The Owens River Valley 400

[Turboyota]

Trucks:

@Kellyex1450 Kelly’s sleeper linked 80’s toyota
Do Dah’s TC/Deaver gen3 4Runner
FatJeff’s ‘88 TC/Deaver 4Runner
@Motiracer38 Beaumont’s ‘92 linked toyota
@dose Dusty’s ‘97 linked Tacoma
My linked @Turboyota



Dirt miles day 1: 40
Water crossings day 1: 0
Washouts slammed at speed: 0
Casualties: none
Tools touched by the group: none
40oz beers consumed: 4

Day 1, Thursday.

Me & FatJeff met in Redlands and hit dirt at the 15/138 junction in the Cajon pass. I got 4 miles of dirt in by taking Swarthout Canyon Rd from historic Route 66 up to Lone Pine Canyon Rd close to Wrightwood. Topped fuel and bought tallboys of King Cobra off Airbase/395 and continued on dirt North of Adelanto. With impeccable timing, Motiracer38 dropped in behind us after checking out an inaccessible camp spot on the mojave river. Dusty drove down from Mammoth and met up with us with nearly perfect timing also. Only hiccup was trying to find my dropped pin. We camped on top of a very windy mountain with a burned/out structure that left hazardous nails and fasteners everywhere. Views were awesome, fire was awesome, and the fire ring rocks started popping off chunks of rock and shooting at us once they warmed up. We drank Highlife 40’s to celebrate Fianna’s 40th bday. Do Dah showed up around midnight and and set up camp in the blustery wind. Nobody else seemed to have trouble finding the pin did they, @dose?

 

[Turboyota]

High class gas station dinner, dusk pics, and 40oz appreciation from night 1.

 

[Turboyota]

Dirt miles day 2: 172
Water crossings day 2: 0
Washouts slammed at speed: 0
Corners drifted slightly wide into the bushes: 2
Grasshoppers annihilated: 1000’s
Casualties: none
Tools touched by the group: none

Day 2: After a hellaciously windy night, Kelly came blasting up the trail bright and early at 720AM much to our viewing pleasure. From our vantage point, we watched him flog his Toyota whilst driving like an aggressive asshole for over a mile before his triumphant arrival at “camp nail detritus.” Kelly’s driving elicited tumultuous laughter and cheers, exclamations of “fuck yeah, dude” and high-fives from our moderately hungover group.


Hello there amputee JennaAntenna!


Hello @dose ’s Jenna antenna


We headed northeast toward Hinkley and visited the Desert Lighthouse.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Lighthouse






After the lighthouse, we visited a dry lakebed in the supersonic corridor just outside Black Mountain Wilderness. No flyovers or dogfights, so we engaged in some high speed figure 8 lakebed drift action.





From the lakebed, we headed into Black Mountain Wilderness and made stops at an ancient waterfall and then to inscription canyon to see some petroglyphs.

 

[Turboyota]

Forgot this fuckery!

Right before the lakebed, @Kellyex1450 completely fucking destroyed the bed of his truck. A bbq, icechest, box of food, and all the camping supplies had a creampie gangbang in his Toyotas back door.


We all drank beer while Kelly and Thomas gave the sleeper yota an enema.


Grasshoppers were like a fucking biblical plague.

 

[SaltyMethods]

"Eat ze bugs..."

 

[charlie brown]

nice run and report. how is your truck now compared to before?

 

[Turboyota]

nice run and report. how is your truck now compared to before?

There is a lot more to this report!

Truck is everything I imagined it would be. 37x10.5R15 Tensors are fantastic, 15” up travel in the rear is dope, and I can drive very aggressively in twisty curvy flowy stuff even without a sway bar. 60% rear weight bias is sweet—did a couple sick slap wheelies. Still barely ever touching the rear bumps even on really big hits—I’m going to open the top 2 bypass tubes a few turns each.

 

[Turboyota]

Day 2 continued…

We stopped at a miners cabin carved out of solid rock.




Beer/regroup stop on the way from Black mountain wilderness toward Husky monument.




Husky monument has grown exponentially over the years—if you haven’t been, it’s a really cool place to visit.







