Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

How was the water?

 

86º spectacular

 

Here's my track from the weekend thru Death Valley, run counter-clockwise (east to west).

 

Interesting track.

 

A moving target is hard to hit?

 

Found a fun map while exploring a mine on my most recent trip (just returned this morning). The descriptions are the fun part, so you may need to zoom in depending on how TW sizes the image

 

I love seeing interesting maps like that!

 

My favorite place in all of DV (so far!) is Butte Valley and waking up to the view of Striped Butte. Many who stay in the area overnight covet the Geologist Cabin, but I am much more a fan of a nearby pile of rocks. To me, the view is better, the setting is more natural, and for some reason I can't put my finger on, I just feel at home. It was nice to share that with some good buddies on a trip in December.

Part 4: Eye of the Storm









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I have been itching to get out and have been too busy! So, I'm thinking about a 2 part March adventure. Part 1 just me and the missus to head back and spend more time near eureka dunes and saline valley, leave the truck at a friend's in Bishop and then come back for part two with my kid to check out the some valley highlights, but especially some of the old abandoned tech. Anyone have a top 5 places to see with your 16-year-old list they'd like to share?

 

It's the smaller of the two Breakfast packages. I ordered the breakfast sausages separately. But it comes with double smoked bacon, a very nice slice of ham, package of pancake mix, blueberry maple syrup. Came in a beautifully wrapped box. Those two Nordic Ice thingies are no longer ice but everything in the box is cold. Just need some eggs and a couple tomatoes and I'm in. Or maybe a few potatoes for country fried taters.

 

You're killing me dude! Enjoy.

 

Every time I see this area I'm reminded of the Death Valley Germans. Worth the read.

 

YES! Awesome read, great detective work.

 

That’s funny. I think about them too. I’ve stayed at geology twice in the last few years and I sat there on the back patio looking at the road they took to the southeast and wonder why they just didn’t backtrack from where they came from. It would have made so much more sense than heading into the unknown.

 

So I guess I stand corrected, the road up to the back side of Cerro Gordo is passable uphill in the winter! (I had questioned that a page or two above in the thread.) Looks like we took a remarkably similar route through the park last weekend, yet save for the Inn, managed to visit completely different places.

Yep, a fantastic read, and a great overall site. I find Tom's narrative of serving on the Orange County Grand Jury particularly enlightening.

Just as the history of these cherished deserts is oddly interconnected, I recently found myself linked back to Tom's stories while researching the history of Ryan, the Death Valley Railroad, and Pacific Coast Borax. While the first chapter of that story is fascinating on its own, and deeply linked to the creation of the park we know and love today, I found myself equally intrigued by its more recent history and how it wound up belonging to a non-profit conservatorship rather than the NPS. And that is most thoroughly documented on another great website run by another prolific desert explorer named Jack Freer, who while working for the Carson City Sheriff's Office wound up involved in the hunt for Norman Cox. Norman (of Carson City) had carefully planned his suicide in Death Valley in 2010, but the task of locating his remains had eluded the official search efforts at the time. The festering intrigue eventually led Jack, Tom, and others to return to the park in search of Norman in another captivating story of life, death, and adventure in Death Valley. The story is better if you read it from the source, so I won't paraphrase the rest here.

 

Is that the Big Four Mine at the north end of Panamint Valley?

 

There were some icy patches closer to the top, but not a lot of snow. Uneventful.

 

Did you spend any time in CG itself? I follow the new owner(s) on instagram. Curious to see how their plans shake out.

 

Drove this track in early November from East to West with a couple of more experienced buddies. So much fun though we spent too little time near Striped Butte for my liking. I'll definitely need to return some day and just hang there for a while.

Nice pics as usual.

-E

 

I'm still stuck on the theme of giving clues and not answers, but those are the Panamint Dunes in the background above...



So in other words: Yes.



So now for the next question, what kind of MORON gets lost following a perfectly straight road???





Hit a wilderness sign and stopped. The road continues another half mile, if you're smart enough to find it.