Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

good view
https://youtu.be/rdLvX55udoU?si=oAHVUHvfp-mce47N

admits to having a history of rolling a FourRunner.
and drives a Prius. the Prius handled the Hilliary condition just fine. who needs 4x4?

 

that was pretty epic

 

Just the kind of logic that leads to rolling a 4Runner... and randomly tumbling rocks for the fun of it...

Thanks for sharing! The videos were pretty much exactly what I expected it all looked like - milder than monsoon thunderstorms but of course happening everywhere all at once.

 

Update on Saline Valley from the last couple of days

"I flew out to take a look at the springs / airstrip this morning. Flew from south pass to springs and out north pass low and slow along the roads but you can’t really see what’s “actually”going on, On the ground. What I did see, the heavy damage is around the springs. The road is gone between the main road and the springs like 2013 but worse. Pretty much from the dunes up to the springs. And only the upper 1/4 of the airstrip where you tie down was untouched the rest looks trashed."

"Lee registered about 2'" of rain on site but the facilities were mostly spared. At Warm Springs the Dog Pool and Bathtub were filled w/ gumbo, other pools (Bat-tub, Crystal, Koi and Palm soaks and lawn were spared. Lee received some 4" of mud on his carpet and nearly lost the trailer that night. At Palm, damage was limited to a bit of rock washed to shower (unlike our last flood when 2 1/2 foot of rubble was cleared. The Great Wall of Laughing Frank held, the wash uphill from said Great Wall took the bulk of water. The Chicken Strip is washed out w/ several diagonal washes/ruts and is X'ed closed w/ cones.
Bat Road is mostly obliterated/disappeared (Lee has been flagging it for reuse). A wash 1/2 mile S of Willow Creek is the first major obstruction N, Willow Creek culvert has left the building, 10' walls remain (would be nice to get a 4 foot culvert in there but nice still ain't permanent. The Willow Creek claim's residential is fine, as well. No word on S on County Road but we can rest assured that N and S Pass' are majorly washed out. Lee feels Lippincott and Steel could not have survived either."


Salt Lake, Racetrack Playa and Death Valley proper/Badwater Basin had mucho water on 8/26 satellite photos

 

Whelp, just three days after 127 finally reopened from Hillary damage it got hammered again last night: The radar looked like this for a couple of hours:



So Caltrans District 9 is going to be working on that all over again!

MNP managed to get a route north to south open through the park, but really that’s just a commuter route and the entire park is effectively closed including all backcountry routes.

And at the moment the I15 is closed just across the NV border as it is flooded…

I’m not sensing the 190 west of DV opening anytime soon…

Oh, and finally all the Burning Man attendees are trapped on the flooded “dry lake” at the moment and BLM has shut the gate on them until the playa dries.

 

The black rock playa is a mess and gates are expected to remain closed until Wednesday even though the event ends Monday. Hopefully those burners follow their principals and prepared for some "radical self reliance" but I'm certain the leave no trace bit is going to be a challenge.

 

Been out there during a freak thunderstorm, only thing you can do is wait it out until dry. You are not going anywhere once its sloppy...

 

Looking on the road conditions site for DV, and I see the following under CLOSED:

• Titus Canyon Road - Flooding destroyed the road

What do you guys make of that? "Destroyed" seems pretty absolute to me. Do you think this road will be closed for good?

 

It has been closed since last summer's monsoon and isn't the only road to have been. The "destroyed" language has been in the status for a number of months now predating Hilary. They never got the time and resources to fix it and it has sections on it that might be slow and or expensive to repair. It will take longer now post Hilary. In fact there is a good chance they haven't even re-assesed it since Hilary. Assume it is closed for at least another year.

DVNP has never permanently closed a road due to storm damage in the past 25 years I've been paying attention. Some stay closed for a long time. Sometimes for spur roads that just access a canyon they never bother re-grading the end of it and the last bits become effectively impassable even if not officially closed. Something like Titus will eventually get fixed, it will likely just take a long time based on how much road damage they have to fix elsewhere. They also need another congressional injection of disaster recovery funds like the NPS got last year to have any hope of fixing these things quickly. If they don't get extra funds then they will likely be limited by annual budgets rather than just time and manpower. Could take a very long time in that case.

