Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Steve Hall used to have a great website with hiking reports. Unfortunately he took it down. It was a great resource akin to Digonnet's books.

I also found this video last night:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=df_wlhfrIrI

 

Wow, I had no idea that he took his site down, or of what he was going through for the last several years. Sounds like he's (hopefully) going to be all right, and I surely wish him the best. Bummer to lose the resource as well.

 

yep, too bad he took that down. the video was interesting to see Mike Reynolds show up

 

I haven't finished the video yet...no spoiler? LOL


p.s.
That is super cool he ran into them on his hike.

 

I didn’t realize he had taken his website down either. That is a bummer, I had several of his hikes saved as bookmarks. I saw a post where me mentions maybe putting some of the data into a book, hopefully that will happen.

 

I'd remembered something about it but looking through the details, I see he says it would happen sometime between 2021-2023 with a week's notice. He doesn't feel comfortable allowing someone else to take over as the site has it has some personal photos, etc.

I thought maybe web.archive.org would have crawled it. Apparently, his website was excluded. And here, I thought nothing on the Internet ever goes away...

 

I thought I’d share this here. Yellowstone is about as far from DV in climate as it gets. But the job of winter keeper and this guy’s 50 years on the job demonstrates a lot of the same care for a place many of you share for DV.

 

New Badwater Weather Station
By Press Release on September 12, 2021 in General



The National Park Service and National Weather Service announce that a new automated weather monitoring station is now operational at one of the most unique locations on the planet, Badwater Basin. The public can view the new weather station’s data online.
Badwater Basin is the lowest point in North America and a popular tourist destination for visitors to Death Valley National Park. The new weather station is at an elevation of 219 feet below sea level. This is 26 feet lower than a similar automated weather station located at Furnace Creek Visitor Center (-193 ft).
The Campbell Scientific weather station measures temperature, humidity, and rainfall. It records weather information at the station and transmits live data to National Weather Service distribution systems by satellite. Badwater station’s weather observations can be viewed at https://go.usa.gov/xFJx8.
“People around the world are fascinated by Death Valley’s extreme summer temperatures,” said Abby Wines, park spokesperson. “Now anyone with internet access can compare the temperatures at Badwater and Furnace Creek.”
This equipment will benefit the National Weather Service by providing real-time weather information used in the issuance of life-saving weather warnings. The data also helps improve numerical weather forecast models, and contribute to the climatological monitoring of our atmosphere.
The National Weather Service in Las Vegas, NV (VEF) can be found online at weather.gov/vegas or on

https://sierrawave.net/new-badwater-weather-station/
https://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/timeseries.php?sid=BWBC1&num=72&banner=gmap&raw=0&w=325

 

Pretty cool!

Wunderground.com is another option for weather stations--it's where mine reports. It's kinda cool to look back on the weather from time to time--which reminds me, I need to clean the rain gauge of all the cobwebs.

 

That's Badwater-ass!

 

This is the best weather station map I have found. https://mesowest.utah.edu/

Select the state and change the network to "all networks".

 

Zooming in on the Owens Valley/Death Valley area there isn't much info or weather listed.

 

Wundermaps has three different stations (on the outside edges of the park). None are the visitor center. I know of several different sources of data. Davis Weather Link, CWOP, Wunderground, and NOAA. Some allow individual weather stations to report--Wunderground is one of the largest. Every few minutes, a weather station updates the server with whatever it collects. Most collect temp/windspeed and direction/rainfall/barometric pressure. Newer instruments can record AQI, UV, and solar radiation. There are some things I don't quite understand, like evaporative cooling and some other stuff more modern instruments capture.

Anyway, weather is one of those things where observation is best in places where there are more instruments. Weather observations can vary even in a small area which is why one observation isn't so useful. Be cool to see remote stations throughout the park but as a visitor, I'd prefer not to see them

 

Headed out to the Western part of the park this weekend, anyone else going to be out there?

 

Have tentative plans to be in the area next week but the smoke from the fires may force a plan B instead.

 

Was originally planning to head to the north western part of the park starting Monday, but due to the smoke going with plan B more around MNP areas instead.

At the moment with the odd wind direction the park appears beautifully clear from satellite imagery!

 

potentially plan NE+5 with subplan code 'nightjar'

 

x2