to Canyon lands, and Kodachrome Basin SP at the base of Bryce. Escalante Petrified SP near Escalante Staircase Otherwise stayed inside the other parks in their respective campgrounds. Fun cycling every location and one highlight at Dead horse point was using a Starlink Satellite dish to watch UW Huskies beat Michigan. (No cell service there).

November — pretty much stayed home for rest of year. We needed the time to recoup and enjoy the fall, cleaning yard for winter and spending time with friends.

December — is a deep time here spiritually. Many events and celebrations. December Kriya, World Brotherhood day, Christmas Concert, many good football games and cycling despite the cooler weather. No major snow events but it was a wet month. I maintained regular Pilates, Peloton, body work to manage the back and stay healthy. A lot of quiet time too.

All in all a pretty good year considering how it began. 18 state parks, 6 national parks, several forest service campgrounds. And a few boondocks nights too. A year of van camping in a 7 month period. Recuperated from back issue to being able to ride 50+ miles in a day. Culminating in a restful quiet end of year. 2025 will have several van camping trips but 2026 may have others.

Wondering around the Yellowstone

Ask me if you know, our camper van is an LTV Wonder. We purchased it in late 2019 just before COVID, and have been traveling around the west ever since.

After the Tetons and a family gathering in Eastern Idaho we wandered, or “Wondered” up to the Yellowstone. We had scored a 3 day campsite reservation in Canyon Village near The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Many of you have read of our hikes and travels in the “real” Grand Canyon but there are several others, not the least of which is the one in Yellowstone National Park. Much of the canyon is actually yellow or hues of yellow, hence the name.

Of course we had to visit Old Faithful. In the past we had cruised by, stopping briefly but decided to make it a go-to place this time. Found a great parking spot way in the back. Pro Tip — Arrive early and have the pick of a spot. We had afternoon shade. Spent 2 days here, including our own breakfast.

We spent a several hours admiring the lodge and even took the 45 minute tour. Unfortunately the photographer of our group spent too much time ogling and not enough time taking photos. Trust me when I say this is one of the most amazing and original lodges in the national park system. Worth a visit. Sraddha did score a pair of earrings tho. They are amazing.

Another day we spent on bikes and foot around old faithful. The riding is slim unless you dare venture out onto the main road, which we didn’t. A 3 mile trail exists to ride down tov the north end of the main geyser area which we did, then we walked around some of hte other areas. Here are a few photos and maybe a video.

Splash geyser in action

We also visited the grand prismatic spring but it was too early and cold so mostly steam. That’s what photographers do…find the shot when the one you wanted wasn’t there.

Steam rising from the Grand Prismatic Spring

Grand prismatic outflow into Firehole River

We didn’t spend a lot of time in the campground. Pretty boring with lots of lodge pole pines. We just chilled. We did walk around the visitor center and village area.

The last morning we departed for points north, we decided to to check into Norris Geyser basin and WOW. We arrived like 630 in the morning. We were the only people out in the basin for at least 30-40 minutes. Truly amazing. Like being back in millions of years ago. And no humans except us.

On the way out to West Yellowstone we stopped to gander at Gibbons Falls

The Yellowstone is so vast it is hard to conceptualize and really describe. We can only hit a few highlights, however, when we are up in 7000-8000 ft elevation, it is very psychically clear. Peaceful, even in in mid summer. We hardly noticed the crowds.

Heading north to Bozeman to visit a family member and “moochdock for a few days including a real shower….

A little trip thru the Tetons

well, it’s been a while since I’ve posted, lol, but I won’t go into all what’s happened. We are on a six week journey in July in the middle of the summer where everybody else travels and it’s usually something we don’t like to do, but we’re doing it.

We headed out on June 29 through Angel Lake their Wells, Nevada then onto the Tetons. On our way to a family gathering reunions are up in eastern Idaho, but first we spend a few days in the Tetons and then after Idaho we’re gonna head up into Montana for a few weeks and then we’re gonna come back to Utah for a wedding. All this is about six week trip.

We’ve been staying in Gros Ventre Campground on the south end of the Tetons and then traveling in different places every day. having been a regular visitor of the Teton Park in the last few years we kinda have our preferred places and since this is a fairly short trip, we decided to go ahead and visit those. We spent a day at string Lake, which is just near Jenny Lake, which afforded us the opportunity tosit out on the Waters edge early in the morning with nobody around. Then take a 25 mile bike ride down to the visitor center and back and also park for a day at signal Mountain facing the wind River range and just enjoy the weather. We had four different rain storms that came in.

When we got to Idaho specifically Ashton Idaho at the Jolly camper RV park, which was absolutely delightful and shaded in the afternoon during the 90° days it was quite delightful except for one thing. We had to replace our macerator pump. The macerator pump is what delivers the Black and Gray wastes to the sewer and it had died. Fortunately, I knew this was eventually going to happen so I bought another pump and with the help of our neighbors we are uninstalled the old one and put the new one on. The rest of the trip we visited with Sraddha’s family and also did some bike rides on the rails-to-trails bike trail nearby, which was used to be an old Union Pacific Railroad rail line.

All in all it was an enjoyable time with everyone and now, after 10 days on the road, we will next head up to the Yellowstone.

The Canyon beckons

This was supposed to be posted last June but i dropped off the blog verse so here goes.

It seems we just can’t stay away. Once again last March, our plans to visit the Grand Canyon were thwarted due to weather. So we rebooked ourselves for late May when we knew there would be no snow there.

My health is proved quite a bit. I am able to manage the back pain and deal with the results pretty well through a course of exercise, stretching, cycling, and some low impact pain meds like they say better living through chemistry no no opioids, though no way.

During our March trip to southern Arizona, we planned a four day journey instead of the usual two day journey. It was a bit which turned out to be a bit too much. We arrived too early at our locations with not much to do nearby.

