Diet Taco... trying to keep things light

Yeah don't let my complaining color your opinion too much. Given how nice the springs are they are still undervisited compared to many others and in general the clientele is very well behaved and eventually even the clueless are usually given a clue! Still a special place for sure.

Springtime seems difficult to predict from the few times I've passed through. Usually in March/April it can be quite crowded which is to be expected but I've come through other times in the spring and been surprised to not find many folks there. One early November trip in 2009 made me realize just how crowded it can get during the pleasant weather seasons even when it isn't a holiday weekend or anything.

I quite like the "pizza cutter" size of the 235/85 but obviously that could be down to taste. As far as the KO2's themselves I have had no real complaints. A poor alignment ripped a lot of tread off of a pair of them but the others not subjected to that have been wearing quite well. I consider the road noise to be quite reasonable. I have seen reports of people sometimes having trouble getting them balanced and having them stay balanced but I haven't kept track if that is any particular size of tire or something. One thing I notice compared to the original KO is that KO2 does seems to get a very mild flat spot after long storage. I can hear the noise for the first ten or so miles if the truck has been parked for many months but once the tires get up to temperature it disappears. I think this is down to the KO2 now including a nylon ply which the KO did not - nylon plies are more susceptible to developing a flat spot. I haven't encountered any significant snow or ice on them yet either but reports are the KO2 does quite a bit better on snow/ice than the KO did.

Don't worry about etiquette. It is really simple stuff as far as camping goes - don't be loud, clean up after yourself and if it says "no camping" then don't camp in that spot. Stuff you do already. As for the soaking that's real simple too and there are signs around to offer guidance - don't track dirt into the tubs (all of them have an outflow lip and small basin where you can wash the bottom of your feet) and shower before getting in (there are hot showers near the tubs). You have to be pretty darn clueless of polite wilderness camping to actually end up being an idiot! Since you already go to the desert to avoid party groups I think you already know how to act!

Getting there road wise is really quite easy - especially now. Choose either South Pass or North Pass depending on which direction you are coming from and just watch your speed. The turn off for Bat Rock Road from Saline Valley Road can be tricky to see in the dark so odometer or GPS is helpful though usually there is a big old truck tire marking the spot. Be aware that the USGS topos show a route across the valley starting from near the Salt Tram/Salt Flats that is now closed where it enters a wilderness area. A few people have gotten down that track by mistake and then had to backtrack quite a ways. Seriously though you just need to look at the park map or the AAA Death Valley map and use your odometer to get there with no problems. People are doing the route in mini-vans so you'll have no trouble.

Steel Pass or Lippincott are more exciting and I'd probably not recommend doing Steel Pass solo the first time since a few spots benefit from a spotter but even so Steel Pass is really not that bad at all. So if you want to make it part of a larger exploration of the area it might be more comforting to have someone else along but not strictly necessary.

Mid-week trip definitely keeps the crowds down. Avoid spring break times and weeks that border three day weekends. But definitely get out there to explore it sometime in the not too distant future!

 

Great reports Ken.
Interesting to read about your comments about polarizers. I rarely take mine off of either my SLR or P&S. The increase in contrast between clouds and blue sky being the primary reason. I guess I could do that in post.

I almost went to Saline this New Years but remembering last year how busy it was and the fireworks I opted not to go. Might head out this Saturday for several days. I'm with you about the springs being such a magnet on most trips. There are so many places to explore and photograph yet when you get in the valley, or near it, the springs draw you in with their magic. Keeping fingers crossed for a great storm to wash out the roads and filter the garbage from getting out there.

 

Lol...I'm planning on going in a couple weeks. I had the same exact thoughts...hoping the roads are beat up enough that a lot of people won't want to go.

 

Yeah I usually use one as well again for the nice cloud/sky contrast enhancement along with cutting through haze. Almost mandatory for midday desert shots. For a lot of sunrise/sunset shots a polarizer doesn't do much because I'm either pointed in the direction of the sun or exactly the opposite direction and so the polarizer has no real effect (only has an effect at close to a 90 degree angle to the light source). Since I'm already usually getting longish exposures in twilight I don't want the additional hit of the polarizer and so don't shoot with it.

