Latest
Parson's Ranch Petroglyphs
Mahan Mine (Edwardsburg, ID)
Cary's Castle North Petroglyphs
In 2016, on an adventure north of Cary's Castle (one of many), I stumbled upon these petroglyphs hidden among the granite boulders of the Eagle Mountains. The abstract designs appear to be Desert Archaic in style, likely created by indigenous peoples who traveled these washes for thousands of
October 2025 News
A Few Updates
As this site has grown to over 500 posts, I've been thinking about how to make it sustainable while keeping it ad-free and independent.
So I'm making a couple of changes:
Newsletter schedule: This newsletter will now be quarterly.
Base pricing: The base
Winner Mine (Atlanta, ID)
Mammoth Consolidated Mine
Mammoth Lakes is one of the Eastern Sierra's most popular recreation destinations, prized for its excellent skiing in the winter, ample hiking opportunities in the summer, and world-class scenery. Few visitors today realize that the town's roots trace back to a late-1800s gold mining boom, which
Mexican-American Labor Camp, Death Valley Railroad
I came upon this site in a rather odd way: a video from an ultralight pilot flying over DV that came up on my YouTube feed last year. He passed over some odd looking ruins somewhere in the eastern part of the park that I glimpsed on the background. After
September 2025 News
Normally, I wouldn't send out another newsletter so soon since it has only been a month since the last one, but we've been busy, so...
My trips this last month have been up north again. I will let you guess where. Don't worry, I
Mother Wood's Saloon, Death Valley
One of the things that I love most about a place like Death Valley is that you never know what you might discover literally anywhere. From the (at least) 12,000 year history of known & unknown Native American tribes that have called this place home to the ephemeral boom-towns
Old Hundred Boarding House
Observant travelers heading east out of Silverton on the Alpine Loop might spot a large wooden building high on the west slope of Galena Mountain, as they approach the old mill site of Howardsville. It is an astonishing sight— the structure appears to impossibly cling to a sheer and inaccessible
August 2025 News
Summer is almost over. My travels have taken me to some amazing places—Yellowstone, Northern Michigan, and the Central California Coast, among others. While I've posted a few photos on Instagram, I wanted to share some here too.
Click on any photo to enlarge.
Also, we did some
War Eagle Mine (Gospel Hump)
Burham Canyon Pictographs
Two things make Burham Canyon remarkable: the vibrant pictographs painted in red, white, black, orange, and traces of blue, and the fact that women from three different tribes traveled here specifically for childbirth. The Kitanemuk considered it home territory, but Kawaiisu women came from the northeast and Tataviam from the