My Friday morning started out how most of my trips start - a little nervous and excited at the same time. It doesn't matter if it's somewhere new or somewhere I have visited many times. After going through my gear for the 100th time I started to throw everything into the truck. Always wondering if I'm forgetting something. I tend to over pack but have been getting a lot better at slimming things down. It doesn't help that the Overland F150 can handle pretty much anything I put in the bed so weight is never really an issue.
On this particular trip my oldest daughter, Jasmine chose to come with me. I'm not sure if she really wanted to spend a weekend with her super cool dad or she just wanted a day off of school haha. At about 0700 I had all the gear loaded in the truck so I went into the house to go wake her up.
To my surprise she was already up and ready to go. At around 0900 we headed up to one of our local Starbucks to energize our morning but to also meet up with my buddy Kevin (red Jeep) who would be caravanning with us up to Monache Meadows. Once everyone had their drinks in hand we sync'd up our CB radios and headed out.
Fortunately for us there wasn't a whole lot of traffic and we started making pretty good time. The Monache Meadows trial head is approx. 3.5-4 hours away from us here in Ventura County. One of the things I love the most about going on trips is the drive to our destination. The drive to Monache is a beautiful one. One of my favorites is passing through Red Rock which you can camp at if you so desire.
2 hours into the drive you will reach one of the last gas stations located in Pearsonville just before heading up. You will want to fill up and grab any snacks. Fair warning: during the summer days it gets very hot. When we stopped it was a blistering 115 degrees. We stopped to wait for Kevin's friend Jake and his son that would be joining us to Monache Meadows. It is always fun to see the type of overland vehicles you find at a gas station in the middle of nowhere... We saw a few with RTT and one jeep with an Ursa Minor top that was heading to the bishop/ mammoth area. After Jake arrived we fueled up and headed up the mountain.
You can see the full trip report here: Monache Meadows Trip Report