After husky monument we headed north and zigzagged through Grass Valley toward the X15 crash site.

Northeast of Cuddeback en route to crash site memorial




After reading all the cool information boards we dropped into Johannesburg for fuel, beer, snickers ice cream bars, and ice. We cruised through a very washed out Iron Canyon—the main trail had 12-18” steps at the edge of the wash. Next stop was Indian wells brewing for some delicious microbrews.



Next, we passed through fossil falls, then headed northwest into cactus flats where we found a badass camping spot on a dry lake bed.

Dropping into cactus flats. Zoom in on these fuckers…



To be continued…

 

[Turboyota]

Day 2 concluded.

Campsite on night 2 was amazing. Nice fire pit, found a stash of nice hardwood to burn, made s’mores, got inebriated again—Ervin the BROmanian got hammered enough that he went to bed in my RTT and switched our sleeping bags so I had to sleep in his regular sized bag, and minimal wind—just one gust that blew over the chairs and scattered beer cans helter skelter

 

[Turboyota]

Day 3: Cactus Flats to Bishop

Dirt miles day 3: 102
Water crossings day 3: 15
Hassled by the goddamn cops: 1
Washouts slammed at speed: 4
Grasshoppers annihilated: 1000’s more
Bodies of water we swam in: 2
Casualties: my front left tire developed a slow leak and Kelly blew a rear coilover hose
Tools touched by the group: tire pump
Mosquito bites on my hands: 52
40oz beers consumed: 8 during 40oz roulette

Woke up to an absolutely beautiful dezert morning amidst the Joshua trees and majestic rocky hills. Crushed redbulls rockstars and coffee and headed up to see a nearby mine.

Overlooking our campsite from the mine vantage point. We camped on the left side of that lakebed.


These gargantuan caterpillars were everywhere.


After the mine we found some Bitchin’ 2-track



After enjoying about a mile of seldom-traveled 2-track, the BROmanian yells into the intercom “tuuuurrrrtlllle!!!”

I curb stomp the fucking brakes at 50ish MPH and fully lock and skid past the turtle missing it by only about a foot whilst calling on the radio “tortoise ahead fucking STOP!!!”

We hung out and let the little guy meander under Kelly’s truck and head to safety in the flower patch. The keen observer will notice dirt on his shell that was showered atop his mobile house during my harrowing skid.


^^^ Thomas watching him live his happy tortoise life

Passed this cool miner cabin


Got fuel, beer, and breakfast pizza in Olancha. Gas was only $6.40/gallon! Dusty broke out his snorkle to impress the overlander tacoma/4Runner fags that were driving by on their way to shit all over Alabama Hills and take fucking influencer pics for the ‘gram.

Can’t see it in the pic, but the water crossing right behind Kelly’s truck was at least 2 feet deep. I was hoping to catch a splash as I blindly took this pic. Fail.


We continued jumping back and forth across the 395 until we got to the Charcoal Kilns. The fucking roof blew off the protective cover since the last time we were there!


To be continued…

 

[Turboyota]

Video captures from Fiana and Do Dah. As a group, we really suck at video documentation of our shenanigans. We need @badlinesgoodtimes @dwphoto and @theycallmeWALLY to accompany us and get the sick content.

I love the horns and snorkle in the @dose pics!!

 

[michael_gonzalez]

The snorkel on the wipers… lol

 

[dose]

Best trip ever!

 

[84projectFORD]

Hell yeah, well put together write up as usual my friend!

 

[Turboyota]

Day 3 continued

After the hill climb at the charcoal kilns, we stayed on the East side of the 395 and headed toward the tweaker-occupied mining/processing plant that we encountered on our first Mammoth trip.

After the sandy hill climb, I radioed that there was some really soft bullshit pea gravel sand coming up, and to keep speed up or be in 4WD. I missed a turn in the throes of said fucked up sand on the first mammoth trip, which led to some near stuck situations for both me & FASGLAS Taylor… I nailed the soft sand turn this time, and proceeded to blow the next turn and slam through the same ditch I did on the first trip. Fuckit. Baby steps.

