Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Thanks for the info.

 

Haha the donkeys are so aggressive out there! I woke up at 2am to a donkey eating the sock right off of my foot that was hanging out the back of the shell.
I've had some very mixed experiences with the washboard out there, one time it was freshly graded and I was doing 70mph southbound through saline valley for those 45 miles. Other times it's been no wind, powdery dust hell with 3-4in washboards. Vehicle spacing had to be at least half a mile to keep from eating eachothers dust.

 

...Besides summitting the Ibex dunes - which we'll get to in a moment - another reason for the trek across the sand blown landscape was to check out the remains of a mine that I'd spotted during my research. Hidden behind the dunes at the base of the Saddle Peak Hills, the Rainbow Talc Mine has an interesting history - the subject of one of the most recent battles between protection of the National Park lands, and the mineral rights of landowners. Plus, if the satellite imagery was right, it was going to look pretty darn cool!...

Keep reading the rest here
Two Dunes Down - Lipstick #3​

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Keep reading the rest here
Two Dunes Down - Lipstick #3​

 

Hunter Mountain



Morning "friend" for ground tent sleepers:

 

Has anyone done Isham Canyon towards Goler/Mengal?

Is it really as bad as some people are saying?

Isham is BLM between Trona Pinnacles and the start of Goler.

 

we all know how windy certain parts of DV can get, but damn..

https://www.8newsnow.com/news/local...RL_WBWtxFYeXxZMXw-nRTIWE4DDO5H_7qs1bSiepLCrYo

 

Damn!

You can use wunderground.com's Wundermaps to show you wind streams. I believe these are radar derived. Where there are weather stations, the data is more interesting because you get speeds. Some of the nearby stations show 25 and gusting between 0900 and falling after noon. There are not a lot of reporting stations in the park.

 

Or https://www.windy.com

Built by wind surfers. Does lightening too.

 

Isham is no joke. If you like your doors and body panels I'd leave it be. lol

 

Ok... maybe next time lol

 

Rental Jeep. Take the insurance

 

EPIC!!!

 

This is my Mauna Kea plan, haha.

 

2nd compressor is installed and functional. ✔️

#1


#2


Made up a 12 ft 3/8 Flexzilla hose for each side, and a second air guage/chuck. Will be able to air up both sides at the same time.

Loaded the truck✔️


Tanks are full✔️


Propane is topped off✔️

 

Push off for Death Valley in the AM




No I'm not taking the chainsaw to the desert

 

Just FYI, all the major car rental chains have terms in their contracts prohibiting off-road use. Doesn't matter if it's a Corolla or a Rubicon, same contract: take it off-pavement, your rental is done, your insurance/waiver is cancelled, and you are on the hook for damage, recovery, loss of use, and administrative fees. Of course it'll come down to their interpretation of "off-pavement." I would expect them to cover you if you get door dinged in a gravel parking lot. But definitely not if you break an axle on a 4x4 trail.

I once met a tow truck coming down from Mosquito Pass hauling some sort of shitty modern SUV... It was a rental from DIA, it had broken down up there so the guy had called the rental company, as one does when their rental car breaks down. Bad move! His contract was terminated on the spot, and local tow truck was sent up to fetch the car. The renter was on the hook for the entire cost of recovery, and towing all the way back to DIA. Plus he'd have to figure out how to get back to Denver himself! The guy claimed it was just a dead battery. Or, knowing that road, maybe he had punctured the oil pan and locked the engine, who knows... but either way it was going to be an expensive fuckup for that poor guy.

Anyway, they push rental Jeeps like hot cakes in Hawaii, but if you ask any of them specifically, they will state that you can't take them up Mauna Kea, or anywhere else that's fun to go with a Jeep.

Of course you see tons of rental jeeps up there anyway, and at all the other "off road" destinations. I think it's kind of a don't-ask don't-tell policy out there, so long as you don't actually get stuck or damage the vehicle. But... if you come back with a nice rock scratch in the door, it might be to your advantage if you can't recall where it took place. Or if you get stuck, to select your tow company wisely. Although nowadays perhaps they all have GPS trackers anyway.

There's a local chain on the island that does allow off-road use in their contract, Harpers, with a fleet of 4Runners. Costs a bit more, but was an obvious choice for me because we could fill all 7 seats. I don't think they offer rental insurance though, or at least I didn't buy it... and they will roll a mirror under the vehicle before and after you return it, so don't expect to get away with thrashing it over rocks.

Mauna Kea road is a gravel superhighway, the only reason they demand 4x4 for tourists driving up there is because of the alarming number of idiots that have no idea how to drive down a steep grade. They ride the brakes down 5000 vertical feet wondering what that bad smell is, then crash when the brakes finally give out. So they tell everyone to use 4lo all the time, just so the idiots can make it down in one piece. There are plenty of other fun places to go on the island where you can actually put 4x4 to use though.

Just wanted to post this important information for the benefit of the Death Valley thread readership!

 

Farabees isn’t the usual car rental place either.

 

Good point, and perhaps more relevant to the thread.

But I'm not sure if their contract would allow you to take it up Mauna Kea!

 

Mauna Kea has a road that goes to the top. Kinda a major attraction for those into Astro.