Alabama Hills to Coyote Flats | RO Explore

By Minh | July 2, 2019

After so many years of going camping with Chivas and Angelo, I finally convinced myself to buy a SUV to build for overlanding. I recently purchased a 2007 Lexus GX470 and after Angelo’s bad influence I bought some Bilsteins 5100 with Toytec springs, a M60 GOFSR tent and some Falken AT3Ws. We’ve been planning this trip to Coyote Flats for months and I wanted to be prepared for whatever we were going to face. Shout out to Steve from Falken and the boys at 714 Tires for helping me get everything installed!

The rigs. We have Tim’s Jeep, Justin’s LX470, my GX470, Dayne’s GX470, Derrick’s Montero and Angelo’s 4runner.

On the way up to Coyote Flats, we thought it would be a good idea to camp at Alabama Hills for a night since it was only an hour away from our meet up spot. We literally had to drive the whole area for a spot because most of the cool spots were taken.

We finally setup camp and everyone was excited to get the party started.

Apparently it was shot o’clock every 5 minutes, so things started to get blurry.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the stars this bright, it feels good to be out with nature once in a while.

I started going around to get some cool star photos with our rigs. Dayne’s GX with his SUV tent.

Derrick’s Montero.

My GX470 and my GOFSR tent fully setup. Man I love this tent and it makes camping so much more enjoyable!

Find the ghost of Kiki.

Angelo’s 4runner with his Tepui tent.

Such a sick view of our camp setup.

Woke up to Yuki wanting to play while Dayne was passed out.

Julia and Derrick making breakfast for everyone.

 

Me and Derrick had to flex on em.

We finally arrived to the trail to get to Coyote Flats, but we were having some overheating issues and had to stop.

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What a view. Our first attempt up the mountain was deterred because Derrick’s Montero had some overheating tranny issues. So, we decided to go back into town and get a tranny cooler, install it in the parking lot and try to climb the mountain again at night when it’s a lot cooler.

We made it up at night with no problem and found a sick camping spot by a stream.

The stars felt even closer because we were at 10,000 feet elevation. I would have taken more photos, but it was so cold at night.

The next morning I woke up to this.. Dayne wanted to see if his GX could make it over the stream and got stuck in some mud patches..

We eventually got it out of the stream because of Angelo’s manliness and his winch, but Dayne’s GX wasn’t able to move on it’s own. We had to leave it there and find someone to help tow it down the mountain.

Angelo’s rescue vehicle.

Wish Dayne’s GX made it in this shot.

Thanks Angelo for planning this trip and being our guide! It’s amazing the things you get to see when you go overlanding and how much fun it is to experience it with friends. I can’t wait for the next trip!