SoCal Desert Rendezvous 2012

One of the forums I follow for overlanding is expeditionportal.com  It covers vehicle-based camping from as mild as car camping to extreme as round-the-world overland expeditions.  It is a great resource for trip planning, vehicle modification and tech, gear reviews by actual users, and everything in between.  Last year, a group of Expo members, known as the "Rendezvous Conspiracy", put together the first annual SoCal Desert Rendezvous, as a way to get people from the overlanding community together to meet, learn from / show off to others and swap stories and such.  I missed the first event, but I was hoping to make the second annual event after so many people raved about the inaugural get together.

I was only five weeks post-surgery on my knee (ACL reconstruction) at the time of the second annual Rendezvous, so it was a game time decision if I would be going or not.  With everything going according to plan with the healing and recovery, I felt like I would be good enough to limp around camp and see all that I could see at the event.  Some of my friends from the Land Cruiser forum ih8mud.com were planning on going already, so I figured I would tag along with them.

Part of the fun of the event was that the location of the event was not disclosed.  Clues were given for the general area of Anza-Borrego State Park, and GPS coordinates were posted up just before the day of the event for the location of the first checkpoint, to where exact camp coordinates would be then given.  There were all kinds of guesses and speculation of where exactly the camp location would be, but there was just one way to find out.  I met up with the fellow Land Cruiser crew in Borrego Springs, and then we set out to find the first checkpoint.  We found a couple guys manning the first checkpoint near the trailhead to Fish Creek Wash.  But instead of heading southwest into the wash area, the coordinates for camp took us east instead.  We followed the train tracks east for several miles, and then the sand starting getting soft and conditions started to worsen.  The fine sand silt made it hard to see, but the soft sand made you keep your speed up in order to not bog down.  Everyone was taking different lines and a couple guys even came close to dumping over their trailers.  Finally, we made it to a clearing where the camp designation was.  Since we were one of the earlier groups to arrive, that allowed us to stake out a section that we called 80's Row (since we were representing the 80-series Land Cruisers quite well).

It was great watching all of the overland vehicles roll into camp throughout the day.  There was everything from Land Cruisers, Jeeps, Land Rovers, Tacomas, FJ Cruisers, Sportsmobiles, and even an M109 military truck conversion.  My son helped us set up camp, and we spent the rest of the day relaxing around camp, catching up with old friends, and getting to know new ones.  The nice thing about the overlanding community, is that everyone shares a common love of camping and remote exploration via various vehicle-based platforms, so there are almost infinite variations of how one accomplishes that goal.  So this event is a great opportunity to bring everyone together, to see what others are doing in their setups, and to talk about past and upcoming adventures.

As nightfall approached, we started up the camp dutch oven and prepared dinner.  On the menu that first night was a pot roast tenderloin with some potatoes, onions, and carrots.  Since the dutch oven was still relatively new to me, and I was still learning what all it was capable of cooking, I tried out making brownies in it.  It sounded like something fun and different, and it actually turned out pretty good.  Only thing missing to make them better would have been some vanilla ice cream.  Full and happy from our meal and dessert, we cleaned up and turned in for the night.  The weather was great that night, and we slept well in the roof top tent.

The next morning, we awoke, made breakfast, and then got ready to see what the day had in store for us.  The organizers of this event had plans for an overlanding skills contest to test how one would react to scenarios that could potentially happen out on the trail or along one's travels.  Knowing that I was pretty limited after major knee surgery, we chose to just watch.  Some of the simulated challenges included timed setup of one's tent (assuming a rain downpour upon arriving at camp), reseating a tire that had come off the rim bead, making a makeshift splint assuming someone had a broken arm, safe vehicle recovery and tire change assuming a flat tire that had also dropped into a rut/hole to the extent a hi-lift jack was not able to be used due to the scenario.  It was fun to watch the different techniques and improvisations that people made to solve these potential real-world challenges.  Being remote and away from civilization means AAA isn't usually a realistic option, so being able to problem solve with what you have with you becomes critical.