Just be aware that there have always been a handful of conspiracy theorists and Chicken Littles that pontificate that the NPS is going to use whatever event to justify closing off part of such and such park. You can safely ignore these people, they don't have the remotest idea of how the Parks are regulated. The Parks all have master plans that have gone through endless studies, committees and approval processes about what roads are to be open and maintained. To close a road requires an extensive public process. Most Parks are anxious to fix their resources to provide access and the DV management seems especially motivated to that end. Problem is usually funding, which can lead to such long closures that it's easy to see why the conspiracy theorists get their ideas (e.g. the NE entrance to the park by Scotty's Castle has been closed for nine years since the massive flood happened up there).

With all that in mind I interpret "Flooding destroyed the road" as the NPS communicating the damage is extensive and will take considerable time and money to repair. And again, that was all before Hilary hit!

 

I think this is a fantastic general description, and for roads like Titus (reasonably heavily traveled, expected to be in reasonably good shape, and reasonably close to "DV civilization), money and attention are certainly needed in order to reopen.

One of the things I found most interesting after last year's flooding was how some of the lesser-traveled, more remote roads were eventually "open again" after no work from NPS, but simply as a result of people ignoring the "closed" status and giving the roads a shot anyway (something I avoided, painfully sometimes, hahaha). Steel Pass comes to mind - a road that was (I think) never officially reopened, but that several folks confirmed was easily passable after a few ignored the closure and reestablished a path through the lower wash to the springs. Then, when others had to escape the winter snow b/c N/S Pass were impassable.

Anyway, I don't mean to say that it's right that folks ignore the status, or that I'm hoping the same will happen for Titus (which I think I'm reasonably done running due to its popularity these days), only that I find it interesting.

I do wish there was some place I could donate money directly to the road recovery efforts. Or perhaps the re-engineering efforts in the case of 190. Or sponsor some sort of "Hey, I and a bunch of DV guys want to go out and restore a road for you ourselves." But of course, I understand why that's not really an option, either.

 

Could be a long closure...

It appears there's been some recent media interaction with the NPS on the status of DV and its roads. The summary is, don't expect much anytime soon:

• Estimated three months for Caltrans to reopen 190 entirely. Caltrans has not communicated to the NPS which if any sections might open sooner. Estimated $6 million in damage to 190 and 136.
  
• All the paved roads maintained by the NPS have suffered pavement loss which is not something NPS personnel can do themselves. They will need to issue contracts to get those repairs made.
• The NPS personnel are working hard getting debris off of roads, which they can do on their own.
• They have assessed about 900 miles of the 1400 miles of roads in the park so far.
• Towne Pass was particularly hard hit with on 1500 foot section of pavement gone and a major culvert washed out as well.
• Road above Wildrose to the kilns and such is under big debris flows including things like Pinyon Trees in them.
• Related to the above estimated Telescope Peak got 5 to 10 inches of rain in the storm.
• The 190 on the west side of the Inyos is also a disaster.
  
• There are photos of a significant culvert along Harry Wade Road being washed out completely.
  
• Rumor from a member on another forum who usually has contact with Park personnel that all hourly employees in the Park have been indefinitely furloughed and told to apply for unemployment benefits. No idea if that is true, but would totally make sense.
• Rumor from a member on yet another forum who usually has contact with Park personnel that Lee can't get out of Saline on his own. He's fine but they may either air rescue him or air drop him supplies.

Sources:

https://www.nationalparkstraveler.org/2023/09/reopening-death-valley-national-park-will-take-time
https://www.latimes.com/california/...y-national-park-faces-months-of-storm-repairs

My pointless observations (based just on past history and of course everything could be different this time):

• I suspect that the east entrance to the park via 190 will open first. That's the usually easiest pavement to repair and it gets washed away one or twice a decade already. They are used to repairing it . It usually it gets repaired without too long a wait (i.e. one month). This time, however, Caltrans District 9 that is responsible for that has a lot on its plate - including having spent the last two weeks clearing 127 only have it to re-flood even worse just a few days ago. Good news is since this is a Caltrans road it doesn't need to wait for NPS to issue contracts.
  