So this trip, we decided to make it a two day trip and actually it worked out really well. First night. We went over the Donner Pass and down the 93 to Beatty stayed the night and then on to the Grand Canyon the next day arriving in Williams for lunch at our favorite tacos Place

This trip was truly a Grand Canyon vacation. We drove to the Grand Canyon stayed in, stayed in the Grand Canyon and drove home.

Trying to book campgrounds at the last minute at the Grand Canyon, as well as other famous national parks, prove to be quite challenging. Fortunately using website called Wanderinglabs.com, enabled us to score a last minute cancellation for three nights at Mather campground in the same location. I made a bunch of one day reservations at Trailer village. Total of 6 nights.

It was a real fun trip we cycled every day out to Hermits rest (6 days in a row). We hiked down to Cedar Ridge. We walked along whole crest trail from Bright Angel to Kaibab.

Weather was fantastic and the Memorial Day weekend wasn’t too bad. Some photos with captions below.

Below the Rim Postmortem

We are a few days removed from the hike and still feeling worn out. We are in Tucson area having moochdocked at our friends place, doing laundry and looking at photos. We moved over to the Tucson Mountain Park to commune with the cactus. Then over to Catalina State park, then over to our friends place in Oro Valley. We have absolutely no ambition to hike despite being in very good shape. No injuries. Just drained. Interesting. It’s like we floated on a sea of grace and hard work to make the hike down and back. And now feel a part of us was left in the canyon.

Granted we are really ok just feeling like a couple slugbugs. Still in recovery tho.

We are asked if we would do it again. Being in the canyon is magical. Being on the rim looking down is magical (if you spend some time doing so, not just 30 minutes of selfies).

We loved being in the canyon. We loved the hiking. The tent camping not so much anymore.

We wouldn’t mind staying a few nights (minimum 3) at the Phantom Ranch to savor the area more deeply. However, practically, that presupposes a 1 day hike down and 1 day hike out. Is it doable? With some additional conditioning it would make it a little easier. With some planning, we could arrange for most items to be transported by mule both ways thereby only needing to carry water, essential first aid, and snacks for hike down and back. Will we?

One of our favorite lunch spots in Tucson

The key here is planning and the phantom ranch lottery is chancy. Nevertheless we will take some time to recover and decide later if we wish to make an application for a permit and reservation.

In the meantime, we will savor the experience, with gratitude, enjoy the memories and photos, laugh at our foibles and move on to what is next. Like visiting the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum. Desert or Dessert?

We are doing a little walking and bike riding. Exploring. Running errands. And on to the next day, the next moment, the next adventure.

The memories remain fresh. The images still return. Glad I took a bunch of photos. Would we love to return? Yes!. Will we? Um….TBD.

A reflective view from trip makes it hard not to want to.

Grand Canyon Below the Rim, Day 4 – Up Bright Angel Trail to the Rim

We begin our last day of 4 with a “hearty” 🙄 breakfast and coffee as we discussed our plans. Temp is about 37 degrees. Temp at the rim is probably 25 but will rise to 45 or so by the time we arrive 5.5 hours later. Be sure to click on the scenic photos below, to expand and enjoy.

We break camp and pack up trying to get an early start on the 4 mile 3000 ft switchback hike pretty much straight up with snow the last 2.5 miles as you can see from the photo below. It appears daunting but doable.

A perennial stream, Garden Creek, cuts through Havasupai Gardens, which is great for soaking aching shins. But there’s an even more significant water source here—a pump house. (Photos below from the internet).

What is truly amazing is that this water travels thru a 16-mile pipeline from a natural spring about 3,500 feet below the North Rim, across the Colorado River and up to Havasupai Gardens. From there, it is pumped to the South Rim, without which there would be no water on the South Rim where a large portion of the 6 million who visited the park in flushed toilets, took showers and filled water bottles.

Looking back north and down toward the Havasupai gardens camp

A little side note: we were told of the 6 million visitors annually, 1 percent or 60,000 walk at least a little ways below the rim. Of that, only 10% or 6,000 hike to the bottom. Wow. Pretty rare company I guess.

The first mile let us get warmed up for the switchbacks. Then the fun begins as much of the trail is shaded, a but muddy here and there AND, definitely icy. Some parts get sun but not much so we stopped in the one place for sun to take our major break. Glad we did.

Up the switchbacks we go. Not a lot to tell here. Huff Puff! The photos do the speaking.

I stopped several times to look around and take a snapshot of the view of the deep canyons

Eventually we made it,but didn’t get a photo right at the top of the trailhead right near Kolb Studios. We celebrated, then headed directly to the shuttle bus station, ready for a shower back at the the van….which we hoped survived the cold during our trek and it did so admirably. We had left the electric heater turned on low, the Truma water heater on Eco (42 degrees) and it survived the 25 degree nights with 40 degree days. YAY!

Relief at the shuttle bus stop awaiting our chariot to the shower.

We did it!!! Not bad for a couple old farts approaching mid-70’s who hadn’t backpacked for almost 40 years. About 25 miles total in 4 days. 5000 feet down and 5000 feet up. 3 nights in a very small tent (ask us about it 🤣). We were ready to celebrate with a good meal at El Tovar Lodge with our companions. I will do a postmortem in a day or so for those interested. Suffice it to say we are glad we did it and tent camping is probably not in our future. All in all it was amazing and satisfying. Over a week later, we are still in recovery.

Our group. from the left, Kent, Sraddha, Kendrick, Mandy, Jan, Dave. The Crème Brûlée already disposed of.

We want to thank our guides, Mandy and Kendrick for their patience, understanding, expertise and support along this journey. We couldn’t and wouldn’t have done it without you. Their website is https://www.mandyleaphoto.com/