We had worked up an appetite for lunch, so I had a little more fun with the dutch oven.  I went a little overboard with some gourmet burgers and some sliced rosemary red potatoes.  The burgers went on some grilled french bread, topped with feta, arugala, and some red bell peppers.  I always enjoy eating well when camping, and its fun too.  My son had found another friend in camp, and they set out to climb up any rock or dirt wall they could find.  I'm glad they are always easily entertained by their surroundings.  After playing all day in the dirt, my son was filthy.  This was when I was glad I brought my Cabela's camp shower enclosure.  After he cleaned up, I jumped in there and it felt so refreshing to get a warm shower after a couple days in the desert.

Later that evening, the guys from Overland Gourmet provided dinner.  The fired up their grills and cooked for everyone in camp.  And it was amazing.  They served up several variations of gourmet hot dogs and sausages.  It was awesome of them to generously cook for everyone in camp and everyone really enjoyed it.  There was a raffle after dinner for products brought by many of the event's sponsors, and I ended up winning a tool bag that I now use on some of our trips.  After the raffle, they started a huge bonfire for everyone to hang around for the night, but we retired early to bed as it was starting to get breezy.

Well, this night's rest wasn't nearly as nice as the night before.  The wind in the desert can sometimes be extreme, and this was no exception.  The wind ripped all night, and I didn't sleep well at all.  I kept waiting for the rainfly on my roof top tent to tear at some point, but all it did was flap and make noise all night.  It seemed like the windstorm lasted all night, but it finally calmed down and I think I got a couple hours of sleep.  When I came out of the tent to survey the damage, my shower enclosure was a little tweaked from the winds.  That was surprising to me, since I had seen this same enclosure take some of the strongest winds I had ever endured in Death Valley on a prior trip.  But it was a beautiful morning and the winds were no more.  We got a good breakfast in with some eggs, sausage, and hash browns.  We broke down camp slowly and said goodbye to everyone and watched as camp emptied after a great weekend.  We headed back out to the trailhead and aired back up to get back on the road again.

I figured since we were already in the Anza-Borrego desert, I wanted to go see Fonts Point, which I had heard good things about, but had never seen.  We found the turnoff for the sandy wash to the viewpoint and parked and walked up to the overlook.  It was awesome!  It's an amazing overlook over the badlands of the Anza-Borrego desert.  The textures and colors are really quite spectacular.  You are high enough up and the dropoff is extreme enough to really get the adrenaline going too.  We also were in luck to see some of the beautiful Ocotillo plants to be in full bloom as well.  After seeing the stunning viewpoint of Fonts Point, we were ready to head home.  I was really glad that we made it out for the Desert Rendezvous event, as it was a great weekend.

Expedition Portal Thread for SoCal Desert Rendezvous 2012 Event

Fish Creek Wash

I had blown out my knee (sprained MCL and completely torn ACL) playing football in our annual Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl that we played every year since we were all in junior high.  With a busy stretch of work lined up and surgery scheduled immediately after, I didn't know how long I would be down and immobile after the surgery, so I wanted to sneak one more camping trip in before I was out of commission, even if it was just an overnight trip.  Anza-Borrego State Park is so close to us, and we hadn't started to scratch the surface of what that park has to offer.  One area that I hadn't been to was around the Ocotillo Wells area.  I had read in some trail books about the Fish Creek Wash area and some of the neat things in and around that area.

I left work a little early on Friday, and with the Land Cruiser already packed up and ready to go, we headed out as soon as I got home.  We took our time getting out there, headed out Split Mountain Road to the end of the pavement and dropped into Fish Creek Wash.  We didn't have a ton of light left to search for the best, most remote, awe-inspiring campsite we would have liked to find, so we settled on the empty primative campground at Fish Creek so that we could let the kids run around in the dirt and chase lizards while we set up camp while there was still light.  The campground is fairly secluded, and we couldn't even see passing vehicles in the wash below.

