Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

@Shwaa, it was clearly marked closed on new years.

 

It's looking like the park will get rain tomorrow and during the weekend and it could be as much as an inch.

 

ah, bummer. Thanks. Their map doesn't have much detail so I wasn't sure in some cases what the red colored roads were referring to. Thanks for clearing it up.

I won't be going until the first week of March but will keep an eye on that road/section you pointed out now, specifically. Thanks!

 

You can zoom in on that map for a lot more detail, and click on the roads (red or green) to show road name, status and a bit more detail on each one.

 

Oh geez, I should have been able to figure that out. Yep, I see much more detail now clicking on the road itself. Thanks!

 

The only thing I'll add regarding Saline Valley Road and Lee Flat is that in a typical year the road is frequently signed closed by Inyo County at the 190 during much of the winter. Traditionally this has been ignored by all and enforced by none as it was simply viewed as the county indicating you were on your own and they had no liability for your travels. Very different from the more strict "hard closure" when a road entirely within the park and maintained by the NPS was closed with a gate.

This year with the extensive damage to the entire road network things have been a bit different. The NPS has specifically highlighted on their road conditions report that no vehicular traffic is allowed on any of the roads they list as closed. In addition Inyo County has been more specific in highlighting their closures as well and telling folks to not ignore them.

So this year it might be a good idea to skip Saline Valley Road while it is listed as closed, probably especially where it is on NPS land. From the 190 to Lee Flat it is still outside the park, but Lee Flat itself is almost entirely within the park.

 

Looking at the road closure map and wondering if Panamint Valley Rd/Trona Wildrose Rd is open from Panamint Springs to Ballarat.

 

It is.

 

Yes, open. It is an Inyo County maintained road, status can be found here:

https://www.inyocounty.us/services/public-works/news/inyo-county-road-openclosed-status

 

Keep an eye on the forecast if anyone is headed out this weekend. The incoming system, with major predicted impacts to SoCal, should be delivering FEET of snow in the White, Inyo, Argus, Panamint, Funeral, etc ranges and brings another chance of flooding in DV. I have equipment in a river down south so I'm tracking this storm closely


"The next AR will be directed initially into the central Sierra
Saturday night and into Sunday morning with the steadier
precipitation starting after midnight. Went ahead and issued a
winter storm watch for the eastern Sierra and the White Mountains
beginning at 4am PST Sunday morning and continuing through 4am on
Tuesday morning. This storm will be measured if feet rather than
inches for those locations. The watch will likely need to be
expanded to include several additional zones in southern Nevada as
we get a little closer. Another consideration will be the potential
need for a Flood Watch for some of our California zones,
particularly for the Death Valley National Park for Monday and
Tuesday. The latest NBM indicates a 30-40% chance of seeing greater
than an inch of rain in Death Valley with this system. We will
continue to assess this over the next couple of shifts."

 

I work for a water company in the central Sierras and we are also tracking this! Not as serious as Jan or March of last year but we are all running scared at this point. We need to precip!

 

We were going to head up Hwy 4 this weekend and camp either at Big Trees SP or the snow park at Lake Alpine, but State Parks and the Weather Service are predicting big stuff. Seems like the worst will be south of Tahoe and wet, so depending on elevation and the vagaries of weather it could be either unpleasant wetness or really heavy snow. So we wimped out

 

Yeah the snow line during the brunt of the storm is in the 6k’ range. Good for snow pack but not so much for playing in. Hopefully it’ll get cold next week and freeze.

 

News this morning reported water pushed up through the ground again in Badwater. They were discussing how this water may NOT be percolating back down again soon ... depends on specific densities of ground. I have lived in PHX long enough to know desert soil layers are not like 3 ft of clay soil like in the east.

 

On Tuesday afternoon I'm headed from SoCal to PHX then Camp Verde, then eventually camping for a couple days somewhere in the Harquahala/Little Horn mountains area. Yep, watching the weather very closely.

 

This system should deliver plenty to the entire SJ basin. I don't anticipate fishing any of my tailwaters for a while.

 

Rain in PHX Tuesday-Friday at least, enough rain to drop normal temperature of 68 down to 60/61. Yes ... watch the weather.

 

an interesting area of research. i can recommend Death Valley. occasionally use an app on iPhone called 'TopoMaps'. gives a small picture of old school paper usgs topo maps. mostly it is unsatisfying when remembering use of paper topo maps. the app does not tell me where to go, but will pinpoint where i am once i'm there. apology for having no better answer for you.

 

Wow. You complained your app could't read files you have so I gave you a tool to convert. I even pointed you to tools many of use to plan our own trips. I asked where you wanted to go (indirectly).

Good luck.

 

And the ignore list grows...