Now sometimes my sunset shot is more telephoto than wide angle and I happen to be shooting pointed to the north or south where a polarizer would be effective. What I've discovered is that if there are really pink clouds - and especially more than one layer of clouds - the polarizer makes the twilight sky look really unnatural to my eye. When I try to do the typical contrast curves I'd use for a desert twilight scene the sky kind of "blows up" and gets very unnatural looking. This has happened a few times now over the years and so I think I need to be more careful and thoughtful about using a polarizer for colorful twilight shots. In hindsight what I should of done for this shot was take two shots - one with a polarizer to cut through the haze for the mountains and another without the polarizer (or with polarizer rotated) for the sky. I was shooting handheld in a truck being shaken by the wind so I wasn't being quite as careful or thoughtful as I'd usually be!

 

Excellent report and thanks for sharing! Hopefully your next trip will be a better experience.

 

inspired by your thread and my sister, i'm visiting DV for the first time this weekend. first night in alabama hills and the second night wherever my sister takes us. pretty excited just to get out there! I know 3 days wont even let me tip the iceberg (so to speak), but i gotta start somewhere. wish me luck! and give me any pointers if you want. i'll check back next week

 

Be safe and feel free to post a report and pics in the following thread:
https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/death-valley-off-road-adventures.60777/

 

That's awesome! Looks like great weather forecast as well for the weekend.

My usual general advice is to remember DVNP is extremely large and it is easy to end up doing too much driving if you don't think things through. Some people though love exploring mostly by driving and so for them a huge hundred mile loop with lots of off-roading taking up the whole day is just the thing. So decide what kind of person you are and plan accordingly.

Attractions between Stovepipe and Badwater are the most heavily visited so if you don't like crowds spend less time at those spots. That said of the "crowded" spots I'd recommend doing the lower part of Mosaic Canyon (right by Stovepipe) - hike up about 0.75 mile to where the canyon widens as worth the stop. Zabriske Point near Furnace Creek is the most iconic view point and a "must do" that takes less than 15 minutes. Nearby Twenty Mule Team road is a fun quick drive and you can also pull off and explore the intricate badlands.

Golden Canyon seems way too visited and crowded to me. The nearby Desolation Canyon requires more walking but I think is more pleasant since it isn't as overrun.

Artist's Pallete Drive a bit north of Badwater is a fun short drive and Artist's Pallete itself worth the stop. But the real secret there is the "Canyon at the Second Dip". On the drive but before the Pallete itself are two extreme dips in the road each one signed "dip". Park at the bottom of the second one and head up the canyon. You'll need to do some rock scrambling - right at the start in fact - but all of it very manageable. Got my five year old up all of it a few weeks ago. You know you are at the right canyon if it begins with pink stone ledge requiring about an 8 ft climb (very easy climb with places to put hands and feet).

You will meet a number of similar obstacles along the way but each has a pretty clear safe route to get over. You reach the "end" at an obviously impassable slippery chute maybe 20 ft high capped by an overhanging chock stone in a narrow slot canyon. This is a special canyon right in the middle of the high visitation tourist sites that gets little visitation itself. Gives a great sense of what is "hidden" in a lot of DV canyons.

The dunes near Stovepipe attract a lot of visitors but honestly there are many better dune systems to visit some other time without a crowd.

Titus Canyon is an easy but lengthy drive that can get too many visitors but it is an icon and if you like driving more than hiking could be considered a must do.

Avoiding crowds don't overlook the Panamints and various side roads leading to mines and viewpoints along Emigrant Canyon Road.

Last don't try to do it all in three days! Get a taste and plan to come back.