• Similarly the 190 from Furnace Creek to Stovepipe is usually not too bad with mostly debris and not much if any pavement loss. Naturally a route NPS would want open early if they have a choice. 190 did get plenty of debris flows near Stovepipe so might be worse than usual this time though.
  
• Traditionally the NPS does its best to open Badwater Rd. down to Badwater as quickly as they can because that has the most day use areas along it many of which are very popular. I expect they direct their pavement repairs to that section first. Badwater and 190 to the east effectively opens enough stuff to partially open the park and they've done just that in the past. It would be wonderful if they could do that in a month, but who knows?
• Naturally all the spur roads off of Badwater also usually get cleared early. The unpaved stuff they can always regrade themselves. Artist Palette is of course high priority for them and hopefully it only has debris rather than pavement loss requiring contractors.
• West Side Road is usually a high priority dirt road but it is quite long, the Panamints appear to have been hammered with a lot of precipitation, and it also depends on opening Badwater Road not just to Badwater but all the way down to Ashford which of course might depend on contracted pavement work. I've never seen them open West Side Road until the southern end can connect to Badwater.
• Badwater from Ashford to 178/127/Shoshone (i.e. southern entrance to the park) is sometimes left closed for long periods.
• Daylight and Beatty Cutoff both need pavement work (i.e. contracts) but those are usually a priority to open.
• North Highway (road up to Scotty's) typically is the last pavement to re-open. Doesn't access much day use traffic so I think it is usually the lowest priority.
• Really no mention at all of dirt roads, but it sounds like many were heavily impacted. Basically zero news from the NPS about NW of the park. Other sources say that Lee is stuck, which given he is never stuck no matter how bad things have gotten in the past is saying something! And amateur air surveys of the Saline area indicate major washouts and debris flows on the major roads in that area.
  
• I haven't heard any mention of estimates on other critical infrastructure around Furnace Creek such as water and sewer. I'm assuming since they appear to have a fair number of personnel hard at work trying to open the park that such things are repaired at least to a degree? But is there more that needs to be done for visitor areas? Perhaps no news is good news there...

I like visiting in early December usually. I'll be curious to see what, if anything, is open by then. Reading between the lines it sounds like NPS is trying to get a partial opening well before then - probably much like they did last year with a single entrance from the east via 190 if I had to guess.

 

A big difference with Titus is that it has giant metal gates at either end that the NPS padlocks closed. So when they say "closed" they actually mean "closed". Similar story for West Side Road and some others. Steel doesn't have any gates so folks can of course ignore the closure (as some did) and similarly the Inyo County roads on the west side are usually stated as "signed closed" meaning that the county put up a single barricade that says "Road Closed" on it which people have routinely ignored for years.

A lot of the other roads closed by the park last year did get a grader run over them and an official opening from the NPS. Their main ask was that people don't wander up alluvial fans finding their own route before the NPS graded them. For Steel, as you mention, volunteers fairly early on marked the route so that a decent use trail along a single route would be established. The same is true when Bat Rock Rd (i.e. the southern most end of Steel) gets wiped clean as it sounds like happened this time. I'm not aware of NPS touching Bat Rock or Steel in many, many years. Have always been volunteer maintained as far as I know. Same story for Lippincott. The group that marked Steel last year did contact the NPS prior to doing it if their posts were to be believed.

DVNP is an interesting patchwork of semi-formal volunteer road maintenance in the NW part of the park, some Inyo County maintenance in the NW part of the park, some volunteer maintenance in the southwestern Panamints, and generally formal NPS maintenance in Death Valley itself as well as the eastern and northwestern Panamints.

Anyway, I suspect there are some parts of the Park we aren't going to see for a good while!

 

Ahh, right, I always forget about the gates.

