Off Leash Adventures: Camping At Holcomb Valley - Sydney's Trail Life Debut

[beckymeep]

Hi Everyone,
What a beautiful weekend we just had. It got a little hot here in SoCal, so we headed off to Holcomb Valley, near Big Bear Lake, for a cooler, more relaxed weekend of camping, hiking and off road fun!

It's become a tradition of sorts, that once @cusbgeochem1 fixes my Suzuki, that we take it off for a test drive at Holcomb Valley. Its not to far away, and a tow truck can get you home in just over an hour (as we found out when we brought my Samurai here, and his brake gave out on us), so as I'd been driving Sydney, my Sidekick, for a couple of weeks now, it was time to test her 4 wheel drive out by heading over to our favorite camping spot there, over looking the valley:

Buddy and Happy were very excited to hop in Sydney, as it has been a while since we last went camping anywhere:

Our friend Ron was joining us, whom Happy adores, so she was even more excited now she knew he was with us.
Here she is looking adoringly at him while we set up camp:

We drove up the mountain road, turned left at the sign for 'Fawnskin' and drove through the trail loop; which take you past Wilbur's Grave, straight to our camping spot, and started to set up:

I set up our tent:

and our seating area, as well as the 'Dog Thrown':

@csusbgeochem1 had pinched a nerve in his neck that morning, so he took some muscle relaxing pills and got in our tent to take a nap, hoping his neck wouldn't be as stiff and painful when he woke up.

I knew I had a couple of hours to wait for him to wake up, so me and Ron sat down to relax with some music and just enjoy the view in front of us:

The dogs enjoyed being in the cool air and sun; Buddy is a sun god, always bathing in the suns rays:

While Happy likes to dig a small hole for herself to lay in:

After a couple of hours of relaxing, I got fidgety. I can only sit for so long before I have to get up and move around, mainly as I want to see all this beauty nature has created here. So I decided to go for a little hike to check out my surroundings, the dogs wanted to join me:

This area is so beautiful to be hiking in:

We followed the skyline upwards:

and along:

We found a variety of plants:

As well as flowers of both yellow:

green buds, waiting to open...maybe this will be a yellow flower to:

and white:

As well as small cacti:

And there are pinecones as far as the eye could see!

I love this area as it reminds me of Yosemite's landscape; the big stone boulders and pine trees:

We roamed this area of boulders for a while:

Happy running around in front as always:

She truly loves being off leash and having an adventure:

I just love how the boulders seem to grow out the ground:

We had been hiking around for approximately an hour, so we started heading back to our camp:

Taking in the beauty as we walked:

Finally camp was within eye sight:

Not that Happy wanted to go back just yet:

So we allowed her to roam around the boulders at the back of our camping area:

She went all over here:

and here:

and even here:

Once the sun started to go down, the temp dropped and Buddy started to get cold. First he asked for his jumper to be put on. I'm not joking; he waits till you put a jumper on and comes up right in front of you and stands there staring you in the eye. So I'm used to this now and walk over to grab his jumper. Bud will walk right over to you when his jumper is in hand, with his tail wagging! He then got up on his thrown so he could be tucked in for another nap....well he had been hiking.

Happy was now back at camp, she must have had a lot of fun...judging by how dirty she now was:

Now it was time for dinner and star gazing before watching a movie (got to love it when your friend has wifi signal and his laptop to stream a movie on when camping). The sunset didn't last long, only a few minuets, but it was very colorful:

After getting a great nights sleep in the tent, we all got up to a beautiful morning:

and while the boys cooked breakfast, I walked the dogs for a potty break and stretch:

The dogs kept their jumper/jackets on, as it was still a little cool out.

Buddy isn't as agile as Happy and sometimes finds it hard to follow her:

But when taking this photo of Buddy I noticed the color of the moss on the boulders:

Greens, purples, even a hint of blue in there!

As we walked we found a section with cut down trees:

I found it interesting how this stump was hollowed out:

While this one was chipped away at:

Once we got back to camp, the boys had decided to test out Syd's 4 wheel drive on one of the trails here. So we packed up and headed off for a trail ride!

