About

TL;DR: Subscriber supported field notes from backcountry explorations of the Western United States

Hello, I'm Guy Starbuck. (Yes, that's my real name.) I’ve spent most of my life finding little-known places in the backcountry of the Western United States (particularly California and Nevada) and sharing them with you here on this site. Most of my adventures are hikes to historical mines, Native American rock art sites, or anything else with some history. And for me, the more remote the site is, the better.

Starbuck.org began way back in the dark ages of the internet (aka 1997). At first, I hand-coded HTML pages, and later, I wrote the site in PHP. I switched to WordPress when that came around. Now, I am on Ghost.org.

Originally, I started this website to track my hiking and peak-bagging adventures. I had always preferred to hike to lesser-known peaks. I passed countless historical mines and prehistoric rock art sites along the way. Over time, I noticed some of them were being vandalized. History was disappearing. I decided to document and share what sites I could before they were gone.

Although I can’t always reveal the locations of the places I go, I do hope to share some of them with you.

Please Tread Lightly and Leave No Trace. Take only photos and leave only footprints. Respect what you find. Give others the joy of discovery.

This website has:

This represents a fraction of the places that I've been to. My photo collection contains over 120,000 photos.

I constantly post old and new trips.

Please credit Starbuck.org if you use my website to find places. Don't use my photos without my permission.


Support my work

As of 2021, this is a reader-supported website.

  • Free subscribers have access to the history and descriptions sections of the posts (same as nonmembers)—no access to directions, GPS waypoints, or photo galleries. See the Sample Trips page for examples of full access posts.
  • Paid subscribers get full access to posts. This includes:
    • History and descriptions
    • Directions, GPS, and maps (as they exist)
    • Photo Galleries
Not all trips have directions, GPS, or maps. I've been asked not to disclose some locations. I am also adding new trips and going back through old trips.

It takes a lot, from servers to field equipment, to keep this site up and me out in the field, researching and publishing these trip reports for you. Supporting me will keep this site going and not become yet another abandoned blog. And it also means that I get to keep drinking coffee. And I like coffee.

So, for the price of a cup of coffee once a month, you get access to everything here.

My goal is to keep this site sustainable, interesting, and ad-free.

I won't sell your data. I'm not interested in that.

I greatly appreciate your help. Thank you for supporting my work!


Guest Authors

Check out posts by our excellent guest authors:

GC - Starbuck’s Exploring
Field notes from exploring backcountry locations of the Western US.
Hugh M. Smith - Starbuck’s Exploring
I have been hiking and photographing the Southwest deserts, mountains, and canyons since 1978. My main focus has been on little-known locations, with an emphasis on historical mines and mining camps.
Jonathan Pusey - Starbuck’s Exploring
JP gets harebrained ideas about what he might find in the desert if he’s clever enough. Most of the time, he finds only photos. Sometimes they make for good stories, which he posts here…

Interested? You can contribute, too!


Published Works

Articles

Searching for Petroglyphs in the Cottonwoods. Panamint Breeze. June 2011.

Photos published in

  • Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. Flyer. 2013.
  • Ecology Letters. Applying trait-based models to achieve functional targets for theory-driven ecological restoration by Daniel Laughlin. 2014.
  • Religious Symbolism in Eastern California Ghost Dance Rock Paintings by Alan Gold. 2014.
  • A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words by the Friends of the Public Land Cabins. 2015.
  • Historical Sites in Joshua Tree Closed Due to Theft of Artifacts by David Halligan, The Survivor, Fall 2016.
  • Ancient Universal Language of Man by Chris Hegg. 2015.
  • TRACCE Rock Art Bulletin by Maarten van Hoek. 2015 & 2018.
  • Tybo, Nevada by Robert McCracken and Jeanne Sharp Howerton. 2016.
  • The Cosmological Connections to Rock Art in the Great Basin and California by Samantha Clark, Clara Ennis, Brittany Hormel, and Kaley Kelly. Western Carolina University. Poster. 2019.
  • Skidoo, The true story of a mail-order bride in the mining camp of Reveille, Nevada by Jeanne Sharp Howerton. 2021.