El Camino Del Diablo 2006 Rogue Trip

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
Here is my report on our recent El Camino Del Diablo Trip. I stole the idea from National Geographic's ``Radio Expeditions.'' This is very amateur so don't go too harsh on me for my editing. Plus, I'll update this file as I go (I still have to append the last little part). It's VERY long, so hope you're bored:

Ogg Vorbis (better quality and for all us superior Unix folks out there):
http://tinyurl.com/yxwpeg

Microsoft's WMA (as I realize I must cater to this crowd :D, lower quality):
http://tinyurl.com/yxdywp



Couple lessons learned:

1. Get more background and ambient sound clips,
2. Have other people talk more,
3. Get a good microphone,
4. Figure out how to tune the noise cancellation feature in the software,
5. Dude shorten this up a bit!
 
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BMAN

Adventurer
Scotty,

Bring down the music level a bit and play this behind a slide show of the trip and youve got a sweet Arizona Highways piece.
 

BajaTaco

Swashbuckler
I used the ogg plug-in for Windows and used it with Winamp. WOW, very cool! I love the whole report and concept. Very cool. I didn't think it was too long though. I enjoyed it. I would say yes on the mic' improvement though. But very COOL!! That one d00d Jonathan really cracked me up talking about his 60 & 80 :xxrotflma

The "perfect silence" is a rare treat and it was cool to hear you convey the mood into your microphone.

:clapsmile
 

Brian McVickers

Administrator
Staff member
Very cool idea. It's kind of like before TV when everyone would gather around the radio to hear the latest adventures the Shadow!
 

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
BMAN said:
Bring down the music level a bit

Good suggestion, I can de-amplify some of the sound sections. The music was put in there as it was what was actually listened to (a lot in joking) whilst on the trail.
 

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
At work, where we have more bandwidth than China has tea and where I do my surfing, it's very difficult to watch videos in a shared office environment while listening to `music' is very easy to do.

So I figured maybe I'll start voice recording some of my trips through AZ/CO/UT, etc.
 

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
BajaTaco said:
That one d00d Jonathan really cracked me up talking about his 60 & 80

That's durango_60 on this board! really poking fun at the attitude on some other unnamed discussion boards :)
 

Scott Brady

Founder
Scott, I am so sorry I missed this post earlier. What a cool audio piece :)

What was your overall impressions of the trail? Cipriano Pass? Christmas Pass?

This is a great excitement builder for our upcoming trip!
 

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
I personally loved the trail. I do believe BP is more active there now than ever and as such have graded the roads a bit. Cipriano pass was moon'esce and we stopped for a good lunch there and the desert West of it was so amazing.

Christmas pass we found interesting due to the cairns and other random stone placements out there. As I mentioned in the audio, don't know if they were all graves, or what? (we had lunch out there the next day too).

Some of the most fun was the pinta sands both before and after the lava area. The bull dust we happen to encounter that day was very cool. I don't think anyone happened on that area in several weeks (even BP it seemed) so the sand/dust was just like flour and really deep and thick and untracked.

Where we stayed the first night just ( +32º17'15" -114º02'54" ) was awesome. We had a large jet cargo plane (not a C141, something quite newer) fly maybe (and I mean maybe, and I used to fly) 100 feet above the ridgeline where we were camping. It banked hard northwest barely above the Tinajas Atlas' terrain to the north of us out of sight. Pretty amazing.

Another suprisingly great campsite was on BLM land just north of the Organ Pipe Nat'l Monument, literally stepping distance to old the fence. Was definetely more impressive than we were hoping ( +32º12'03" -112º55'18" ) and looked over the Monument's valley. I still need to update the audio with the last day's events.
 

Scott Brady

Founder
When I first drove the route in 2002, the section from Thule to Organ Pipe was closed due to that silt. When I ran the trail again in 2003, the route was open. the silt was not very deep then.

That route across the Lava Flow is one of the most beautiful of the trip, very impressive. In the center of the flow was a 2-300 acre area with soil and loads of vegitation. The grass was taller than the vehicles.
 

Pskhaat

2005 Expedition Trophy Champion
Whoa, Jonathan actually posts :) Give us your take on the trail, will ya? :campfire:
 

durango_60

Explorer
Guilty as charged, I am much more of an observer than a contributor, maybe after I've been doing this half as long as you guys I'll have more to say...

The trip was spectacular, well worth the drive down from Durango. Hats off to Pskhatt, as he was wonderfully prepared for the trip and made up for many of my own shortcomings when it came to having all the equipment for such an adventure, your bucket o spares was very comforting. The scenery was bar none, this was my first desert excursion and it offered so much more than I expected. My favorite part of the trip was when Pskhatt had to install The Club on his steering wheel to ward off all of the thieves. Just kidding, my favorite part was in Cabeza Prietta when we stopped between the 50'-60' Saguaro Cactus.

My pictures (i hate film cameras, much to lazy to get anything back timely) should be developed in the next couple of days, I'll post them asap.
 

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