Living out of a 2019 Subaru Ascent named Mirja
After a few nights at the Black Gulch area of Sequoia National Forest, a lot of negatives were surfacing about the area. Almost all of this was caused by careless campers who came before me, but with rainy weather rolling on into the area, it was time for me to move away from the river. Luckily, I passed through the Keyesville SRMA area–a BLM operated recreation area–on the way to Black Gulch, and this would serve a perfect stop for two more nights in the area.
There’s been a theme of discussions about my lifestyle lately. Each conversation tends to word it differently, and each person has different points of input to give on the general subject. The theme is a very negative one, unfortunately. It can be wrapped up in a few questions. How does this lifestyle suck? What are the consequences and costs that this lifestyle entails? There’s more, but those both sum up the general consensus. In two days, I will have been living this lifestyle for two months, and I feel that I can begin to put some input on just what it is really like in these negative manners.
After more than long enough hanging out in a motel room, the weekend finally came, and I was off to see some more adventure! I planned to hit up Pinnacles National Park, the BLM operated Laguna Mountain Recreation Area in Central California, and finally end up in the lower, southern Sierra Nevadas Sunday night. It didn’t quite happen exactly like that.
There’s some common questions I get asked about everything that I have in my car, from the solar panel setup to details about the specific things I carry. How do I make it all work? How much did it all cost? What do I even actually have in there? I spent a good amount of time considering this before taking the plunge, so I think it would be appropriate to address some of these.
Leaving San Diego since my last post on here, I headed up to the greater Los Angeles area, where I visited family for a week. It was a fun week with the family, hanging out and enjoying my time in an apartment for a bit. From there, I headed on North, attempting a couple of campground in different sections of the Los Padres National Forest. That turned into one hell of an adventure over the last couple of days!
I had my two nights of staying with friends in the San Diego region, celebrating July 4th, nursing the resulting hangover, and just hanging out. It was time to head back to the mountains!
Back in September, 2014, I hiked up San Diego’s “Big” Black Mountain, located in Cleveland National Forest. It was also one of the first major off-road experiments that I took Tivona on back in December. To say that this is a spot that I already found to love would probably be an understatement. It is one of my favorite spots in San Diego, easily! With those previous experiences on the mountain, I had seen several places that looked perfect to set up a boondocking camp, and after stopping at the nearby National Forest District Headquarters to confirm the possibility, I came here to camp!
After a week spent “in town” with my parents, on their boat, I have really started to itch to get back out to the wilderness! With a 4 day weekend ahead of me, I’ve got plenty of time to truly enjoy it, if I wanted to. So, once a few errands were complete for the day, I headed up to the mountains, to a boondocking spot I scoped out in the Laguna Mountain Recreation Area of Cleveland National Forest.
On Thursday, June 25, I headed out of my camp spot in Cabin Hollow with plans to head to Las Vegas one night and then San Diego. I made the decision to drive through Zion National Park on my way to Vegas, which was absolutely amazing! It took a bit longer, but I hadn’t been through Zion before, so I enjoyed the drive, before meeting up with my parents in Vegas.
Multiple people have started asking me whether or not I am beginning to have any regrets about choosing this lifestyle. The truth is, beyond a doubt, I am not having any regrets about this at all.
Disclaimer: This is a long post with almost no pictures. Just me rambling about existential bullshit. There is no “too long; didn’t read” version, because I don’t feel that a short version is truly appropriate for my thoughts. I would love your attention to read this, but that is up to you alone.
After hiking 8.8 miles and doing a little bit of driving around Bryce National park yesterday, I left knowing that I was going to go back today and see more. That’s exactly what I did!
Since I saw most of the stops and such after Bryce Point (going in) yesterday, I decided to start the day off right there. In actuality, I found that I missed Paria View, which was my first stop before then continuing on to Bryce Point.
