The Getaway...Crom's build and adventures

Death Valley Part 4 of 6.

On the morning of the third day, I woke up and started the truck and waited for things to heat up. Then got out and started the propane fire pit, to warm up outside and eat a bit of food, before departing my camp site and back onto Owl Hole Springs Trail.

Dust clouds behind me. lol



Played around with shutter speed on the camera, attempting to show movement.




Owl Hole Springs Trail. Speed is possible on this trail, like all trails, but there is a price to pay for that, which I'll comment on later.

I stopped to take a picture of these tire tracks. They are mine from a day prior when I encountered one of the big rigs and had to bypass.

The aggregate is really soft and traction and steering is difficult. While passing the big rig with my truck at a 40* angle and with less than 12" of separation, my mirror clipped his trailer. Pretty violent, and I'm really, really glad my mirror didn't break which would have sucked massively as I can't see out the back through the rear view mirror.


Continuing on and intersecting Harry Wade Road, traveling to the North now, I found the sleeping Amargosa River. Not someplace I want to be when it's down pouring.

I really hate mud, but I could not resist going through with at least some speed. That water has a very high mineral content and it dried "white" on my truck. lol

Finally, Harry Wade Road ends for me at pavement where it intersects Badwater Road to the North, and CA-178 Jubilee Pass to the East. It's just after this photo of Telescope Peak, (11,048) The highest point in the Panamint Mountains, and in Death Valley National Park.


I got out to inspect the road barriers blocking CA-178, road was damaged by floods from back in October, and the pass is closed. I wasn't too surprised to find tire tracks going around the park barrier/gate closure. Maybe authorized contractors, maybe not.


What did surprise me were these wild flowers. There were plenty, and pretty amazing for the darkest month of late December.


It was 3-miles of pavement until my next dirt adventure, so no reason air up. On the way, I pulled over and read an interpretive sign about ancient Lake Manly which dried up 10,000 years ago. It was 90 miles long, 6-11 miles wide, and 600' deep. The horizontal lines you see scribed into the mountain side are the result of ancient shore lines from varying times of climate.


I continued on to the Queen of Sheba Mine. I visited here once six years in the past. I was very pleased to find the site in EXACTLY the same condition. People have been respectful and that is good. This mine site was worked, I think as late as 1953.

More reading






Looking back at the trail which led to the mine site. Badwater basin, the lowest point in North America pictured, -282' below sea level.


The mine site is rich for exploration. I spent an hour climbing around and photographing things of interest.

While leaving I found more wild flowers, lots of them.

The Queen of Sheba mine crosses an alluvial fan, so it is extremely rocky. Once traversed, I reconnected to West Side Road (dirt trail), and drove North, my destination was Furnace Creek for fuel and food.

I did stop to play on the Devil's Golf Course, pictured below

The Devil's Golf Course is a large salt pan on the floor of Death Valley,

It was named after a line in the 1934 National Park Service guide book to Death Valley National Monument, which stated that "Only the devil could play golf" on its surface, due to a rough texture from the large halite salt crystal formations.[2]

Lake Manly once covered the valley to a depth of 30 feet (9.1 m). The salt in the Devil's Golf Course consists of the minerals that were dissolved in the lake's water and left behind in the Badwater Basin when the lake evaporated. With an elevation several feet above the valley floor at Badwater, the Devil's Golf Course remains dry, allowing weathering processes to sculpt the salt there into complicated formations.

Through exploratory holes drilled by the Pacific Coast Borax Company, prior to Death Valley becoming a national monument in 1934, it was discovered that the salt and gravel beds of the Devil's Golf Course extend to a depth of more than 1,000 feet (300 m). Later studies suggest that in places the depth ranges up to 9,000 feet (2,700 m).[3]



Pretty neat stuff! When it's all dried out, It's like walking on glass crystals.

 

You did this trip by yourself?

 

Death Valley Part 5 of 6

After topping off my fuel tank in Furnace Creek, I hit the Furnace Creek Inn store for some gifts for my wife and kids back home. Then it was on to the 19th Hole Bar and Grill!

Everybody raves about the Mulligan Burgers, so I ordered that.



So good! Mmmmmm


With my belly and gas tank filled up. I headed into Echo Canyon. Still aired down to 20 PSI, the canyon is only 3 miles from Furnace Creek Ranch.




Echo Canyon climbs into the Funeral Mountains and leads to the Inyo Mine. Where it was in the mid 40's.





I spent about 40 minutes exploring here before connecting to a rough canyon trail which crosses the Funeral mountain range and leads to Lee's Camp, a flat in the Amargosa desert. But as it turns out, daylight and cold were against me and I didn't want to wheel the canyon at night, or camp at too high elevation. So I retreated back and camped in Echo Canyon.

Camping in Echo Canyon.

