Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

I wanted to believe that. But it sort of implies the asphalt surface was needed to drive on leaving the middle for raw materials. It’s mostly sand, gravel and rock combined with bitumen which is the oily stuff—and where I think the explanation breaks down. If you were mixing it, the ground would be stained by it and yet there’s no staining. At the very least, I would think the oil would have killed the plants surrounding the circle. I also wonder where the debris is? Raw materials, spilled product. That kind of thing. What works in favor of the explanation is that monument looking thing. That could be a monitoring well although they are usually marked and some kind of flush cover like you’d see on a valve in the street.

What ever it is, we’re left to wonder.

 

Man... I'm back home and have scoured my hard drives and SD cards for photographs of the equipment staged there this spring... I've got nothing!

My mind immediately went to a government coverup operation... how did they get in? What else did they nab??? But then I remembered... following an extensive circle investigation campaign last winter, my wife adopted a very strict "no more investigating circles in the desert" policy. This includes not going to any more circles, no matter how mysterious, and very specifically, not stopping or even getting the camera out anywhere near Evelyn. Truth be told, I managed to "stumble" on a few more circles over the summer, but she knows exactly where Evelyn is, and I don't dare even make eye contact with the woman within a mile or two of the place, much less reach for the camera.

Hence the lack of pictures from the May driveby. (I don't think she's in on the coverup, though... but if she is, damn she's good!)

So okay, no photos, but jeez, you have to believe me, it was staged perfectly for road construction. I'm talking multiple pieces of heavy equipment, work trucks, piles of asphalt or gravel or whatever... heck, they even signed 127 for construction for miles in both directions! They had multiple teams deployed throughout the region too, all disguised as road-construction workers!

Whatever they're hiding there... it's big!

They say "the truth is out there..." and I'm sure it is, but, dang, that's pretty vague. Compare that to being married, where your goal is to live in a specific place with one specific other person until you die, and where you just have to hope the latter doesn't wind up featured on an episode of "Dateline." Now, I'm writing this from the perspective of a man with a wife, but I think the message should be applicable for all marital configurations, and there's a reason I'm bringing these topics up together, as it pertains both to your being allowed back into that specific place by that one specific other person, and also to not winding up on "Dateline."

When adventuring in the desert with your wife, if you're prone to seeking the truth out there, it's important to discuss what you think constitutes a reasonable number of hours to spend looking for the truth out there, as a random side trip, before she dozes off for an afternoon nap while y'all are "heading back towards home," especially if you might randomly decide to take a side trip not long after she's asleep.

If you overestimate your wife's interest level in finding the truth out there, for example by driving several hours in the wrong direction while she's sleeping, this will put you on poor footing for negotiating future destinations and activities. It won't matter that you generally knew where you were going and had generally been making good progress and were literally almost there. Instead the conversation will be about how you spent three hours driving in the wrong direction, are obviously lost, are high-centered on a rock, and are now "sneaking around" trying to get your recovery gear out without waking her up. (In my defense, we were only high-centered because of the flat tire!)

The problem here is poor communication skills. Obviously. And also poor decision making skills, but those are a lot harder to fix. And... while I haven't given this next line of reasoning much air time yet, for fear of winding up on "Dateline," I think some of the blame could also be placed on poor napping skills. I mean, if she could have just napped for another hour, we could have made it to that circle, to see if the truth was really out there! And man, if we had finally found that stupid truth out there, I'd have been jabbing her awake for sure! And if we hadn't... well, it would have been nice if she had slept 'till we were back on pavement. Then I could have at least tried to blame the delay on all that road construction!

Anyway... I haven't made it to that particular circle yet. So, perhaps that's where all that truth is... you know... out there?

 

The one I was referring to.

 

Here's an interesting circle. Something's been driving around an object that's about 43ft in diameter. The stuff surrounding it is even more interesting...

 

NO FAIR!!!

OUT OF BOUNDS!!!



Somehow I doubt the most interesting stuff at a place like this would make it into public-domain aerial photos anyway...

 

Satellite imagery is no longer the domain of governments. They have requested, and received removal or blurring of some images.

But where's Huell Howser when you need answers about the weird places he's been?

 

Interesting shapes in that area seem blurred to me!

 

https://www.otherhand.org/home-page...es-of-the-mojave/junction-ranch-rcs-facility/

 

I had forgotten all about the floating barn Sea Shadow.

 

I read an article about these places. Operators would calculate the orbital paths of satellites so that models could be hidden from prying eyes. What they forgot was a model that had been left out for testing then moved left a heat signature which lead to much more.

Amazing to read about the games played to keep secrets secret.

 

I used to teach sailing down that way. It was pretty funny because no one really knew what was in that sucker but now and then you'd see armed security on top of the barge. If you said something, peeps would just laugh because it was a barge. A barge that would disappear for long periods.

 

Eureka Dunes and Saline Warm Springs OPEN

County finished their road work, so NPS as promised has opened the springs. Access only via North Pass. South Pass, Steel Pass, and Lippincott are all still closed.

In addition Eureka Dunes is open only from the west (Big Pine Death Valley Road). Can’t go any further east on the road than Eureka and can’t go south from the dunes towards Dedeckera either.

 

Dammit Tom, you sent be back to that other Tom's site again. Trust me, I've already read it all. But it's just so fun to re-read bits here and there, maybe click a link or two, wind up on Jack's site again, and... well, now I'm onto something really new:

The world's newest country: the United Territories of the Sovereign Nation of the People's Republic of Slowjamastan

That's a wiki link, but for the real deal, check out their website. Seriously.

This is exactly the kind of inanity I'm seeking in life.










Edit: Update from the future...

 

Speaking of slow jams in the desert...

 

I appreciate the work going into restoring backcountry access and was contemplating a trip for this month, but will probably end up selecting somewhere else. The map is helpful to visualize all the closed sections.

I do miss the park, last toured in Feb, 2022 on a very relaxing solo trip in a remote area.

 

Let's go!

 

From Croms Thread:

https://youtu.be/EQxTh2IfK1Q

 

I've never done Echo or Hole in the Wall, so I'm considering checking those off my list.
Otherwise yeah, too much is closed to be worth the effort.

 

What they're showing for Echo is only up to Inyo Mine. The red line directly north of it implies it's not passable as a through-route, but I didn't even see that particular road when I did Echo to Chloride last March. I got out of the canyon and onto the fan in the dark, so it could be that I simply didn't see the turn. Anyway, the turn for the parallel road that I took was about a thousand feet to the northeast from where the NPS map shows that road, so, if you plan on doing the full trail, you may want to try and verify whether that red line is a printing error that was meant to represent the whole northeastern end of the trail, or if its simply that particular segment of road.

That being said, if you're doing Echo towards Nevada on 265s, you're probably going to run into some trouble at the waterfalls. They weren't a problem on 35s, but it took a lot of rock stacking to get a truck on 33s and open diffs up the second one, as I remember it. (Although you do have a shorter wheelbase and a significantly lighter truck.)

 

And dual lockers.

Thanks for the info!
I really appreciate it.