Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Try and find the story of the rental car to forward to your buddy. The short version: he spent a shit ton on towing and bought a beat to shit rental car

 

Do you have a roof rack? And some duct tape?

 

Oh, I don't need to look that up. When I went out there with my family two years ago we saw a couple who decided to take their Audi A8 to the Racetrack. It was ugly.

 

Here's part 1...not for you but for your friend...
https://davidsworlddotorg.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/stranded-in-death-valley-part-i-of-iii/

 

"Oh my front and rear bumper are torn off and I've scraped the bottom 127 times? Well better keep on going!"

 

Okay, that was hilarious. Sometime I need to tell you guys the story of me and my friends getting stranded on Lippencott back in 1982 in a 1965 VW van and a 1976 Toyota Corona. It's also hilarious, I promise.

 

We are waiting.

 

So, here it is. It's a long story, so bear with me.

After looking at some of my notes last night, I realized that my whiskey got the date wrong. Our first trip to DV was in 1983. I was a freshman in high school, and our new youth pastor, Chet, had just started working at our church. He had been going to Death Valley since he was in junior high school back in the 60s. So he organized a guys-only youth trip to Death Valley in the winter of '83. No 4x4s, just whatever vehicles we could scrounge up. We wound up with Chet's 1963 Dodge Dart, Tony's 1974 Dodge Charger, and Walter's Toyota Corolla station wagon (can't remember the year on that one, it was a total piece of crap). We set out for a three-day weekend after Christmas.

Back in those days, Death Valley was a National Monument, not a National Park. So most of the Valley was marked Day-Use Only, the only places you were allowed to camp overnight were in the developed campgrounds. Well, we took this as a suggestion. We were actually planning on sleeping in the mines, which are much warmer than sleeping in tents. (This was the 1980s, hantavirus wasn't a thing yet.) So the first night it's just hitting twilight and we're picking our way up the road to Ubehebe Mine. My brother and I were in the back seat of the Dart with our buddy Victor in the front seat and Chet driving. As we're driving along we see a pair of headlights crest the ridge ahead of us. Chet says, "Eh, it's probably a couple of off-roaders headed out for the day." Victor says, "Yeah, but wouldn't it be funny if it was a ranger." And just as he says that, the red light pops on. Victor says, "I say we beat him up and steal his carburetor." Chet curbs his youthful enthusiasm. The ranger’s SUV pulls up alongside us, and out steps, Ranger Dan. Remember that name. He asks, "Where you all headed?" Chet's all, "Up to the mines to look around." Ranger Dan says, "This is a Day-Use Only area.” Chet responds, “What, it’s still daytime,” and points to the sun, which is just starting to dip below the hills. Ranger Dan did not buy this. So we had to turn around and he escorted us back to the paved road. By that point it was very dark, there was no way we were going to get anywhere uncivilized to sleep, so we wound up spending the night at a campground.

The second day went much better. No ranger interference at all, we did some exploring on the valley floor and then drove out to Chloride City and spent the night in the mines there. The third day we were headed home. We drove down the valley and stopped at Stovepipe Wells for gas. While we were stopped, a ranger SUV pulls up, and out steps, Ranger Dan. He says, “You guys are in a world of trouble. Once you’re done, pull your vehicles off to the side.” So we gas up and pull off into the parking area.

He proceeded to detain our entire group for two hours. First charge: “You were speeding.” “Well, okay, how did you determine that?” (Since we had not seen a single ranger vehicle the entire trip down the valley.) “You were clocked from the ranger station.” What!? Second charge: “We have witnesses who say you were vandalizing historic sites in the monument.” Okay, 1. We never vandalized anything. We slept in the mines, but we always respected the artifacts and buildings, and 2. We never saw a single soul (aside from Ranger Dan) the entire time we were there. So where were these “witnesses”? Undeterred by logic, Ranger Dan pressed on. He grilled everybody, including teenagers, without the benefit of legal or even adult counsel, trying to get them to admit to some crime. It was unconscionable. Finally, after two hours, Chet said, “Look, this is ridiculous. Charge us with a crime and arrest us, or let us go.” So he gave all the drivers speeding tickets and we left. As we were leaving, Victor said, “I told you we should have beaten him up and stolen his carburetor.”

Tony was still a student and had a full time job, so he simply paid his ticket and went to traffic school. But Walter and Chet were so incensed by the whole thing they decided to fight their tickets in court. So they drove up to the Federal court in Barstow. Ranger Dan showed up, and, to his credit, he related the events exactly as they happened and admitted that his actions at Stovepipe Wells were indefensible. But then he says, “But your honor, in my defense I must add that these gentlemen appeared exactly as they do now.” (We can only presume that he was referring to Chet and Walter’s, then unfashionable, giant bushy beards.) The judge looks at them, then looks back at Ranger Dan and asks, “You want me to believe they were driving around Death Valley in three-piece suits?” The whole courtroom started laughing. And the judge wound up throwing out the tickets.

 

“Hey,” you ask, “I thought this was a story about getting stranded on Lippencott Mine Road?!” Wait for it.

So fast-forward two years to the winter of 1985. (There was a Death Valley trip in 1984, but nothing broke and we didn’t get stranded, so I remember nothing about it.) This trip we were driving Walter’s 1965 VW van (the Corolla Wagon had died) and my brother’s 1976 Toyota Corona. We were having another uneventful trip, we had spent the second night at Lost Burro Mine. We spent the last day exploring the Racetrack and were getting set to leave. Chet had been looking at his old maps and had seen this unmarked road that led from the south end of Racetrack Road out to Saline Valley. He said, “Hey, I’ve never tried this route before. It looks like it might be a faster way from here. Why don’t we give it a try?” We said, “Because we don’t want to die out here!” But he eventually convinced us, and we wound up driving down the (then unsigned) Lippencott Mine Road.

