Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Great Job MP, and love the picture of Cloride area DVexile.

 

Those fenders are probably longer than the length of the bed of my junk..

 

What size of trailers were they dragging thru there?

 

No kidding.

 

here's one of them...
https://www.*****************/forums/threads/family-overland-trailer-build-a-aron.21407/

edit:
https://www.overlanbound.com/forums/threads/family-overland-trailer-build-a-aron.21407/

 

Made a 3 day jaunt down to DV about a week ago to do some hiking, rather than the usual driving-style adventure - was amazing! Like Ken, the trip report is going to take a bit of time so I'll just leave a few photos here for the time being.

Kaleidoscope Canyon

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Rhodes Spring

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Room Canyon

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Owlshead Mtns

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Saratoga Springs

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Smoke Tree Slots

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3000lbs? Wtf, that with all the plywood looks more like 5000lbs. Actually a nice build though.

 

I'm am sure that the other one was even bigger as I remember it. They passed me with the trailer that had no fenders when I was airing down at the start of North Saline Rd. I didn't catch up to them until the very beginning Pine Forest, They were moving pretty good for towing such a large trailer. I know it was that trailer without the fenders because I was getting sprayed with snow from them when I was waiting for them to make room so that I could get around them.

 

Nah, it's just a 10bolt. Equivalent to a D30. It would have been gone the very same day if it were a 14bolt.

The brothers said that the bearings were toast inside the diff carrier, that is not the case. I removed the cover to see inside, all the bearings are fine. All they needed was to remove the broken stub and c-clip, and install a new shaft along with a new axle seal for good measures.

 

Lol. That sort of fits from the impression I got from their various posts. Kind of panicky personalities not thinking things through before doing something.

I see that happen with folks in situations like this. It is easy to see how people end up there - I've sometimes felt it happening to me. "OMG, something isn't right - I've got to do something right away!"

Better to take a step back. I very rarely get stuck but when I do I've learned to pause and tell myself really I could just camp here for the rest of the day and night and deal with it in the morning if I wanted to. Often I'm stuck because of poor decisions made leading up to getting stuck and so being stuck is already a warning your brain is in a poor decision making mode and might need a break. Turn off the engine, get a snack and relax a bit before even looking at the situation is sometimes the best course of action.

In general aviation there is a term "get-home-itis" that leads to a significant fraction of fatal accidents. I think the same thing leads to a lot of extra damage to rigs in the off road world.

 

Well said. I sincerely doubt they had/have any intention of making this right.
My mindset is usually with the thought of whether or not I could camp in a place in which something might happen. When I had the FWC it was a pretty easy decision and still is.

 

It happens in many different disciplines and definitely leads to poor decision making.

 

I doubt it either that they (the 2 brothers) had any intention of making this situation right. I asked the owner of the axle housing what he wanted me to do with the axle housing in the OLB thread, he stated that he would contact me via PM, that hasn't happened yet.

 

I feel like once you picked it up, it was yours.

Pretty standup thing to do all the way round.

 

DANG! Is Dre in the HOUSE?

May Dre Rest In Peace - with a big fat smile on his face.

 

Anyone been down there lately? The park website shows all the dirt roads closed.

 

This is a normal occurrence. It removes some responsibility from the park service if someone does go on a "closed" road. There are times when the closures are legitimate. During those times citations can be issued. Unfortunately the only way to know conditions is from recent reports or going yourself.

 

Indeed. And the other rub is some closures are enforced with a metal gate across the road while others are just a sign you can choose to ignore. Typically when Titus is "closed" it is gated. Most out and back roads within the NP have gates (e.g. Dante's View, Mosaic Canyon) and the gates are frequently shut and locked when the road is closed. Some through roads also have gates like West Side Road and Big Pine Death Valley Road but I'm not sure how often they actually lock them when "closed" - it would be easy to "trap" someone if they did close them as for instance someone coming over Mengal Pass from Panamint Valley wouldn't be able to get back to pavement if they closed both ends of West Side. In general Saline Valley Road is an exception as it exists mostly out of the park and is controlled by Inyo County. There aren't gates and the county will just put up a "road closed" sign on a barricade you can drive around. Which many people do.