Some of the California folk might remember the storm that blew through on March 16th, just a few weeks ago. It brought heavy snow to many parts of the Sierra's.
I had traveled to Death Valley the day before with a buddy (2 trucks), the day before.
Anyway, we had driven up to see Ubehebe Crater on that Monday and the wind was blowing hard, my guess is 20 to 30mph steady. It was getting later in the day and we were needing to find a place to camp. I usually avoid campgrounds like the plague, but my buddy is new to camping and he needed a little extra time to set up camp.
We drove into Mesquite Springs campground (which was close) and I was content to stay there, but my friend for whatever reason didn't want to stay there. I didn't really care because I have a hard shell RTT and I can set up camp in a jiffy.
So .............. we drove all the way back to Emigrant. There is a small campground there and it was getting near sundown. The wind was still blowing and the sky was filling with storm clouds. We set up camp, rushed to make dinner .......... as the wind seemed to be getting stronger with heavy gusts.
It's a small campground, maybe 10 different camp sights and it filled right up at sundown. My buddy has one of those tents that sets up in the bed of a truck and he managed to get it fairly secured. Other people were struggling to set up ground tents and get them staked down in the rocky surface.
As the sun went down, the temperatures dropped and the wind speed/gusts kept increasing. 45 minutes later, we are both in our tents riding the storm out. It never really rained hard, but hard enough that you were glad to be in a sheltered tent. And it drizzled for about 3 hours.
Within 2 hours, 4 or maybe 5 of the ground tents were hastily stowed and the owners retreated to their car seats. Broken fiberglass poles, nylon fly's shredding and tearing, it was ugly. My friend (David) was having problems as his tent poles were bending down to within a couple of feet of his face while laying flat in the truck bed.
Earlier in the day
So, I'm in my tent .......... played a few games of Scrabble on my I-pad and decided to try and get some sleep. I was as snug as a bug in a rug! I was warm, dry, with a nice soft mattress .......... but there was NO going to sleep. The wind noise was bad with the steady wind, but when the wind gusted it was horrendous!
This went on from about 7:30 pm to about 3:00 am.
I just kept telling myself that " I Bought GOOD equipment ...... Trust It". Well, that didn't help me get to sleep.
About 4:00 am, the wind subsided enough that I got a couple hours sleep. David managed to survive the night with fiberglass poles swaying from one side of his truck to the other. My Maggiolina Extreme RTT held up admirably with ZERO issues.
A couple of hours later we hit the Ranger Station at Stove Pipe Wells and they reported steady winds of 30 to 35 mph with gusts into the 50's during the night.
I LOVE that stuff!
2 days later, same spot.
The following day they shut down the camp grounds due to COVID 19.
