Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

I was going to comment on how awesome the video was, but this story is even better.

 

So, question for the more experienced of the bunch.

Satellite suggests I can get to Chloride City from US-95 (south of Beatty), in addition to via Daylight Pass and Monarch Canyon. Is that true? I'd like to make this a loop, rather than out-and-back, if possible.

 

While I've not done it I do believe it is possible. When I was up there I saw two different vehicles disappear that way and not return and I was camped in the area and had they come back I would have known it. It is a very cool place. I'm anxious to see what you find out about that route.

 

^^^^This^^^^

Aircraft can fly all over the park and land in three areas legally. Furnace Creek, Stovepipe Wells, and Saline Valley. I've seen pictures of assholes landing on The Racetrack. While I know an airplane landing there does far less damage than a vehicle driving on it they are both prohibited. Selfish people do selfish things. Same for humans walking on it when it is wet. Drones are prohibited for other reasons. It would be so cool to paraglide over DV. An Inyo launch would allow you to see a little bit while conditions were correct but a powered paraglider launch would give more range and ability to not land in the park.

 

Any chance you have that go pro vid?

 

Yep, and the road from US-95 is actually a lot less steep and less technically challenging than the one from Monarch (not that the one from Monarch is particularly bad or anything). I took the loop route in January 2019:

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads...eep-things-light.409330/page-53#post-20217312

 

Hard to believe that video was from this February -- feels like it was years ago!

It's a DJI Mavic Air, now obsolete thanks to the release of newer models, but still found flying in my proximity from time to time to this very day. I'm saving up for a DSLR before I ever consider upgrading the drone! Everything else in the video is (sometimes stabilized) cellphone footage.

This came out as a terribly boring video in my opinion, but I'm proud to proclaim that I never actually flew the drone within DVNP. I skirted its boundaries from camp, where we had decided to slumber just a stone's throw beyond its perimeter, in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to enjoy a wood campfire that night. (Unfortunately the firewood I bought in Lone Pine was so green, it still won't burn even nine months later!)

I am always trying to improve my videography game, of course by following the law, and also by not pissing people off. In this video, I managed to avoid pissing off the Cerro Gordo folks by asking permission to fly after our tour. Which was promptly denied, so I'm glad I asked. But I did screw up by circling the reconstructed guard tower at Manzanar. Although I was operating from the highway right of way, the guard tower is NPS property, so I shouldn't have been flying there. If not by law then out of respect for the site's heritage... so that is something I regret in hindsight. Everything else on that trip was pretty awesome, and I'm so glad I got to see the hotel at Cerro Gordo before it burned. And I don't think I did anything else stupid, disrespectful, or illegal... well except sometimes trying to sing along with the radio, which if you heard it, you'd agree should qualify under all three categories.

Paragliders are hard-core. I used to work with one, several decades my senior, who suddenly disappeared for days on end, so I wondered if maybe he had retired or something. Nope, he was just laid up with a broken back from a hard landing. And the first weekend after he returned to work, he was riding thermals to class A airspace again. Dude was in his 70s.

I'm surprised we don't see more gliders in the skies out there. If I knew how to do that, or could afford it as a hobby, I'd be exploring in the skies whenever conditions were right.

Although maybe all the fighter jet traffic has something to do with it...



We got strafed by a group of Harriers (I think) last weekend, and overflown by several others. I guess the marines decided it was time to trim some treetops in the desert. I never heard them coming, so the most I accomplished with my borrowed DSLR was to fumble with the lens cap while the jets thundered away. Here's a cellphone video frame at least. And about an hour later, I saw a piper puttering along a couple hundred feet over the bombing range as well. He must have drawn the short straw!

 

Off to DV this weekend. No route yet but just excited for the first trip of the year.

 

Ill be heading out there this weekend too! ( first timer)

 

FYI: CopperTop BBQ has moved one block north on the same side of the road. Somebody moved right in to their old location with a large BBQ sign, so it would be easy to mistake the new vendor. You could easily mistake the vendor, but not the food...

 

ty ty! I'll tell them Hobbs sent me here... HAHAHA

 

Enjoy!
We had to cancel our trip, I'm bummed, but it was the right decision.

 

what made you cancel it?

 

We were gonna stay in the small town of Beatty. A couple of the guys are older, and we all were unsure how a small Nevada town would be as far as Covid safety measures. Being in restaurants 2 meals a day, we felt we should wait til next time.

If we were overlanding or were staying somewhere with a kitchen, instead of a motel, we would of still gone.

 

Most of the small NV towns don't care--in fact I got kicked out of a restaurant in Austin a couple months back for *wearing* a mask--but you're still doing the right thing.

 

You do that and they'll run you off...

 

My last trip up there the new Copper Top wasn't open yet. We did stop at the old location and got some food. Not nearly as good but it did the trick and filled the bellies and helped the local economy. It's another family business with a broader menu having more Mexican food options.

 

That somebody is their landlord for the old place. I talked to the owner of Copper Top about it 6 months or so ago. He was pissed and rightfully so. I will never eat at the new place and will encourage everyone I know to only eat at the real Copper Top.

I actually stopped by there last Saturday on my way back from Johnson Valley. 4 hours of driving and all I was thinking about was a rack of ribs, mac and cheese and coleslaw. Turned out they had a close friend die and they where closed for the day. I'll probably head down Friday, pick up some take-out and surprise my wife with dinner. I don't even bother to eat at Holy Smoke in Bishop anymore because Copper Top is that much better and worth a 34 mile round trip drive. lol

 

Rodger, owner of the Mobil station, is the dude running the new joint. They used to have great breakfast burritos at the station, but I don't plan to visit the new place either.

 

I used to buy gas at the location where that Mobil station is now. This morning about 7:30 I put 10 gallons in the tank at the Chevron across the street..country lane? I'd already poured about 7 gallons from my Rotopax cans in at the intersection of SV/BigPine where i aired up from 20psi to 33psi. Seems to have taken me about 56 minutes to fill the tires and add the fuel. cusswords having hard time getting the Rotopax caps off with cold fingers. That fill up at Big Pine got me another 229 miles to the Camino Chevron where I filled at 1245pm, and which got me another 121 miles to home at 3pm.