Message posted by Lone wolf on June 07, 2003 at 14:17:20 PST:
OK to add it to the trip reports. I believe you are correct about the light over the guard shack, though I don't recall seeing that light from the border parking lot at night. Perhaps camping out on Hawkeye Hill would settle the question... A few more things I left out. I did some traveling in Death Valley prior to hitting the ranges. I had stayed at the Stagecoach motel in Beaty and found the parking lot full of camo dude type trucks and jeeps using the non-descript government plates. When I registered at the front desk, I just happened to be able to see the screen on the motel's computer, and many rooms were registered under Nellis. Pumping a few locals for information to get a consensus, it seems like a large group of personel from Nellis show up every week for a few days. This has been going on for at least two years. The group of guys rotates every 6 months. I spotted one white truck heading on the road past the Bullfrog Mine near Rhyolite, but I couldn't say for sure if it was a camo dude type truck. I had scanned the aviation beacon range on Tikaboo looking for VORs. I didn't find any I couldn't explain except for the 116.3Mhz VOR that I heard before but forgot to investigate. It turns out this VOR is the WILSON CREEK VORTAC at 38.2501928/-114.3942264, which is about 82 miles from Tikaboo. I also found an interesting ham repeater on Angel Peak that is linked to Arizona. [I don't have the freq handy, but can post it later.] This repeater would be useful a few people wanted to visually track a Janet flight from various locations in Vegas, along route 95, and perhaps in the unrestricted areas on the DNWR. Regarding the hike up Tikaboo, I tried some new gear. I got a compressor bag that can hold my sleeping bag, tent, and down jacket. [Down is overkill in June, but useful in May, and it compresses well.] This made the trip up a bit easier since I had less bags to deal handle. I also got a frame backpack. It is a Kelty that I found on-line at
http://www.outdooroutlet.com/shopping.php?pg=product-detail&id=568
I had to take it off and carry it on the steep parts on the loose shale, but otherwise it really helped carry all that weight. The outer pockets can hold 6 1.5 liter bottles (the 7th bottle went in my hand, though next time I think I'll use my camelback).
In Reply to: Re: Tikaboo hikes and other stuff posted by Joerg (Webmaster) on June 07, 2003 at 10:18:50 PST:
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