Alright folks, our new video is coming soon! This video will debut our new intro and outro music from the band Petroleum, who has given us permission to use their music.
The music will substitute our usual Metroid intro and Metallica’s Wherever I May Roam, because the latter’s copyright owners (Warner Music Group) started muting the YouTube videos.
I think you’ll like it.
An appeal by “extreme off-road enthusiasts,” as the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) calls them, to gain access to the remote ghost town of Panamint City, was rejected for the third time in two years.
First of all, “extreme off-road enthusiasts” makes these guys sound like they’re extremists – almost fanatical, violent off-roading extremists. I assure you they are not. Over the last two years, these off-roaders have helped clean up Chris Wicht’s camp at the bottom of the canyon, as well as debris inside Surprise Canyon. No doubt about it, these guys do care about the canyon. They’re just regular guys who actually do care about Surprise Canyon, but aren’t nearly as extreme in their care as the CBD. Incidentally, the CBD’s idea of caring about Surprise Canyon is to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING (aka “preservation”), except complain about the offroaders of course (aka “preservationism”).
The Center for Biological Diversity’s Associate Public Lands Director (whew, that’s a mouthful!), Chris Kassar said, ”Death Valley is a national park – not a playground for offroad vehicles.” Chris, by the way, is a hot chick, so don’t let the name “Chris” deceive you.
On the other hand, the offroaders say they’re losing their rights to gain access to their own private property (many offroaders purchased land up near the top in order to make this case).
Now, before I rant I’d like to focus our attention on the two groups, and try to distance myself from both. The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit group of preservationists who are concerned about keeping a natural habitat safe from groups they think are dangerous to life. So …. they’re basically hippies, right?
And a loose coalition of offroading groups who want a chance to utilize their expensive trucks, winches, and gear.
ISN’T THIS THE AGE-OLD HIPPY VS. JOCK DICHOTOMY!?!?!
Environmental activists are the new, well-educated and less stinky hippies; and the offroaders – well, they’re offroaders, which is nothing more than a subgroup of larger family called Jocks, or Bros; meaning a bunch of Americans looking for a tough, rugged, but basically fun, time.
This is a very interesting issue. I can see both sides of the argument, and I think there’s a compromise that can be had. Definitely, maintaining biodiversity is a great thing; but at what cost? I don’t think the winches and vehicles could cause THAT much damage! Clearly, the CBD is exaggerating their claims for PR reasons. It’s not like the offroaders are a logging company, or a band of vigilante hunters bent on killing bighorn sheep and Inyo California towhee birds.
I can definitely see how offroading has torn up certain areas of the desert (when they actually go off the road). Wanton offroading is a real problem.
But if these offroaders play it cool and consistently show that they respect the land, and make sure others do too, and drive home that the winning argument is conservation (doing something) vs. preservation (doing nothing), then they are displaying that it is possible for both the conservation of a natural environment, and offroading, can indeed coexist in a friendly manner. And yea, they can actually reach their properties at the top of the mountain.
During this last trip to the El Paso Mountains I had no idea what I was in for. Friday night we went to sleep and I ended up waking up in the middle of the night with a high fever and a soar throat. I was shivering uncontrollably, was very thirsty and had to take a leak very badly.
I knew I needed to wake someone up to see if they might have some Tylenol of something to help my condition. It was very dark in the tent so I tried to reached over and woke up Dustin and asked him if I he had any medicine. I told him how I was feeling and he was able to dig up someone acetaminophen pills. I took the pills, drank some water urinated and went back to sleep.
When I woke up I felt a little better. I still had some soarness in my throat and had body aches all around. After awhile everyone got up and we began to get prepared for the day. We ate breakfast and drank some instant coffee.
I took an energy pill along with the coffee in hopes that the stimulants would help me cope with the symptoms for the long hike. I thought if I hike constant and keep up a sweat, maybe I would sweat it all out. What dumb idea that turned out to be.
As we started hiking my fever started to kick in right away with the body aches. I just toughed it out for awhile and then ended up taking more acetaminophen to null the fever. It helped a little as continued down the valley in search for more chippings.
After awhile I began to feel slightly paranoid. It just came out of no where. I started feeling like something was wrong with everything. It progressed rather quickly until I started thinking about weird scenarios of situations happening that ultimately ended in me getting hurt somehow. At the same time my body aches came back and throat pain.
Eventually our group split up and we started on our treck up Black Mountain as planned. The paranoia stayed constant was eventully joined by anxiety. After awhile of mental horror I ended up pulling Andy aside and I explained to him what was happening. We spoke breifly about it and we both agreed that it was probably temporary and would go away after awhile.
It didn’t the problem got worse and worse. I started feeling so paranoid about every single thought that passed through my mind. I was ever afraid to tell them how I felt. I was afraid that I might die out there and that people were going to think I was a loser.
I finally told them in so many words that it was an emergency and that i may need to go to a hospital. I told them that maybe if I just got back to the camp and laid down for awhile I would be ok. We eventually got back to the camp but had to scale a decent size mountain to get there. I remember being so exhuasted and soar all over my body.
I made my way to Dustin’s truck and blacked out for about 30 minutes. I was awaken by Andy and Dustin who checked my forehead and decided to leave. They packed up the gear and we left. We stopped at a local store and they bought me some tylenol which I took and started feeling better right away. We ate and eventually made it hope around 7:30pm. When I got back I showered and went to sleep at about 8:30pm. I woke up at 1am, took some Nyquil, drank some water and passed back out until about 8:30am.
I have been just resting all this week and right now I feel like I am just about well. My throat still feels a little puffy but I think I am almost 100% again. I am just so glad the paranoia and anxiety are gone….