 

wow thanks for the thorough response! i plan to print some of your posts and take them with me on trips. i'm pretty excited to get out there and just get a sense of how big the park really is before i plan a longer trip in a few months. i wont have the kids on this one (just the wife and I) since the temps are going to be very cold. my almost 2-year old daughter wouldnt be too happy, which means my wife wont either. for this trip i'm going to enjoy the break from the kiddos and let me sister show me some stuff and keep a look out for your suggestions.

 

Those are great suggestions for a first trip. Make sure you have a good paper map too.
If you're camping you may want to check out Panamint Springs Resort. Cheap per night dry camping with showers and a good restaurant/bfast buffet.

 

good tip! we might stop there for lunch or something. first night camping under the softopper at alabama hills (mid-30s) and second night wherever my sister takes us in DV, probably with our new Eureka tent. We'll see how it goes. Gonna be cold in the mornings but that's what the mr. heater and a hot fire is for, right?

 

Give this book a once over if you get a chance. Has tips that you might find useful.

Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to its Natural Wonders and Mining Past

$16 Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to its Natural Wonders and Mining Past

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0965917835/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_PhUvAbYXYJV4D

Pretty sure that Ken has mentioned it before.

 

Yep, that is the book for hiking/exploring DV. But it does mostly skip the busier roadside attractions worth seeing at least once. Those don't really require a book though - park map or even the AAA map points you at those kinds of places well enough.

 

yep i have that book and never got a chance to read it! Gonna go through a few sections of it tomorrow and we head out friday.

 

I got it before my first trip to DV. But I didn’t read it until I got back from the trip
It was still really good to read it after the fact because I got a little more insight to places I visited and got some ideas for the subsequent trips. There’s always a lot to see and even going to the same places during different times of the year will change the way you experience the desert.

I’d like to go back before it gets too cold.

 

Love this build, and everything that goes with it. I'm planning a trip to the desert for May-June, and have been taking notes. Living in the Northeast is cool sometimes but we miss out on some incredible landscapes.

Subbed

 

Death Valley
December 2017

We spent a good chunk of our daughter's Christmas vacation in California visiting family and enjoying the weather. My wife had to do a trip for work between Christmas and New Year's so my daughter and I did a quick three day and two night camping trip. The weather forecast ended up being for extremely pleasant temps for this time of year and so we headed to Death Valley. We were starting in the LA area and needed to drop off the truck in Vegas at the end of the trip.

We started out the morning after Christmas and took the Cajon Pass into the high desert. Did a little provisioning around Victorville and had breakfast there too. Then we headed up the 395 and branched off to the Trona Pinnacles. We did a little exploring there and had a late lunch in the shade of a Pinnacle with a nice view. The Pinnacles were "crowded" compared to past visits and this was my hint that visitation in Death Valley itself would probably be pretty high. Not a surprise really, I knew this week tended to be one of the peak visitation times for the park.

After the Pinnacles we headed to Ballarat to take a quick look at the remaining mud brick structures there and talk about how difficult life would have been back then. We continued on the dirt road north from Ballarat to find a spot to camp for the night just off the road. My daughter hadn't been camping since our eclipse trip in August so she was excited to do "camp things" and play around in the Flip-Pac. We had a nice but not spectacular sunset.

Panamint Valley Camp
​

We had hot dogs for dinner and some cookies for dessert. We walked down the road a little bit with our headlamps on at my daughters request. Trips with a five year old is all about killing time so anything that is her idea I'll usually indulge! There was a bright gibbous moon but we still took a little time to learn a few constellations. And then it was bed time.

The next morning I let her determine the pace. After breakfast she spent a lot of time collecting some interesting rocks and building a lot of rock art around the truck while I got us packed up. Once packed and ready to go we did a short hike. The quest was to find out if what we saw in the distance were bushes or trees and find out what kind they were and discuss why they might be there in a desert. Along the way we quickly crossed a burro trail and followed it along discussing that it was headed right for the trees too. As we got closer we determined in fact they were trees and not just little bushes. My daughter with a little coaxing concluded trees must mean there is more water there than usual and that must be one reason so many burros came here that they had made an obvious trail. We looked at dried mud that was a sign of how much water was here at times.

