Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

I can only think of one use that would be worse, another Tonopah solar farm. yuck.

 

It takes about 5 acres to furnish power for 140 homes. The number might be as high as 200 depending on use.

We would all be a lot better off adding cogeneration nearer the consumer.

 

Podcast interview of the survivor from the couple that got stuck in Willow Creek this past April:

https://www.wkrq.com/emily-henkel-y...m-fretboard-brewing-company-on-june-7th-2021/

Things went about as surmised from initial rescue report (didn't stay with vehicle, ledged out and fell attempting to climb down Willow Creek Canyon) but all in all they were mostly being cautious and somewhat sensible but an irreversible fall was their undoing.

Summary of events if you don't want to listen to the long podcast:

1. Single rock took out both passenger side tires on a Saturday near Willow Creek (they were going to back-country camp in the area).
2. Spent afternoon forming a plan to find help the next day with maps/books they had in car (and tried to get cell service from some nearby higher ground).
3. Decided to try to hike down Willow Creek the next morning as they had some indication of a trail or route (it's actually a technical canyoneering route impossible to hike).
4. Left early the next day (Sunday) with 3L water each and critically left a message at their car as to where they were going.
5. By mid-morning they reached the first impassible fall in the canyon, a 70 foot drop.
6. They stopped and examined it for a possible descent. This would have been a bad idea regardless because of course even if they got down they wouldn't get back up and might encounter another fall lower in the canyon.
7. They had actually already decided to take no big risks though and so decided not to make an attempt to descend.
8. The boyfriend had however down-climbed a short section at the top of the fall for a better view of possible routes. When climbing back up he lost one handhold and then the other and fell the full 70 feet.
9. He was severely injured but still conscious and in communication with the girlfriend.
10. She decided to attempt to climb down to him though she knew falling herself was a likely outcome. She decided she needed to be down with him to try to render aid regardless of the danger.
11. She attempted to descend a different route that was chimney like where she hoped worst case to have controlled slides part of the way.
12. Chimney ended about 30 feet above the ledge the boyfriend was on, she had no choice but to make a controlled fall from there as she couldn't climb back up.
13. Fell feet first and compound fractured her ankle.
14. Boyfriend was still alive but expired within about 30 minutes.
15. This all happened by 10am Sunday (vehicle got stuck Saturday afternoon/evening).
16. There was water in the fall so she had continuous access to water but impossible to go further down canyon as a 100 foot fall was almost immediately down canyon from where she and the boyfriend ended up.
17. Thursday afternoon a helicopter spotted her but couldn't recover her or communicate (though she knew they had spotted her).
18. Later in evening a drone returned and attempted to say something by loudspeaker but with waterfall she couldn't hear/understand what was said.
19. Friday morning she is rescued after having spent six days stuck at the base of the fall.

So a very sad story and actually the only significant mistake was bothering to examine the fall at all and thus be exposed to a fatal fall. As soon as you see a fall like that you should turn around because even if you do get down it you are likely to just run into another one further down canyon and end up stuck between them. Ideally you'd just stay at the car the whole time but there wouldn't have been anything particularly wrong with hiking down the canyon to see if it was passable and turning around when they discovered the fall. And in fact in doing so they would have discovered a reliable source of water and could probably have lasted nearly indefinitely until rescued. Climbing around to look for a route down the fall was their undoing. It was really close to having had a happy ending...

 

In a sort of fucked up way, had they stayed with the car, they might have suffered severe dehydration.

 

Yes, the one part unclear is just how much water they had in the car with them as they were only planning a single night of camping and it did take a number of days to find the vehicle. That is of course why you should have multiple days of water in your vehicle, but assuming they didn’t they were quite fortunate to have gotten stranded within fairly easy walking distance of plenty of water which they found. So a rare case where leaving the vehicle was helpful. Sadly though one of them was dead from a fall less than 24 hours after the vehicle was stuck.

 

Thank you for the summary. I finally finished listening to the interview. She seems well composed, and optimistic about her future, after such a traumatic event.

 

Liters isn't a unit you should rely on.

I feel for her. Although she sounds remarkably composed and well put together, it's a lot to process in such a short time.

No idea how of the highs and lows of having a helicopter find you not once but twice and wonder if they will come back a third time. Her description of where she was and how compact an area they were in-kudos to her rescuer's piloting skill and the flight medic for getting to her.

Hoping for her continued recovery.

 

You find any gold in there?

 

nope, not this time.

 

Ahhh... but you have in the past!

 

Edward Abbey wrote in Desert Solitaire of hiking down a canyon and getting stuck at the bottom of a short fall. He couldn’t continue down canyon for a much higher fall was below him. He tried climbing up but couldn’t reach a handhold until he was able to step with one foot up onto the top of his walking stick and was able to reach a handhold to get back up, leaving his stick behind. A lot of people have made the same mistake and unfortunately end up in the news for it. What an ordeal that woman went through!

 

Here's why I didn't get home from my weekend trip until 5AM this morning...







Erred on the side of too much caffeine vs. not enough for the drive home... now lying here wide awake while the clock ticks away the last few hours before I need to be back at work :/

 

That is quite the sight!

 

Those are some great astro shots! I would say staying till 0500 was worth it.

 

I'm never much of a photo guy but those are fucking rad.

