well off the beathen path

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words & I truly believe that people are visual beings - that love to look at photos. Since Total Escape has been traveling & documenting California for well over a decade & my lil Nikon Coolpix just died, after much use & abuse, I decided to organize my thousands images online for your sheer enjoyment & education. Over the next few months, I will be uploading tons of awesome California camping destinations, featuring Total Escape Adventures guided trips & some of the research road trips too. Look for the links in the descriptions to lead you back to Total Escape, where you can locate these hidden spots & buy the maps to get your asses out there. And Flickr is such a great online application, so you should get your own free account too. Check out the backroads of California thru cyberspace. http://www.flickr.com/photos/danamite

Off road recreation is a huge sport on California. Just look at any given freeway on a late Sunday afternoon/eve & you can see these big boys toys being towed home. The diesel trucks pulling trailers, most anointed with colorful graphics & stickers, are referred to as toy boxes. In-N-Out burger here we come. No matter if you are a hard core back packer, an avid back road camper or serious desert off roader, you can find maps for your California adventure on Total Escape. Just remember that most people do procrastinate: ill planning on your part does not mean an emergency on mine. HINT: Do not wait until the last minute (a week before your departure) to place your map order, because holiday or summer rushes on outdoor recreation means we often run outta stock on the most popular titles.

My drummer pal from San Diego, Bill Ray took this awesome shot of the recent lunar eclipse on Monday night & neighbor Lynn forwarded it to me Tuesday morning. Way to go! Wish I would have gone outside to see it, but I was distracted with a movie. Duh...

Fly fishing California is best in the Northern half of the state. With the minimal rains and minimal lakes inside Southern Cal, you best be driving north to find your perfect fishing hole -  way north. All areas around Mount Shasta & Mount Lassen are excellent for fishing. Feather River, Hat Creek, Trinity River , Klamath River , Northern Gold Country's Yuba River near Downieville & even the Sacramento River are all excellent spots for casting your line. Most of the Eastern Sierra is decent for fly fishing too. Rock Creek near Tom's Place ; behind Mammoth Lakes is Minaret Creek & Boundary Creek; Hot Creek is across the highway from Mammoth. Golden aspens are always awesome in autumn near June Lake with Rush Creek ; Green Creek is near Bridgeport CA & the Walker River is just north of that. You can find professional fly fishing guides to help you get started. Online fishing reports are updated by anglers, who also run extensive web sites on the spo

Firstly, meteors showers can be seen from anywhere, not just California. Although the darker the skies the better, so you will have to escape the city lights & climb in elevation. Coastal hills have too much moisture in the air & the unexpected fog can easily roll in. The Sierra Nevada Mountains are the perfect choice for stargazing & most of NorCal. Meteor showers in general do not fit in to the normal daily routine or time frame for most people. Neither do the majority of heavenly displays. The best show starts well after midnight & that is too late for our American society - who manage to squeeze in 10+ hours of television per week. Hit the hay before the pumpkin hour & you're missing out dude. Tonight is the peak of the Perseids. Get your ass outside for an hour. The air beds, lounge chairs, hats, jackets & caffeine will help us enjoy it longer. Meteorites entering earth atmosphere burn into a ball of light & evaporate in the edges of our earths air.

This is the term, the key phrase, the #1 thing campers & RVers type into search engines to find the Total Escape web site, the independent travel site of the back roads and California Wilderness. We used to be the very first listing on Google for the phrase "California Camping", ahead of the State Park system , the National Forests , the KOA's. Why ? Because I was here first, DanaMite on the world wide web, with Total Escape way back in 1996... pre-Y2K, pre-9/11. With modern web marketing, SEO and search algorithms changing we have slipped off this tip top mountain peak, but we still have a big following of outdoor enthusiasts. The web industry calls it 'organic searches' or 'grandfathered into the system'. Yippee! I have the content to prove it, now let's get this mega California A to Z database rollin' baby ! Total Escape was here before digital cameras, before hi-speed, before YouTube, before social media, before the GPS, and bef

Howdy all you fun lovin' Escapers! I know many of you have been out camping with Total Escape Adventures in the last decade & plenty more were planning to. Now, in the midst of summer - we are offering NO TRIPS? What, why? Let's just say we needed a break. We are restructuring the company & in the future all the guided trips will be lead by BajaLory. Now we need to hear from you, the newbies & the regulars, on what kinda trips you want us to lead. Please click the link above to take our very short survey, so we can get a better idea of what you wanna see, where you wanna go & what kinda recreation you want us to provide. Exploring caves in the Sierra Nevada, Baja Kayaking & Off-Roading, or Houseboats on Lake Shasta.... we will let you determine the direction.