Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

I too have given AT&T thousands upon thousands of dollars over the years, and I still don't get a signal at home!

Public land use and technology have changed dramatically since the CDPA and especially since the wilderness act. Personally I think a re-evaluation is overdue. But I have little hope that 21st century lawmakers would do anything but make the situation worse.

I think it's telling that congress will bend the wilderness act for AT&T here. But heaven forbid that someone ride a mountain bike up a historically established mining road!

The reason that telecom service sucks in the park is because there's no competition. Perhaps someday soon satellite internet will become viable for primary telecom. Until then, AT&T is going to do the same thing it's always done. With land-based competition essentially banned by the parks service (and law), what they're actually seeking here is a justification for rate hikes. And it's being framed as a wilderness issue instead of a government mismanagement issue.

 

Yah, that socket was crap. Understood about de-special-tooling but I carry a 4-way lug wrench because it's soooo much easier to remove lugnuts. Pull on one side and push on the other. For a breaker bar I carry a section of steel pipe that slips over the lug wrench.

Locking lugnuts, I don't like the external splined ones that looks like you had. Internal spline like McGard are better IMO. I keep the adaptor in a bag in the glovebox along with the McGard code needed to order a replacement.

Nice writeup, thanks for sharing. I do worry sometimes about locking lugnuts being a failure point where factory hex removal is easy.

 

AT&T owns the equipment which it believes gives it some advantage. But they are suggesting that certain technologies require updates to its relay network. I don't have an issue with equipment updates as they relate to the peak--the equipment was there before wilderness designation and it serves a valuable purpose. However, it's misleading to suggest the equipment on the peak needs to be upgraded to support changes in cellular technology or emergency communications.

What I'd hate to see is a communications package that's equally neutered at the end.

 

I recently chatted with a woman who works and lives at Furnace Creek, doing biological research. She told me that Starlink (which I understood, perhaps incorrectly, as something she paid for out of pocket) is the only way to get decent broadband access at her residence.

 

This talk of Mormon peak and communications reminds me something I was tracking back in 2018. And that was the Rogers Peak Multi-Use Instrumentation and Communication Facility plan. In that plan, among other things, the death star would have cell site in the park boundary. Rogers Peak is located above the Wildrose charcoal kilns / Mahogany Flat Campground.

https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/news/rogerspeakcommentsextended.htm

 

Because I like to be a contrarian jerk from time to time, I’m going to take the opposite position on a few things here.

The difference between the AT&T tower and the mountain bike is that for the tower people go to it for a finite number of visits to do the install and then very infrequent visits for maintenance. Other than sitting there in the sun on its patch of land it has next to no impact on wildlife or visitors. For the mountain bike, it attracts an entirely new user community to an area who race down it far faster than any wildlife can comfortably avoid them. A hiker spooking an animal is one thing, a bike careening down a hill is a whole other thing. Just ask all the hikers and bikers in someplace like Tucson about snake encounters. Hikers, few if any - the snakes have time to either leave or just lie low and ignore. Bikers, lots of encounters. Snakes don’t have time to make a plan with their poor little brain stems.

I’d say Congress has got it right for yes to small footprint infrastructure and no to mountain bikes, but I’m sure it is an accident on their part .

The reason telecom service in the park sucks is because there is no market there worthwhile for any single provider to pursue, much less more than one to compete. This is a long standing rural communications problem. More “free market” is not necessarily the answer for uniform critical infrastructures precisely because the profit potential is not uniform across the market. This is why we have government regulations and direct or indirect subsidies for critical infrastructure - market competition simply will never provide adequate service and access if left to free market principles in such cases.

Specifically the problem in rural communications is that the commercial providers don’t want such regulations or to have their subsidies effectively redirected and government entities providing service. Providing more land for more communications infrastructure in the park is very unlikely to change the quality of service at all. The market is too small. The principal of more land or spectrum enhancing service and access would be true in a dense market, urban or suburban. Not so much rural, and not likely at all in ultra low density remote rural like DV.

 

They did the work on Rogers, and we happened by it on our Highest Peak in the Park trip last November. Several photos here (some at the beginning as we passed, some at the end as we visited). I thought the Radome looked pretty cool.

 

More than likely whomever funded her research paid.

 

thanks, great pics. I agree, radome has a unique design, and looks neat

 

Leaving Death Valley this morning at 10am as we approached "the great silt mine" in Hidden Valley - it was clear there was a stuck vehicle at the southern end. As we checked it out - no occupant(s) were there - but signs one had been recently - with clear footprints headed south (towards Ulida Flat / Hunter Mtn - the way they had approached)
We created a plan for my wife to go quickly search for them (we had two tacoma's - and we were leaving eventually in that direction) as my son and I checked out getting the RAV4 hybrid free. The vehicle was unlocked with the keys left. First attempt at just stuffing the maxtrax under a couple tires failed (it was high centered) we sorted a more thoughtful plan, my wife returned with the solo occupant, who it had turned out had arrived there at 10pm the previous night. She had seen the warning sign but as that had said 'in 18 miles' and her gps was saying to turn in 11 miles she had figured she was going to be ok.
We figured out the RAV4 has very little in the way of tow points, so managed to jack it up using the tacoma stock jack and some firewood, and then place firewood and then the maxtrax under the passenger side wheels, and cleared out some of the 'silt' from under the vehicle. From there it was an easy drive back off to solid ground.
We talked some safety points with the driver (stay with the vehicle etc) then sorted out a path to get her thru to the other side and on her way (Ubehebe Crater was her intended destination)

Felt good to have multiple options (as there is no cell service there the garmin inreach mini would be handy to alert the NPS etc) - set up a plan with the wife and work thru options till something worked.

 

Lucky woman to have you at the right place at the right time. Well done with the rescue as well as providing some subtle survival education.

 

Yeah just talked to my wife, she had gym clothes on, zero water, zero other clothing / other stuff with her when she picked her up. its at least an 18 mile hike over Hunter Mtn to Saline Valley rd....

We all make mistakes -

 

looks like it was getting later on in the afternoon...extremely lucky
for many reasons...stay with the vehicle

 

Could have been way worse. Nice work!

 

Took my first gen 4runner to DV a couple weeks ago with some 80s. Hope you don’t mind some tacoless pics.

 

So green! Very nice.

 

That's a beautiful 1st gen T4R

 

Butte Valley might be my favorite valley in DV.

 

Thanks, it’s a project I started during Covid, although I can’t take credit for most of it. It was in great shape when I got it. This was my first big shake down run for the truck. Saline Valley Road certainly took care of that!