Currently in Idyllwild and the San Jacintos in California. Oaks are nearing eye popping status but some are still green. In other news, as of October 17th, the Black Oaks aroumd Big Bear and Green Valley Lake are a site to behold and probably will be for another week or so. Snow at the highest eleva...

Quite a bit of rain in Show Low in the last 16 hours, but haven't heard if any significant flooding here. Will be trying to get to Phoenix on Monday.

Update on White Mountain Colors. The young kids will make the landscape pop from miles away while the grownups continue to take their sweet time getting dressed. With that said, a lot of adults are in prime time along the road on FR 117. And also along the highways. Big Lake is impressive. But the e...

@RedRoxx44
It's a trend for the last couple of years except it's now moving even later. Another couple of years and the monsoons will be September thru November.

For those that want to do color updates on the fly. On a camping spree these days. All I have is my phone and not always hiking or have service, so very difficult to post triplogs and can't do photos hardly, so I will give brief updates on colors. Currently in the White Mountains. In the Greer Area/...

Been some pretty exciting driving this week. Spent Sunday night (9/21) at Bartlett Lake. Woke up to really gray skies that were getting ominously blacker by the minute. Decided it was time to leave and although it had rained a bit overnight, it wasn't raining at the Horseshoe turnoff when I got ther...

Replaced my stock Michelins with KO3s in April on my truck. The Michelins were fine for the time I had them because I wasn't doing much, but now that I'm back in a 4x4 and am doing a LOT, I wanted that good ply, especially for the sidewalls. So far, so good. My truck didn't come with an Off-Road pac...

All we can hope.for now is the return of what used to be normal winter storms around Thanksgiving and New Year's that bring snowpack to the mountains and significant precipitation to the deserts. Something that didn't happen at all last year.

@speedgoat I'd like to know what CatSP considers overnight. I showed up there at 6pm a month ago for an.overnight and they charged me 50 bucks. Wasn't even there 12 hours.

I worked at The Sportsman on 7th Ave/Camelback for a couple of years in the early 80's. Guns, Fishing, Archery and some general camping stuff. It had been around for about a decade and when I was there, it was competing with Yellow Fronts, Popular and some other small retailers. Then Sportsman's War...

Last seen bobbing out to sea.

In other news, the forecast for the Mogollon Rim is still accurate. Currently sitting in the camper reading The Emerald Mile while nature waters the plants and feeds the starving lakes.

Not.going to make this an "event" by any means, but I'm camping up on the Mogollon Rim from now until mid week next week. I have a front row seat to watch the tropical depression. If anyone would like to join me or just stop by and say hi, I'm here. There's room for at least 3 more vehicle...

@LosDosSloFolks I had forgotten about it completely actually. Hardly starstruck for sure. I forgot, I actually did a Triplog and Photoset of that trip. [ popup triplog ]

I have made an appearance on YouTube and Public Television. A friend texted me this morning and told me I was on PBS. It took me a minute to realize how that could be. I finally remembered giving an interview to Game and Fish after a Kayak/Birding Event in Prescott in like April 2024. :sweat: Well t...

@The_Eagle That's a shame. It certainly wasn't controlled very well. Pretty much killed all the maples and oaks in areas and really screwed a lot of pines while they were "controlling" it.

@LosDosSloFolks
Pretty far to the west and I wasn't that far north until around 6pm. Needed to get to Pleasant for a place to sack out for the night. I'll let you know when I'm closer to the 'hood. Once it cools down more, I'll be desert camping more and hiking the area more.

@Jim I will at some point, that memory card is in storage at the moment. @The_Eagle It's interesting. Very patchy up top and a very wide area, and although there was an area that had a lot of dead pines, there was patches of dead understory (young maples, oaks and others) scattered for a long ways ...

Was up on the west area of the rim (Milk Ranch Point) last week and it's pretty interesting. Tried to decide if all the intermittent dead trees and understory on top of the rim were due to the West Webber Fire or drought or both. It rained very hard for awhile the first night, but the 2nd night just...

Awesome rains/winds at I-17/Carefree Highway. Stopped, had dinner and waited it out before driving to Lake Pleasant. By the time I set up camp there, the rain was over and slept like a baby with a cool breeze and all the windows open. Really lucked out in the heat department for that one night!

We had about 1" in Southern Paradise Valley last night. Would have had more if we had been in the guts of the cell I'm sure, but we just caught the very small southern tip of it according to the radar. A mile south of us probably only got wind and sprinkles.