My daughter did have an interesting question as we followed the burro trail - why was their trail so narrow and footprints so close side to side if they have fairly wide bodies? With some more discussion we decided it was because burros spend a lot of time in mountains and it would be very difficult to walk on narrow mountain trails if you walked with your feet spread apart.

Eventually we got back to our truck and headed out of camp up into the Panamints via Wildrose road. I was surprised to see a good four sites occupied in the Wildrose campground this time of year and we continued past to the Charcoal Kilns. Here it was confirmed the park would be busy - the parking lot was nearly full with eight to ten vehicles!

One of my daughter's Christmas presents was a camera. She had been asking for a grown up camera suggesting I could show her which buttons to push. The "kid" cameras for sale are pretty awful and include things you really don't want like games on the camera! Instead I found a many year old used point and shoot camera that was designed to be drop and waterproof on Ebay for under $50. She was delighted.

On this trip she became obsessed with photographing every informational sign around "so Mommy can read them when we get home". This killed even more time in peace and was thus fine by me. I did try to direct her to taking pictures of things other than signs. She decided each of the charcoal kilns needed to be photographed - individually. This killed more time. Win in my book.

Budding Photographer (or OCD diagnosis, jury is still out)
​

By now it was definitely lunch time and I love the view from the upper end of Wildrose. We stopped just about where the pavement ends and dirt starts as there was a nice pad there probably for parking road equipment. Backed the truck up for a nice tailgate lunch with a view. My daughter eats excruciatingly slowly, but again that was fine. I got out some binoculars while she ate and explored the distant scene. When she finally was done she wanted to use the binoculars. More time killed - hurray!

Lunch with a View
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In the above photo you can also see one more "mod" from the recent Saline trip. While walking out of Home Depot after having grabbed the hardware cloth for the intake rodent screen I happened to be walking down the pain aisle and saw the Plasti-Dip. I couldn't resist derping the Toyota emblem on the grill.

We descended into the Death Valley proper with the intent of doing Mosaic Canyon. A look from the distance at uncountable dust trails headed both up and down the access road disabused me of that idea - boy was the Valley crowded! The parking lot for the Stovepipe Dunes was overflowing too. Looking at the clock I realized that if my daughter was going to get a Junior Ranger badge we needed to get to the Visitor Center especially since I figured finding a backcountry site away from folks was going to involve some driving with these crowds!

The Visitor Center was a bit of a disaster as expected with a few rangers in the parking lot trying to direct traffic. We killed a fair bit of time doing all the activities to earn a badge and waiting for the ranger to check her work and "swear her in" as it were. My daughter was shy but otherwise delighted.

I decided my usual camping option of Echo Canyon would probably be too overrun so we headed down West Side Road hoping to camp on one of the side roads. Trail Canyon clearly had a few folks up it already so we headed further south on West Side Road. Some vehicles were coming down Hanaupah Canyon Road so I waited at the turn and asked them who was up the road. They said just one vehicle parked about a mile up and a large camper coming slowly down the road. We drove up about two miles and made camp. A truck with a FWC ended up camping about a quarter of a mile below us and a Subaru with some cyclists camped well above us after stopping for a chat and asking if I had extra water (I had plenty to share of course).

We did a tiny bit of exploring around our camp and noticed the rocks in small ravines were a variety of colors, mostly light tones, while everything else was dark brown. We dug a bit and discovered the rocks a little below the surface were light toned as well. Eventually we got the geology hammer from the truck and cracked apart a surface rock to discover the inside was the same light tones and it was just the outside covered in a deep brown deposit. We decided the brown deposit must need to be in sunlight to form and that frequent water washes it away or prevents it from forming in the ravines. There endeth the lesson on desert varnish and more time successfully killed with a happy kid before dinner and sunset.

This evening sunset did put on a pretty amazing show, as shown in the teaser photo earlier. I also did a panorama showing what a great view you have of the valley from the fans along the eastern base of the Panamints.

