This is the driveway to my old place.Visitors always called it the "road to heaven."
I became nostalgic and stayed there last night,
in those rocks at right.
This is the Keron GT3 from Hilleberg the Tentmaker, courtesy of Petra Hilleberg, daughter of the founder (I think she was born in a tent) and now director of North American operations for this esteemed Swedish firm. It was discounted by Petra and acquired by my beloved friend Weina, of Shenzhen, China, who thought I should stop sleeping in old abandoned mines. I have lived in this tent for some months now, in temperatures ranging up to 115 F and it is quite simply the best modern-type expedition tent I have ever seen. Hilleberg makes the tents that one sees in the Himalayas, in Antarctica, and other extreme locations. But, of course, as well made as these tents are, nothing but nothing stands up to the high desert's UV rays, so the tent has today gone back to Hilleberg for repairs.
This is the MSR Wind tent I also use, at the more or less "base" camp where I do practice. We have to use very strong tents of special design around here because the winds regularly hit 75 miles per hour or more.Owing to the recent fires in the mountains, we have been seeing a sudden influx of kit foxes, foraging desperately for food. We have also been seeing some rather belligerent lynxes.
We are now planning to move up to around 8,500 feet for the winter---you see, I do the opposite of what Longchenpa advises---and have been exploring caves and so forth around here for several weeks now. If we could get the yurt back online I would use the yurt, but alas, the yurt is down for repairs.
One approach that someone suggested to me is to "bury" the tent, i.e. to dig a large trench and then cover it over with logs, and to pitch the tent down in the excavation. I wonder if anybody has tried this, and if so, what was your experience?