Perhaps this will be a good excuse for me to spend a bit more time in other parts of the Mojave this winter. I always find myself pulled back to DV, but there's so much other desert to explore. Though, I suspect that regardless of how little is opened, there will be more than I could ever hope to cover in the 2-3 weeks that I spend over the course of a winter.

 

Thanks for the update and thoughts @DVexile. Sounds like they have their hands full. That is rough for the employees getting furloughed, but like you said, it makes sense.
I was hoping to get back there in Feb/March of next year, I think I'll need to keep Titus off my list most likely. Bummer. I love driving that road.

 

It's also possible roads are simply closed because they haven't been fully examined--lack of resource?

 

On the bright side... being so short on resources and manpower, there's less wasted effort between these back-to-back floods, right?

I too wish there were more opportunities for the public to help. I understand why this is a huge liability, and that the public is generally untrustworthy. A bunch of idiots in jeeps and pickup trucks aren't going to fix a washed-out culvert and repave a highway over the pass.

But, it seems that so many miles of backcountry roads, in DV in particular, are in terrain that any 4x4 can traverse with or without a road... I guess that's the problem. It's just so easy to get lost in those stupid alluvial fans, even without recent flooding. But -- bear with me -- a decent-sized group of vehicles, perhaps with occasional hand-shoveling, can quickly re-establish a prominent trail every bit as good as whatever road was there before, leaving no question as to the correct route for future visitors.

Then, once you get into the canyons, the route is always obvious, and it becomes simply a matter of forging a way through. Sure, some folks would injure themselves and break their cars trying... but, isn't that the whole point of driving around in these canyons? And here again, a descent sized group of dedicated volunteers seems perfectly capable of making way through the canyons, moving rocks as necessary, recovering stuck or damaged vehicles, and generally looking out for each other's safety.

That just leaves the challenge of ensuring these vigilant hard-working volunteers re-establish the correct routes in open terrain... the park would need to oversee and coordinate their efforts, but in a way that is more cost-effective than just paying a guy to drive a grader a few miles every day.

Well, since the park is so short-handed, here's what I'd propose: Reaper drones. Hear me out -- you can oversee the whole park from 40,000 feet with just one of these things, and they come with a highly effective one-way instant messaging system that's just perfect for keeping volunteer groups on course. Plus, I bet the controls are essentially the same as a road grader--so sell that old-fashioned grader and have the grader guy fly the drone instead!

Open the whole entire park on a holiday weekend, call it "volunteer days" or some other cheesy bullshit... heck, bring in live music, a few food trucks, maybe some face-painting, you know... appeal to families. Barricade the highways while everyone's in the beer tent, then pull the taps and hand out little back-country driving maps, so all the helpful volunteers know in which 12-foot-wide corridors they attempt to flee without getting blown up by hellfire missiles. Finally, sit back and watch as the spirit of human generosity shows us that no problems are too big if we just work together as a community! (Note: if problems still appear too big by Sunday, maybe start picking off stragglers to improve productivity.)

Roads should be good as ever by Monday... cheers all around -- well except for the grader guy, he gets a pink slip.

 

I can only imagine what the lower part of Titus looks like and what it looked like while the water was raging through there. Seems like you would be able to hike up from the bottom to see that section at some point?

 

Yeah, I'm sure there's a lot of big debris in there that needs to be removed before they can bring in the blade to regrade it. From what I remember, though, there's not much in the way of fill from just before the ghost town to the exit of the canyon.

 

A closed road is (as I understand it, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) only closed to vehicular travel. You can always hike anywhere that is not specifically restricted (military, pupfish, etc.) Of course, in the case of Titus, you gotta hike up from whatever the last open road is, which may be quite a distance.

 

Yeah, they usually specify quite clearly when you can’t walk somewhere. After last summer, and before Hilary, they had graded the two way section up the fan to the mouth and the parking there. I expect they’d do the same this time as both Titus and the adjacent Fall Canyon are excellent and very popular hikes even when Titus is closed to vehicles.

Of course North Highway will have to open before that can happen!