Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

There’s a movie with Liam Neeson called Cold Pursuit. One of the final scenes, he’s driving some huge 900 series plow down the road and a dude in a paraglider goes in the front and out the chute. I’m not so sure that was even realistic.

 

A movie being unrealistic. It can’t be.

 

And for a guy whose mostly anti-violence, sure are a lot of people that die in his movies

 

Not my pic but it is recent.

 

Out of curiosity does anybody know what the Goler wash road/Barker ranch conditions are like now?

 

I’m curious too, heading through there on Thursday

 

https://youtu.be/bYFH7byJDEw

just found this. vintage photos in DV

 

@turbodb was not kidding about the campsites on Hole in the Wall. One of them is right in the hole. Definitely would ruin the scenery if somebody was setup there.

Echo Canyon conditions: No problems going out to Nevada. You'll probably need to stack rocks to get up the second waterfall if you're on 33s or less and/or don't have lockers.

Pleasant Canyon: No problem getting up to World Beater Cabin and Mine, but I had to back down the road about a mile past the mine. There's a couple of sketchy rocks and ice up in a narrow section that I got stuck on, and figured it was safer to reverse around a corner and into a switchback than it was to risk flipping myself over the side. Probably for the best, because the exit gate below Claire Camp turned out to be locked.

edit: Should note that I'm talking about the World Beater to Claire Camp loop, not the loop going to the rim above Pleasant Canyon and then around to the south. The lady working at Ballarat says it was passable last week (to a "wild" group) when the snow was powder, but it's likely very icy up there now.

 

Marlin Crawler posted a pic of Marlin and his rig at the second waterfall. It was one of his favorite places or so said the caption.

For those that don't know, Marlin passed last week.

 

Chloride City/Cliffs: The road out to Daylight Pass is open again (was closed last week). Windy as all hell up there, though. Damn near got blown over while trying to take a photo at the peak.

 

Quite the view from up there. It was windy the time I was out there exploring. Even lowered the FWC one night while I was camping.

 

Lame

 

Fun times were had

 

Time for some Death Valley!

 

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Just FYI, The Orion Dark Sky Festival is this weekend as well.

 

Just wrapped up posting the story of my most recent trip to the park (Feb). This was before the most recent storms, and we had a great time - one again, mostly in the canyons along West Side Road, and finally able to hike a lesser-known canyon that we couldn't climb when we visited previously (and it was raining). A very enjoyable trip that simply reinforced for me how much there is in DV - even in places I'd previously just "driven by" and assumed were "too close to the crowds to be interesting."

Three parts to this one - in my "not much of a build, more of an ongoing trip report" thread:

• Part #1
• Part #2
  
• Part #3

Or, if you want a little nicer handling of the portrait-sized images, you can always check it out on the blog.

Here are a smattering of some of my favorites:









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It’s definitely still wet out here in some spots!

 

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