Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

they must have had another vehicle with them, I don't think walking out is an option, at least not for me.

 

Surprised that thing is still stuck there. There was a post about the road closure on the DV road conditions fb page last week.

 

That sucks. The DVRC FB page says stuck as of 10/13. The current NPS road conditions page says Lippincott closed due to stuck vehicle. That many days seems sort of annoying. Millers it and send the idiot the bill.

But this suddenly makes something else make sense to me. I was perched on the other side of Saline at ~6000 ft at sunset on 10/14 looking over at Lippincott. I saw headlights at the top around twilight (had to spot edit them out of a photo actually). Was surprised I never saw the headlights come out the bottom. Now I know why!

 

serves me right for not doing fb nor looking at the DVNP site

 

i stopped at the top for the night on 10/15, went down to it 10/16. i was at 'nelson stake' west edge nelson range on 10/14...saw you roaring up the road

 

Lol. That’s crazy we were that close and didn’t know it. San Lucas Canyon Road was in excellent shape. Was making tracks to get to the viewpoint I was camping at before the valley floor was covered in shadow. Made it in plenty of time as it turned out.

On 10/15 I hiked down San Lucas Canyon itself to the dry fall where the crazy old road cut is. Then camped in Panamint Valley that night.

 

Looks like they could have put some effort into getting out, doesn't look that stuck.

 

Probably ran out of gas.

 

I got stuck on the switchbacks before leadville in Titus Canyon 2 years ago. A first gen tacoma with almost 300,000 miles and original balljoints blew both upper and lower joints and had the tire, spindle and axle sitting on the ground next to the truck. Everyone was standing around looking at it while truck after truck piled up behind them and no one able to turn around. I spent 2 hours getting the truck back together with ratchet straps and bailing wire just enough to get the truck to a wide spot where people could get around it. I think there were 20 vehicles stuck behind them. The driver had no idea that basic maintenance needed to be done.

 

That would be some bad planning....DV is not the place you want to run out of gas.

 

Definitely not. But the thing does not look so stuck that a bit of rocking wouldn’t free it.

 

That's what I was thinking...

 

That's the 2nd F150 that has been recently abandoned in DV

 

And in the same region albeit the gold one was in a location which didn't obstruct traffic and technically outside park boundaries.

 

Is that truck 2wd? Doesn’t really look stuck at all.

 

2WD maybe they broke the drive axle trying to spin their way out of the hole they dug in the golf-ball gravel. it looks real good sitting there, but the left rear wheel is deep in gravel. the spare wheel is on the R front, original street tire and wheel is in the bed.

 

I am sorry you had to deal with this. What a crappy situation. I could say so much more, but not necessary.

 

well thanks, but, just made for another drive out a different route, in fact the alternate route was quite scenic.

 

Small update on Rainbow Canyon/Star Wars Canyon. When I was eating at PSR last week I overheard some of the staff talking about the crash and saying that at this point aircraft are still not flying down Rainbow Canyon. They said jets are taking a different route these days but it wasn't clear to me if that was just doing the larger loop that goes through South Pass or if they still do the shorter loop along 190 and just come down a different canyon away from public view. PSR also said they've lost business as there aren't anymore plane watchers staying there since there aren't any planes to watch. I also drove by Father Crowley Point three times over three days are there were no plane watchers to be seen so I'm guessing what I heard at PSR is accurate at least for the moment. The point beyond the parking lot is still closed but there are multiple other spots that plane watchers used to sit at all of which were vacant every time I went past.

 

I'm ok with the spotters not being there for a while. The new locations for their photography were all done within the past few years. Not sure if it was approved by the NPS or not.