First we went right out of our camp and followed the trail, till it ended here:

With this obstacle at the end which @csusbgeochem1 wanted to take Syd up, but I said no as she is my daily drive, and my Samurai is supposed to be the Weekend Warrior:

As you can see Happy was enjoying herself running up and down it.
Sydney My Sidekick is a trail blazer, but not a rock crawler. Time to upgrade Norman's suspension (My Suzuki Samurai) and come back to here.
We said how if this area had some flat land, it would be an awesome campsite. It even had a cool fire pit:

I really liked this tree, it looked like it was supposed to be growing here, like it was planted with a purpose:

There was also this beautiful yellow tree that was very full and colorful:

Close up on the yellow flowers:

After hanging out here for a little while we decided to go hit a longer trail in the area. So back down this trail we went:

Buddy was enjoying the big windows in Syd, as he can have his head out of these ones:

We followed the trail to the split, where we got out to chill, and watched a Jeep convoy drive past...wonder what they think when they see my Sidekick sitting at the trail head?

The first trail from here was a black diamond trail, so we couldn't go down it:

And the second trail was also a hard trail:

This was the trail we came up:

Happy still running around:

While Buddy chilled by the cars, watching the Jeeps go past:

It was just as beautiful here as where we camped, so it was nice to just hang out for a while before we took the trail back to the Valley to go home:

Now I need to upgrade my vehicles so next time we can take one of these trails and see where it leads, and how hard a Black Run is.
Can't leave it to the Jeeps, I need to represent the Suzuki's!

Thanks for reading. If you like this post please remember to upvote it, resteem it, and follow me so you don't miss out on my future content.

All photographs were taken by @beckymeep using an Android phone.

!steemitworldmap 34.304812 lat -116.906711 long ´Holcomb Valley, CA´ D3SCR

Comments

[travelfeed]

Congratulations! Your high quality-travel content caught our attention and has earned you a partial upvote. We love your hard work and hope to encourage you to continue to publish strong travel-related content. Thank you for using #travelfeed

[beckymeep]

Thank you very much!
I will be using the #travelfeed more :)

[travelfeed]

You are welcome and great to hear that! Using #travelfeed tag also gives a chance to be curated by @curie!

[beckymeep]

Sweeeeeet!!! I didn't know that's how @curie can find my post.
Thanks again!

[steemitworldmap]

Congratulations, Your Post Has Been Added To The Steemit Worldmap!
_{Author link: http://steemitworldmap.com?author=beckymeep
Post link: http://steemitworldmap.com?post=off-leash-adventures-camping-at-holcomb-valley-sydney-s-trail-life-debut}

Want to have your post on the map too?

• Go to Steemitworldmap
• Click the code slider at the bottom
• Click on the map where your post should be (zoom in if needed)
• Copy and paste the generated code in your post
• Congrats, your post is now on the map!

[menoski]

You have been scouted by @promo-mentors. We are a community of new and veteran Steemians and we are always on the look out for promising authors.

I would like to invite you to our discord group https://discord.gg/vDPAFqb.

When you are there send me a message if you get lost! (My Discord name is the same as here on Steemit)

[beckymeep]

Thank you @menoski. I haven't actually tried discord yet, but you are the 4th person to tell me to get on it and find them.....I'm going to have to check it out now :)

[choogirl]

Your dogs always look like they are having a great time!

[beckymeep]

Thanks, I always hope they have as much fun as me when we are out. And its because of them I go out so much, nothing better than seeing their happy faces running around free!

[trufflepig]

Congratulations! Your post has been selected as a daily Steemit truffle! It is listed on rank 16 of all contributions awarded today. You can find the TOP DAILY TRUFFLE PICKS HERE.

I upvoted your contribution because to my mind your post is at least 25 SBD worth and should receive 121 votes. It's now up to the lovely Steemit community to make this come true.

I am TrufflePig, an Artificial Intelligence Bot that helps minnows and content curators using Machine Learning. If you are curious how I select content, you can find an explanation here!

Have a nice day and sincerely yours,

TrufflePig

[beckymeep]

Thank you @trufflepig!

[steemitworldmap]

Hiya, just swinging by to let you know that this post made the Honorable Mentions list in today's Travel Digest!

[beckymeep]

Wow, thank you! Always an honor to be mentioned :)