Death Valley National Park

Here are the two videos covering our last trip to Death Valley. Enjoy!







All our other adventure videos can be seen here: http://www.rogueoverland.com/the-adventure/

 

Nice videos.
I do hope on future trips better stewardship and education can be shared with your groups. I think the biggest concern is group size which was in excess of the 12 person limit unless you had an exemption from the park superintendent.

 

It is very interesting to have that as what you took away from the videos but to each their own. Thanks for watching!

 

To each their own? The park regulations do not pertain to you and your company?
I took much more away from the videos but refrained from commenting as such.

 

The "to each their own" comment was in reference to your choosing to only take negativity away from the video. Either way this is not the appropriate venue for back/forth with you nor is it worth the time. Thanks for your input and happy trails!

 

I will ask again...do you think that the park regulations do not pertain to you and your company?
Do you think your sponsors will be supportive of a company that blatantly violates federal regulations?
This is very much a pertinent forum to ask these questions.

In case you have never accessed the rules and regulations I will provide them for you.
https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/management/rules-and-regulations.htm

 

I think it’s the perfect venue to discuss it. He very politely pointed out that you guys were way over the 12 person per group rule and your responses are showing that you don’t give a shit. Part of responsibly using our public land is knowing the laws and abiding by them so it can remain open for everyone to use.

A better response would have been “oh thanks for pointing that out we didn’t know and we’ll keep it in mind next time.”

 

It seems we got off on the wrong foot here and possibly our first reply could have been more articulate to prevent that. So assuming we are all outdoor enthusiasts and not a bunch of keyboard warriors just looking for a soap box let’s clarify to wrap this up.


We absolutely care about responsible use of public lands so please don’t get the impression we don’t and please don’t arbitrarily throw it out there that we don’t. The response was solely aimed at how the feedback on the video was presented; it felt to imply we were out there doing donuts on the Race Track Playa but ETAV8R only choose to comment on the group size.

Imagine how it would have been received had the feedback read something like this: “there are some really sweet rigs in that video; it’s cool to see such a diverse group getting out together. Just a heads up with a group that size the camping needs to be split into two groups 1/2 mile apart per the park regulations.” That’s all we were trying to get across and apologize if our reply was interpreted incorrectly.

From us it will be left at that with no further replies regarding the topic as everyone’s point has been made. Again thanks for watching and hopefully you enjoyed the video at some level. Thanks for pointing out the park regulations and we will keep them in mind next time.


Happy trails!

 

If I post a video of me drinking beer and driving around would it get pulled? CoC violation? 3day-perma ban?

 

Imagine this:
Nobody cares about your "sweet rigs", and going off the fact that you want people to acknowledge that says to me that all you care about is showing off your overlanding baubles instead of responsibly enjoying the back country.

 

And actually being good stewards of the outdoors and offroading.

 

Nice video. Then I started reading the comments and was surprise at some of the replies. Didn't know there was an actual rule about group bigger than 12, seems like there's a rule for everything now. Beside the fact I didn't know it would be that serious. I'm going to be ignorant for a bit. So you can not have a group bigger than 12 without a permit. Ok, what about you have two different groups of 6 and 7 which happens to be going in the same direction. How about two different groups about 30min to an hour apart from each other going on the same trail. Technically the group is not bigger than 12 but the trails are being traveled just as much in one day.

 

Nor are large groups supposed to camp in one location. There are lots of regulations and they are in place in order to protect the park. It is a good idea to review the park regulations prior to planning a trip. YMMV

 

We are all built differently and come from different places that shape how we perceive reality. That being said, this is not an attempt to say the following is an absolute. Rather, the following comment is intended to provide others one perspective for consideration:

With rules and law you have two parts.
1. The letter of the law.
2. The spirit of the law.
With part 1, the law can be interpreted literally and you can come up with exceptions or choose not to obey or accept the consequences of being caught (breaking the law.)
However, part 2 is where the essences of the law lies. The spirit of the law is for us to interpret what the law is created to address.

In the specific case of group size, large groups tend to have a larger impact on a specific area. Out in "nature" if you walk on a path whatever you've just stepped on has time to recover. If a large number of people walk on a path in a short period of time, it takes longer for it to recover.

The other impact large groups have is sound and light pollution. For some folks, they go out to "nature" to escape civilization. It takes away from the intended experience when they see a mini-city set up out in "nature."

So if you go out with a small group and you behave like a large group, in the spirit of the law, you're not in compliance.

Generally speaking, it seems that there are two motivations for going out to "nature." One is to be with "nature" and the other is to conquer "nature." It is a sliding scale and people will see things depending on where they are on the scale.

 

Its great that many in the group were using RTT’s and such, they really help with keeping site impacts down, but I also agree with comments regarding what was said about the high impacts of such a large group on DVNP. That type of outing is more appropriate in OHV rec areas and can be permitted on many beautiful and amazing places on BLM lands. Please keep the National Parks what they were meant to be and help by educating your group about low impact camping and recreation while visiting places like that.

 

There’s several factors of having large groups traveling in a convoy, and camping together that cause a lot of issues.

The area they drive to and spread out in has wildlife and plants living there, and the impacted areas tend to grow because people like to park on the edges and push them out over time, there’s a soil crust of lichen in the desert that holds it down and takes a very long time to regrow when crushed so erosion happens causing a lot more dust and more barren spaces where plants dont grow, but also there’s noise mentioned before, migrating animals like bighorn sheep get disturbed, and theres the visual impact that affect others in the national park. Death Valley is unique for it’s isolation, and huge groups ruin that. Seriously, there is an impact to that when there’s a lot of people in one place- thats why many of us prefer to camp in dispersed areas in the remote places rather than in the established campgrounds. I still feel alone even knowing there’s a small group camping a mile away, but thats different than camping near a camp full of people.