Dos Cabezas

Went out to the desert this past weekend with Colin, Tristen, Brendan, Sara, and Harlan.

We drove out Saturday morning to Anza Borrego State Park to explore the mud caves that I went to a few times in the past with my Boy Scout troop. There are many different caves, some a few feet, and some about 200 yards long. We had to duck, crawl, and squeeze through the crumbly walls of the caves. Surprisingly, Harlan was having a blast! He was running around and exploring the caves like it was his playground.

After about 5 hours of exploring the mud caves, we headed to Dos Cabezas to camp for the night.

Dos Cabezas is probably one of my favorite places to car camp (the other being Holcomb Valley). It is such a nice area when the weather is right, and this weekend, it was perfect. We had no wind, temps were in the 70s and not a cloud in the sky. And of course there is a lot off roading to get to the camp sites, which is always a plus.




Sunday morning we decided to hike out to the Carrizo Gorge Goat Canyon trestle. It is about a 10 mile hike round trip, completely flat, along a set of abandoned train tracks that were built in the 30's. The tracks passes through huge tunnels and over lots of small train testles until you reach the massive Goat Canyon trestle. It is an awesome hike, I've done it a few times before, I would highly recommend it.



During the trip I figured out a panorama feature on my phone, so I took a few awesome pictures with the canyon and the tracks.





I did get to try out my Western Mountaineering UltraLite sleeping bag and Z-lite sleeping pad. The temps were in the 40s and the sleeping bag was super warm. I had read somewhere to push all of the down in the bad to the top so that no down would be underneath you while you slept. Down is most effective when it is fully lofted. This means that down that is compressed under your body is almost useless. I did this and it should have added a little warmth to the bag.

The Z-lite kept the underside of the sleeping bag warm and insulated from the cold ground. I found the Z-lite to be more comfortable than I thought it would be. I used my backpack as my pillow and laid out my down jacket under my feet because they hung off the end of the sleeping pad. I was plenty comfortable and had one of my best nights sleeping outside that I've had in a while.