Backcountry Explorer

Embedded into the backcountry areas of Zion National Park, the Sierra Nevada, Death Valley National Park, and the Mojave Desert, Courtney Purcell's ramblings have also taken him all across the country and the world. From hiking, climbing and peakbagging in the Rockies, the Andes, the high volcanoes of Washington and Mexico, into the depths explored in spelunking, and the canyoneering of the Colorado Plateau, here you'll find trip reports, route beta and "stuff" relevant to the world of...

The Tecopa Mud Tunnels

Where: Tecopa, California
When: January 2009

Dropping into the entrance
By pure chance (and my ambitious drive to explore everything within reason), me, DB and our friends Dimples and Mishka decided to explore an interesting-looking canyon we spotted from a low hilltop near China Ranch Date Farm. Dropping down from our hill, we fought a bit of brush, found a clearing to ford a creek, and then gained a highly eroded old trail that skirted mud cliffs above a huge grove of thorny brush. This effort led us to the mouth of the canyon.

After a short walk into the canyon, we spotted what appeared to be a mine, no, it was a cave...a mud cave. But I climbed down into it and found that it was actually a mud tunnel! A worm hole!

As we climbed down into the hole, Dimples pulled out a flashlight he was carrying and off we went. The tunnel wound its way into the mud like a cave, and after 50 yards we popped out into the sun on the other side. Opening for 20 feet, another tunnel formed and on we went!

Dogs love this kinda stuff!
While the others opted to hang back, Dimples and I explored on for over 1/4 mile, passing through a series of subterranean tunnels in the mud.

Funky -- never saw anything quite like that before.

...those moments when time stands still. The catalysts are as varied as the individuals who pursue this path: a meteor shower; a night sky so star-filled that it snatches your breath; another rise of the sun over distant mountains vast and untouchable; dodging a rock careening crazily down a gully; a desperate icy struggle through whiteout and ground blizzard down to the safety of camp after an unsuccessful summit attempt; standing atop a mountain with a friend, the whole world at your feet, a blinding sun blazing out of a flawless sky, taking the time to watch that sun dip below the horizon even though camp is still many miles and many thousands of feet distant; stumbling over boulders and through brush in the darkness; watching the starlight and the storm wrest for possession of the night sky, seated on a narrow ledge beside your rope-mate with only the clothes on your back for shelter, shivering the night away, knowing that, sometime in a distant place you cannot now touch, the world will once again grow bright, the sun will rise, and you will look out on the infant day with new eyes.

-Bruce Binder

One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.

-Edward Abbey