Indian Valley / In-Koh-Pah Mountains Backpack

A 2 day backpack trip out into Indian Valley and the In-Koh-Pah mountains area with a couple friends. Great weather, saw some wildlife and enjoyed the great outdoors, also tried out my new Fujifilm XE-1 camera. My back is still messed up but I have acquired mostly all ultra light weight stuff now and can keep my pack down to about 20lbs with 2 liters of water, food and some booze....that is about my limit for now. I also carried another 2 liters of water in my hands, so 4 liters total, 2 each day.

Tom and Joel putting on their more than 20lbs backpacks...I know how that goes....


We came across an old cow carcass and Tom was quick to start pointing out how my back was messed up using the cow spine as a visual aid. Apparently this cow had a pretty screwed up back also



Gorgeous views of the desert floor and the surrounding Laguna Mountains. Clouds and light drizzle were moving in.


This was an old runway/airstrip back in the day, you can see the old winsock pipe and harness still standing


A panorama of Indian Valley


Lots of bony scat along the way and many morteros full of scat, what did the native americans do to keep animals from crapping in their grinding holes?



With the drizzle and dark clouds in the sky I picked out a nice boulder overhang to setup for the night


Tom had a real nice tent setup


Joel had a visitor snooping around his tent and backpack...Foxy Loxy had no fear....




Found a few pictos along the way



Whale Peak


Welcome to Ocotillo California



Total Mylar Balloons This Trip - 6

Driving The Mojave Road

Took a drive out to the Mojave Road with Tom and his friends, we started at the Colorado River and made it to Kelbaker road where we ran out of time and everyone decided to head home since it was Sunday. I took along my big Pentax 6x7 120 format film camera and my Nexus 7 tablet. The Pentax takes great photos and the Nexus makes a great navigation device, I had downloaded all of the maps onto the device before leaving and used Backcountry Navigator Pro for the navigation app. It all really works great, don't think I'll be going back to my small screen Delorme anymore.

You can find all the info you want to know about the Mojave Road on this website http://www.mojave-road.com

B/W photos taken with the Pentax 6x7 with Ilford SFX 200 film, Red 25A filter and developed with Ilford DD-X

Driving the road thru the joshua tree forest


Somewhere in Lanfair Valley, next to the bus I think


This is on the Fort Piute Trail


This is the Fort Piute Valley / Canyon, you can see the remains of the fort in the lower left. The was running water in the stream.


Camped at Fort Piute


Cool old corral




Lots of petroglyphs along the way










Joshua Tree forest


Old cabin along the way


The Lava Beds near the Lava Tubes, this stuff is really hard to walk on!


Parked somewhere, can't remember but apparently I went for a walk...


Enough black & white, here is some color stuff from the Nexus 7

Sunrise at Fort Piute


Sunset at the Lava Beds


My truck after Tom's friends got hold of it at night


Nice old Native American trail


I stayed an extra night so this was my last night's setup before going home


Trying to catch the sunset reflection of Baker in my rear view window


Red Spotted Toad


More 'glyphs








Tom at the old cabin


Our caravan of vehicles


The frog shrine




Lots more photos of the trip are here on my gallery

Total Mylar Balloons this trip - 1 (not photographed)