Wandrer: 2012

Last days of September, GoWesty Bumpers.

We went for a long hike to the summit of Lone Peak. It is a 10 hour hike if you don't get lost in the rock garden. Awesome view, well worth the hike. We took the Jacobs Ladder Trail, very steep, it is exhilarating. Not for the faint of heart.

Lone Peak, a mountain peak southeast of Salt Lake City, Utah, is the center of the Lone Peak Wilderness Area, which was established in 1978. At 11,253 feet (3,430 m) elevation, it is one of the taller peaks in the Wasatch Range along the Wasatch Front and tends to be a favorite hike. Lone Peak consists almost entirely of quartz monzonite (a granitoid, or granite-like) rock of the 30.5 million year old Little Cottonwood Stock.^[1]^[2]^[3] Quartzite and limestone are also found in distal locations on the mountain. Lone Peak is the 87th highest named mountain in Utah.^[4]

GoWesty bumpers are installed. The brush guard took some fabrication but it should stop a deer, or a group of zombies.

Painted Westy Skin to match and help seal gutters.

Fall is here. Provo Canyon on the back side of Squaw Peak.

Sara got an iPhone 5 for her B-day. Takes awesome panoramic pics. We went all over this weekend.

Goodbye Westydonor. Add Solar Power

Stripped the donor down to a drive able tin can. Took off all the doors and glass. I ended up driving it to the buyers house in a rainstorm.

Goodbye...

10 AMP Charge controller installed.

50W Solar panel.

25' length of cable to get the panel into the sun if I'm parked in the shade.

Free, Easy, Renewable, Solar power!

Moab + Yakima Rack

We took a trip down to Moab for labor day weekend to break in the new westfalia upgrade. We went to Arches National Park and hiked all over the place.

On the drive to Moab, eastbound I-70 was so incredibly windy I thought the pop top was going to tear off. My fear of the top coming off coupled with the dreaded vanagon syndrome leaving us lurching down the road at times did not make the high pitched whistle and loud vibration coming from the luggage rack sit well with me. After we were able to pull over I realized all was well. There was simply a space between the luggage rack seal and the body of the van. Scared the hell out of me.

Off the beaten track and down 45 min of washboard roads is where the syncro lead us out to a remote corner of Arches National park. There is a designated 4x4 trail, and the hike out to Tower Arch is awesome.