Second Night Camp
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Hot dogs for dinner again and the usual bedtime routine. Temps were in the high 30s or low 40s both nights and we were cozy enough in our sleeping bags without needing to break out the heater. I made sure my daughter wore a hat to bed and she seemed plenty warm.

The morning of our last day camping started quite early (about 6AM) which was fine with me since I needed to start clawing my daughter back to Eastern Time or we would have a real grumpy puss once school started in a few days. The sun hit the truck pretty early since we were on the western side of the valley and warmed things up. We were rolling out of camp pretty early and headed to our goal for the day along Artist's Pallete Drive.

The location of our hike - "Canyon at Second Dip" - is described a few posts ago in recommendations for a first time visitor. I've visited this canyon multiple times in the past twenty years and it is fascinating to watch the changes as floods come through and the walls crumble more. We tackled this canyon as a family just about two years ago when my daughter was three and a half (see earlier wildflower trip report). We were stopped not too far up the canyon by terrain a bit to extreme for a three year old or even passing a three year old between parents. I figured we would likely not get much further this time.

My daughter was a bit apprehensive about the eight foot climb right off the road to enter the canyon. I was able to lift her up to a very stable ledge half way up and then stand right behind her as she climbed the rest of the way. Her apprehension transformed into accomplishment at the top and she was anxious to explore further. She of course brought her camera which again had the desired effect of killing more time.

At least there were no signs to obsessively photograph...
​

We wandered up canyon and tackled a number of minor obstacles before coming to the thirty foot high fall that stopped us last time. It is actually not a troublesome obstacle at all that any adult can get up with ease since it is composed of huge boulders with many five or six foot climbs with big rest spots in between. One part near the top was a bit exposed and perhaps a challenge to down climb. We decided this was the end and climbed back down the way we came.

At the bottom my daughter declared this was so much fun she wanted to climb up again. Reaching the bottom of the final ledge and looking at it more closely I decided to climb up and down climb it myself. It was quite easy and I could again lift per part way and be right behind her in case she slipped or fell the last few feet. She was game to try and in less than a minute we were both at the top.

There are a number of other modest obstacles along the way all of them easier than what we had already done. The upper part of the canyon is really neat as it narrows down quite a bit with tall fractured walls and lots of nooks to explore.

Upper Canyon
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The usually insurmountable obstacle that is typically the "end" of the hike has changed a lot over the years as various slides followed by storms dramatically alter the depth of sediment at a slick, narrow and very tall fall. In the late 1990s it was a tall impassible fall. In the early 2000s a huge slide from the vertical wall near it half buried the fall but it was still impassible. Later that slide provided enough resistance to a later storm that the rest of the fall was buried in sediment and it could finally be passed. I explored the area above the fall for the first time though it ended almost immediately in another fall that was impassible but it was a really amazing grotto up there. And so this time I was excited to see what lay ahead.

Well the fall and been dug out by more storms and was once again impassible - but now with the addition of a gigantic boulder wedged just above the base of the fall making an amazing formation like a small cave but with a twenty foot smooth chute entering at the back!

Mission Accomplished
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And that was the perfect way to end the trip. We got back to the truck and headed for Vegas to deal with the rest of our trip back to Maryland (which all went smoothly thankfully). My daughter was already asking when we were going to go camping again! And so was I...

 

Pure wonderful. I'm envious of you and Crom for the want of camping and exploring outdoors you have instilled in your daughters. I tried hard to do the same with trips to the Eastern Sierra and Death Valley but my little one didn't care for it. She's an adult now and maybe one day she'll want to join Dad on a trip. The photo of you and your girl is filled with happiness and I can live vicariously through it. Thanks as usual for taking the time to share the adventure with us.

 

I nominate you for "Dad of the Year"! As always, you're really inspiring so many of us and most importantly your daughter. Thanks for sharing!

 

Just came across your build & trip reports. It's cool to see a kindred spirit with some minimalist notions of vehicle mods. You've also inspired me to get back to DV again this year with my kids

Nick