This was our first chance to try out my new toy I got for Christmas, a camp dutch oven.  We had camped with people before that had these, and they seemed awesome.  They basically allow you to cook food like you would in an oven at home, except in your camp, and it opens up quite the list of possibilities for camp food.  You heat the cast iron oven with charcoal briquettes on the lid and underneath.  Our first meal in the new oven was a pot roast with vegetables.  It turned out better than I expected, and it was fun to try something new for camp dinner.  It must have been good, because we had this bold desert mouse that kept coming into our camp looking for scraps.  For dessert, we attempted peach cobbler in the dutch oven.  I obviously didn't read the recipe correctly, because it wasn't going to win any awards in any cook-offs.  It tasted fine, but it just wasn't pretty.  But it was still good, and was still fun to have something new on our trips.

After a decent night's sleep (the weather was a little brish, but pretty nice for January), we awoke to a beautiful morning.  One of my favorite things about camping away from everyone is how serene and peaceful the mornings are as the sun is just coming up and beginning to cast light onto the mountains or hills around you.  I love just sitting there with freshly pressed coffee, just taking it all in.  Well.....until the kids get up and its back to crawling over rocks and in the dirt and being loud....but that's all good fun too.  For breakfast, we figured we'd continue the theme of all things dutch oven and tried cinnamon rolls.  They were a little burnt on the bottom as we were still figuring out the fine tuning on the camp oven, but I thought the new culinary tool had potential as we learned how to better utilize it.

We packed up camp and went out to explore the Fish Creek Wash area.  The wash extends through Split Mountain and there is some high scenic value to the easy drive.  It is interesting to see the layers of sedimentary rock that accumulated over all of the years, as it is said that water used to cover much of this area long ago.  One of the most interesting sections this layered rock that was shaped like a dome, clearly out of place with the rest of the horizontally layered rock.  I later learned this was called an "anticline".

We ran the Fish Creek Wash trail until it intersected with Sandstone Canyon.  I had read that this was a one-way in and out narrow slot canyon that was absolutely beautiful.  It didn't disappoint.  There was a group of Jeeps that were out in front of us as we came to Sandstone Canyon, and knowing that it eventually narrows down until you can go no further, we decided to wait them out as they entered.  We pulled off and made lunch as the kids climbed hills and rocks (yes, they do that quite often).  As we were finishing up our lunch, the group came back out and we started into the slot canyon.  We drove back into the canyon, with these massive sandstone walls on either side of us.  It wouldn't be the best place in the event of a flash flood, but there was no chance of that the day we were there and it was amazing.  We got to one tight spot that we barely squeezed through, and then kept going a little further in, past a 4x4 club that had stopped for lunch.  We drove back a bit further and the trail did start to narrow down, so we went as far as we felt comfortable doing in the Cruiser and then parked.  We went further into the canyon on foot for a beautiful hike.  I remember thinking that this would be a great place to backpack in and camp in the canyon if it was allowed.

We passed by the 4x4 club on the way back out and there was one XJ Jeep that was attemping this crazy extreme hardcore bypass to see if he could to it.  And with some amazing spotting and driving (and lockers), he did it perfectly.  It was pretty impressive.  We came back through the easier route through the squeeze and headed back out of Sandstone Canyon back to Fish Creek Wash.  Another great hike in this area is the Wind Caves, but we opted out on this trip because of my knee.  But I would like to do it another time in the future though.

We headed back home via Borrego Springs and got to see more of the metal sculptures on the south end of town.  The eagle bringing a snake back to the nest was the most impressive sculpture on the the south end.  The sculptures on the north end of Borrego with the sea serpent and all of the others are pretty awesome.

Even though it was a quick overnight trip, we felt like we got to see and do quite a bit in the short amount of time and it was fun to explore that area of Anza Borrego.