 

Gotta love the salt tram. How was the trail up there? I've heard the Swansea Rd can be a bit rough (but I've never been myself).

And fabulous photos man, you're getting good with that thing!

 

Not for you!

Went... about 2 years ago. Before the fire at the Mine. No problem but I went up Cerro Gordo at Keeler and came out at Swansea in my stock Taco. Worst part was the turn off at Cerro Gordo Mine is single lane and I had to wait for 25 SxS to clear the road. Didn't stop at the Mine as they weren't giving "tours".

Nice views, the tram is impressive, plenty of spots to camp ( I did it in a day), well worth the trip.

When you see the corrugated cabin North of the tram take the time to walk the now single track to the cabin and contemplate what the hell is it doing there?

Surprised you haven't been there..

 

I'm a little surprised as well, though it's really just a matter of having too much to do in the area and never getting around to it. The roughness doesn't bother me really, I was more just curious. My hope is that this fall/winter I'll finally make it up there. Maybe head into DV that way... or out. I dunno, there's just so much do do on the east side of the Inyos. Heck maybe next spring when I look around Owens Valley some more.

so little time, so much to see!

 

Winter you say? This was Feb 2018 at about 8000'. We didn't make it to 9000' but it wasn't for lack of trying. lol

 

Thanks Dan! I still can't believe how many of the shots I mess up, including a whole day of leaving ISO stuck on 10k from the night before, trashing a few exposures that otherwise might have even been worthy of printing for the wall. But as a wise person the internet once said, if you take enough photos, some are bound to be decent!

Regarding the road... @BKinzey sums it up pretty well. I can only comment on the CG side of the trail. I was originally planning to drive up Swansea from the bottom, but with growing excitement from the past days' relative success at astrophotography, I decided to come up through Cerro Gordo in hopes of obtaining permission to compose some shots there later that night -- an easier thing to request at 8PM than at 2AM. Unfortunately that permission wasn't granted, as the owner wasn't present to grant it, but it was still nice chatting to the person who came out to greet me.

Note to readers: if you want to contact CG, use email. We had tried phoning during the day but couldn't get through. I learned that their website is out of date and the phone number shown isn't connected.

The good news is that they're making progress on rebuilding the hotel. The new foundation is already poured, you can see it to the right below:



They were also quite excited to have reached 1M subscribers on their youtube channel. So although it may soon become influencer central, it's great to see them working so hard to preserve such a unique and historic relic of mining history in the 21st century.

Another note to readers: If you are interested in seeing more of Cerro Gordo than what's on the tour, you can volunteer to help them maintain the property.


Rounding the corner onto the shelf segment of the road

So anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, the road. It's a delightfully fun 4x4 trail with the perfect combination of scary off-camber shelf sections, squeezing between trees, twisty turns, and insanely steep climbs and descents. But without any obnoxious rock crawling or other treachery to force me out of the cab or my comfort zone. Highly recommended!

The only word of caution is that there are blind corners and no turnouts on the shelf section, which itself has deep/uneven enough tire ruts to be scary if not dangerously tippy if you don't keep your wheels positioned right. Reversing here would be no fun at all--at least for me. So I wouldn't drive it again without sending a scout (i.e., the flying camera) to check for oncoming traffic. Well into dusk, we didn't encounter a single other vehicle, and coming back in pitch darkness went even faster since we couldn't see the terrifying drop offs.


We saw numerous lakes glowing red in the distant north, here's one barely peeking out behind the final peak we'd round to reach the tram... Unless these were optical illusions, I speculate we might have seen as far as Mono Lake.

Here's a terrible video I just assembled from 10x-speed dashcam footage, in case you're curious. Apparently my dashcam wound up pointed mostly skyward, which tends to happen when I try to use it as a mirror instead of a video screen. (It's one of those rearview-mirror-integrated ones with a reverse camera feed, and I forgot to readjust it after installing the topper for this trip). Also its video format doesn't play nicely with Premiere, so there are random jumps forwards and backwards in the composite footage, but I don't have time to fight that battle today. Finally, I accidentally deleted the final 5-minute segment, so we don't actually quite reach the tram at the end. In conclusion I screwed everything up and the video sucks, so remember to like and subscribe!

https://youtu.be/bBIE6qulri8


Where the video should have ended

I didn't know there were other structures hikeable from the tram... wish I had checked them out!

Per usual I had done a shit-poor job of planning the whole trip and was frantically trying to download/study topo maps for the next segment at each fuel-up. I definitely screwed myself by not better-researching the Mazourka route before running it earlier that day -- other than admiring the beauty of Papoose Flat, it seemed like I was just driving a long, relatively boring trail, randomly pursuing dead-end spurs that rarely led to anything interesting. I'll have to revisit that one again!


The day's highlight


At least I eventually found a mine in Mazourka Canyon though

Apparently there are good camp sites up there, because well into the night as I fumbled with my camera in the howling winds, someone walked up from his nearby camp and scared the living shit out of me. Not on purpose of course, but I sure didn't expect to hear a human voice behind me at that particular moment!



He was also lugging a camera and a tripod. I had a great time chatting with him as we experimented with light painting on this most remarkable wooden structure.





There, now I've posted all the ̶g̶o̶o̶d̶ decent ones.