Me: “newfy, get the .45 out of my backpack, we are approaching the tweaker factory”

Newfy: “got it. Loaded”

I slammed another of many washouts as we approached a cattle gate, and much to our chagrin, the gate was very securely tied with black/orange mexi-gardener rope, so I made the call to turn around and we jumped over to the West side of the 395. The tied gate and previous experience with the tweakers was a definite sign for me…

Right before Diaz Lake on the southern end of Lone Pine, we jumped on the 395 for like 1/2 a mile. All 6 of us regrouped at a turnout on the side of the highway. As @dose was pulling onto the highway, a CHP was heading southbound on the 395. Right as he passed all of us stopped next to the highway, his brake lights lit up.

Me: “fuck, that cocksucker is turning around.” “Yup here he comes.”

We all didn’t move, and watched the fucking pig whip a bitch and unnecessarily aggressively accelerate back toward the remaining 5 stopped Toyotas.

Newfy: “FUCK!!! Hide the beers! Hide the guns!!!”

I stuffed empty beer cans behind the seats and under tool bags while newfy unloaded and stashed the .45.

As the fucking cop rolled up on us, I stuck my left hand out the window with a big “thumbs up” to let him know that we were okay and we appreciated him checking on us.

Fucking cop: “you need mud guards on that vehicle” (all of our vehicles were fucking slathered in mud, and lo and behold, my tires stick outside the fenders by like 10 inches…

Me: “you’re right sir, I’ll grab some at NAPA up the road.”

Fucking cop: “your friends need mudguards also”

Me: “I’ll let them know. Have a nice day, sir.”

We met @dose 1/2 mile up the 395 and jumped back on the dirt and backdoored into Diaz Lake. Got slowed down by some helmet-less RZR fags and a quad, but did another few stream crossings and arrived at Diaz Lake for a much-needed swim.



After a refreshing swim and some VERY refreshing Coors lights, we dried off and headed into Lone Pine for ice, 40oz’s, and I bought a semi truck mud flap and some self-tappers. I strapped the mud flap to my spare tire to be dealt with later.

Hi DoDah and FatJeff!


We checked out our favorite camp spot on the Owens river, and it was fucking full! People found our fucking spot! Cocksuckers! We had no intention of camping there, but still…
The Owens river was overflowing it’s banks and was higher than any of us had ever seen it.

Next stop was Reward Mine. Surprisingly, I didn’t miss the turn off this time!



Road up to the mine has some fun rocky sections



After talking shit and drinking beer with the overlanders and Raptor bros at the mine, we continued North toward Kearsarge and then Tinemaha reservoir.

 

[Cleandezert]

epic, i love all the trails up there. no better place to be than camping up that way.

 

[Turboyota]

Day 3 continued

Kearsarge near Independence. There is a narrow gauge railroad monument and some mining shit here. (More pics in my other trip reports, if you are interested.


Big pine. Filled my drivers side front tire with air here. Kelly can be see discovering his blown resi hose in one of the pics…-
Trail from Tinemaha to the 168 is really rocky. It was met with varying degrees of enthusiasm from the group. @Kellyex1450 liked it, I kerschmacked another couple gnarly washouts at speed, but still had a fucking blast, and others detested it.

The infamous silt section starts just north of the 168 crossing and continues past the VLBA observatory all the way to Warm Spring. Silt was super mild this year—probably because of all the rain. The holes were shallow and we only did 1 sky wheelie exciting a silt bed.

Road into the spring:


Didn’t set up camp, just enjoyed the water for a couple hours. We played 40oz roulette, talked shit, and laughed our asses off.

 

[Cleandezert]

bro tip if you are a pussy like me... water shoes for that warm spring... we grabbed some at big 5 in bishop. Less crying walking on the rocky shore, and less scarey mud on my feet. lol that place is awesome and usually nobody is there.

 

[theycallmeWALLY]

So jealous! Wish I could have made this trip... Maybe I'll have to try and recreate your trip towards the fall. Work is always getting in the way of fun.

 

[SByota]

So bummed I missed this one….fucking work. Looks like an awesome time. Also, fuck those cop’s especially, CHP.