It wasn’t so bad at first. Especially going downhill. The drivers stayed in the cars and everyone else walked outside spotting. But it started getting progressively worse. Bigger rocks, less room to maneuver around them. We slowed to a crawl. After a few hours we had only made it three or four miles down. And then it got really bad, the road basically turned into a boulder field.

As we were staring at this, trying to figure out how to traverse it, we see a Jeep (yes, an honest-to-God U.S. Army Jeep) come driving up the road towards us from the other direction. The guy driving stops to talk with us. He was a National Guard motor pool mechanic, he had “appropriated” the Jeep for the weekend to take his girlfriend off-roading. He looks over our cars, looks back down the road, and says, “You guys are never going to make it. It gets worse than this further up. I barely made it in the Jeep. You need to turn around and go back the way you came.” Luckily we were at a wide point in the road, so he managed to squeeze around us. He promised to send help, and then continued on his way.

Go back the way we came. The magnitude of this now struck us. It had been difficult to make headway going downhill. Now we were looking at going back over the same terrain at a very steep grade. It was well into afternoon now, it was going to get dark early, so we rolled up our sleeves and got started. We managed to get the cars turned around, and then started back. The Corona was doing pretty well, actually (Go Toyota!), but the VW was dying. We were pushing it over every bump. After three hours we had gone maybe a mile or two. And then, with a grinding cough and a puff of black smoke, the VW’s clutch finally died. It was going nowhere. There was no way for all of us to fit in the Corona. We were all exhausted. The sun was just touching the hills to the west. It was getting dark, and colder by the minute. Things were starting to look pretty bleak.

And then, a pair of headlights came around the next bend above us. They stopped. A man got out. And he said, “You guys are in a world of trouble.”

It was then that we knew we were truly damned.

Apparently the Jeep driver had pulled through for us. He had contacted the ranger station up at Mesquite Springs and they had sent help. And, by the luck of the draw, help turned out to be Ranger Dan. But we had a saving grace. Dan was not alone, he had a trainee with him: Ranger Cynthia. Ranger Cynthia was cute, or at least the cutest thing we had seen since Friday. And we all got the impression that Dan was making his best effort to snuggle up to Cynthia on those cold Death Valley nights. Beating up on a bunch of stranded tourists probably wasn’t going to help him in those efforts. So he wasn’t exactly cordial, but he was there to help. But he remembered us all right.

The bad news: We couldn’t leave the van on the road. Obviously. But we were on an exceedingly narrow stretch of the road at that point. There was no shoulder to push the van onto. The solution: Build a shoulder. Ranger Dan handed us his shovel and pick from the back of his SUV with a sardonic grin and said, “Get to work.” It took about an hour of back-breaking labor, but we finally built about three feet of shoulder on the side of the road, enough to push the van over and park it with enough clearance for vehicles to pass. By then it was very dark, and we felt like we were about to die. We shoveled all of the gear from the van into the ranger’s SUV and the Corona, and managed to squeeze everyone into them as well. It was very late by the time we were unceremoniously dumped at Mesquite Springs campground.

But remember: We were supposed to be home! Most of us had school the next day! Ranger Dan gave Chet a ride to the ranger station to use the phone to call and inform everyone of our whereabouts. We only had planned meals for two nights, so we were left scrounging for dinner. The main course was celery and peanut butter, but by the time Chet came back there wasn’t any peanut butter left. The parents of one of the guys on the trip owned a 12-passenger van, so his dad drove out the next day and picked us up.

Walter went back a week later and had his van towed out. Even back in 1985 the tow cost over $1,000, well over what the van was worth. Chet gained a reputation as a troublemaker after that. To this day, over thirty years later, if I mention Chet to my mother, she will somehow work into the conversation that she thinks he’s a troublemaker. It’s a fair cop.

 

Latest news this afternoon: Another dropout! So, we're back down to four again. NO PRIUS!

 

Wonderful stories. Thanks for sharing. Sounds like Lippencott has improved over the years.

 

no wind.i camped too close to the populace.the dog lurched with stiff hair and vicious throat then tail wagged at several visitors enquiring about this much maligned truck-tent. i made good food drank ale and wine and coffee. enjoyed a campfire, but left my ashes in the fire ring.12.06.17

 

Sounds interesting...did you collect the ashes that may have been there when you arrived?

 

...no, but i picked up a few left-behind clothing articles..if i go there again, i'll collect extra ashes

 

I always try to get the ashes from the prior fires in the spot where I camp. Then again the next evening before I make another fire. Don't do it in the morning after you have a fire. Did that one time and learned a great lesson when the plastic bag I had put the ashes in was melting. No I don't drown my fires in Saline unless it is windy. But if it is windy I don't usually make a fire in the first place. YMMV.

 

Be Careful Out There!

Image pilfered from a different forum. Rollover on Death Valley-Big Pine Road near where it leaves 168 according to the person who took the photo. Note under wiper said driver was fine and was getting assistance according to the OP.

One of the bad side effects of having put a nice suspension on my truck along with on-board-air so I can air down easily is that now I can drive the truck too dang fast on back roads. It is *so* easy to get going faster that is safe for the road surface. A little drift and a high berm like on this road...

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Are dogs allowed in DV?

 

Thanks. I haven't been there since we got the dog so I haven't done any research.

 

It wouldn't matter where you are in the road. If you come out of a turn to fast and start to fish tail from one side to the other and can't correct fast enough, shit stew will most likely happen.

 

Be aware they are not allowed on almost any of the trails in the park. They are allowed in campgrounds and need to be on leash of course. Also be aware campgrounds have lots of coyote activity too.