The night sky looked good here, and I attempted to do some photos of the heavens.

 

Death Valley Day 4, part 1

It was 28°F in the morning when I woke up at 6:00 AM. I started the truck and let it warm up before getting out of my sleeping bag. I prepped for departure, which takes about 30 minutes and hit the trail out at 6:30.

Telescope Peak from Echo Canyon.


Love how this picture shows the scale of the canyon walls!


They call this the "Eye of the Needle"


Another image showing the massive scale of the canyon walls.


Found some other campers in the canyon.

I found two groups with heeps with a ground tents.

These folks in a nice RTT. Good thing it was not windy.

I looked at the map after Echo Canyon ended back at pavement and decided to visit Zabriskie point. Scale is not possible here, but to describe how large the mound is, a person could walk on each of the fingers and appear as ants from where I was, so It's rather large.

Manly Beacon

I spied these folks going for a hike on a ridge.


Here they are on the ridge, left side.


After this I aired back up to 36 PSI and headed North on CA-190.

 

Those VWs with the pop ups are cool! There was a shit ton of them at the Overland Expo West last year.

 

Okay. That's enough trip reporting for one day. I got a lot more in than I thought I would.

Awesome!!! Great to hear you got out. Thx fer the pics.

Welcome!

Thx!

Yes. It was my 5th trip of this magnitude into DV. 2008, 2009, 2011, 2014, and 2015. It's an annual thing, the only years I've missed were years where my kids were born, and I think illness doomed me in 2013.

Yes they are neat. I don't know too much about them, but when I saw the one above I think of the Maggiolina RTT's. They are VERY expensive tents.

 

How about you head out from SD to the expo this year man? I think some of the guys will be heading to MOAB after the Expo since they are a week apart last I checked.

 

Yeah, Maggiolinas are $$$$.

And chrome jerry can. He wears it well.

I was chatting with a guy from Colorado when we were in Arches last fall, and he had a Eurovan. He did have a Vanagon Westy before. He said all the cool kids stick Subie boxer engines in them. I had no idea, sounds cool.

 

There are a few Boxer swapped VWs I've seen on YouTube. They sound wickid! It's a very popular swap.

https://youtu.be/iGStfk6fozE

 

Can't wait until that show is back!!! I've watched season 22 twice since it hit Netflix last month.
I've watched every other season atleast 4 times.

 

Yeah, I need to get on that on Netflix. I got it on BBC America forever, pretty much seen every single one I think, watched every Monday night. But I haven't even had time to watch anything since August. We have Amazon Prime, so I'll need to figure that out.

I did not realize that BBC also got Sabine Schmitz for their continuing attempt with Chris Evans. She is a cute and a hoot. Could be fun to see what they pull off too, although I won't get my hopes up.

 

Check out showboxappdownload.com. Good movies and shows.

 

She is a very talented driver but I don't know about her show hosting skills. A very hard German accent if I remember from the van on the Nürburgring episode. I tgink she came back one more time as well. I just don't see her as a car show host. I don't care for Chris Evans either even though he is a total Fararri snob and has an epic collection.

Bottom line, BBC will never top the charisma and talent of the James, Richard and Jeremy. For over a decade their shenanigans and on screen friendship made that show. Just the shit they would do to another had me hooked.

Amazon will have a Top Gear subscription. It will not be included in the Prime membership, I guarantee it.
They need programming like this to take on Netflix and chill.

 

No doubt. And you can't top a decade of inside jokes. They took a languishing show and made it epic. Now BBC will have a formerly epic show that will languish.

But I still want to kill them for fucking up that classic Mini in India when winching the Rolls. I was just cringing the whole fucking time. But hard to beat straight pipes out of the Jag hood. And the ball game at the end. And Vietnam. And the Robin Reliant. Awesome shit.

Still literally LOL at his one. Just the first few seconds...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhwoUxeTWsA

 

Apologies to Crom.

This thread will now return to regularly scheduled programming.

 

We BSd this bitch up.. Sorry Crom.

Top Gear is LEGIT, you must agree

 

Segue back on topic...

 

I don't mind the BS. It's all good. I'll have to make some time to watch TG on Netflix.

I am curious about some of the training sessions at the expo, mainly rigging for vehicle extraction and recovery. Outside of that, the event is little too large/organized for my taste. And I am also very time limited.

I love Utah. I explored there for two weeks ten years ago this April. I very much want to return and explore with the Tacoma. Maybe in a few years. I want my kids to be a bit older for that.

I lol'd at the chrome jerry can at first, and then thought--it looks good on there!

Thanks. It's a

Camp Chef Compact Fire Ring Portable Propane Gas Fire Pit with Carry Kit, 15" Diameter, 55000 BTU

Camp Chef portable fire ring. I like it a lot. Good substitute when a real camp fire is not possible, and when you need immediate heat!