Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Speaking of pets in National Parks, I don’t know if Death Valley NP has implemented a Bark Ranger program but a few of the parks and monuments have a Bark Ranger Program where you sign a pledge at the visitor center to be a responsible pet owner and they will gift you a wooden dog tag with the park emblem stating your dog is a Bark Ranger.

 

Chihuahua in Death Valley last week!

 

Please keep dogs on leash in the park. Especially in the back country.
https://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/pets.htm

 

Steele Pass Road is about to get a make-over..

Yesterday mid morning-ish

 

Fingers crossed that it's open in 6 weeks

 

Don't have any cool mine photos, but for what it's worth I'll post some from my most recent trip. I also just got a pup a couple months ago and had to adjust where I was going to hike due to the dog. In the end though, my new pup brings me and the family so much joy the inconvenience is worth it.

Here's my little bark ranger in Death Valley last month.


Came into the park on a dirt road from Nevada. Seemed like it was just graded. Parts were smooth as glass.


Yellow Desert Evening Primrose. Beautiful flower.



Trekking up the dunes Lawrence of Arabia style. Family went ahead and I stayed behind with the dog because the dunes are considered wilderness.


Spending the night on BLM land just outside the park.

 

This last winter I spent several weeks in the Mojave, but none of that in DV - mostly due to a lot of the places I wanted to visit being closed (at least, officially), and then to the fact that I'd started the EMHT and wanted to wrap it up. So, by March I was finding myself really missing DV, and I made a point to get down there for a few days for the first time in a little more than a year.

I had a couple places I really wanted to visit - one that Ken @DVexile put me on to when he posted an amazing photo of a blue mountain from one of his trips a few years ago, and then to a couple of canyons (and mines) a little further south in the Black Mountains. Plus, I figured it was a good opportunity to see this "Lake" that has allegedly appeared in the hottest place on earth. Surely, that had to be "fake news."

Anyway, I arranged to meet Mike @mk5 down there (until he bailed on me at the "last minute" ) for a hike or two, and ended up camping at the same spot he and I met the last time we met up in the park before entering on a Thursday morning.

As always, the full stories are in my build thread (or will be, as I've only gotten through the first of three at this point), but here's the TL;DR version of the entire trip...

My first visit up to Dante's View (and Peak) at sunrise to check out this "lake." And look at that, it's real!



Then, into a lunar landscape on my way to Blue Mountain.





Wow, that's blue! Or is it green? Whatever it is, wow!



And look who was here!



Next, I headed further south - past Badwater - to a reasonably well-known location where the mainstream head west and I headed east. I was a little worried about this part of the trip, for reasons I'll not be mentioning explicitly here, but the road turned out to be in great shape and I reached the wilderness boundary with just enough time for the hike I wanted to get in.

Saw my first ever chuckwalla (which entailed a bit of adrenaline)



Headed into a canyon and then got myself into a very sticky situation between two dry falls. I'm usually very good about not climbing up something I can't climb down, but this time I'd *thought* that I knew an alternate way down. Turns out that, while there was an alternate way down, it required climbing *another* dryfall, which was nearly unclimbable for me. A tense few minutes, for sure, stuck between two falls.

Ultimately though, I got to the mine camp I was looking for, and explored the camp and a couple adits before heading back down the canyon at sunset.





My last day in the park, I had one more hike in mind. This one wasn't far from the last as the crow flies, but was trailless, so required leaving the Tacoma on Badwater Road and climbing the alluvial fan to a lower aerial tramway terminal at the mouth of the canyon.



Then, it was up through some narrows - with a dramatic pose on an easily climbable fall - before encountering a dry fall that turns most people around. Luckily, I found a fraying steel cable hanging down the face, and used that to make my ascent to the mine a little further up canyon.











All in all, it was amazing - even to me - how relieved I felt after this trip. Two days in DV were so refreshing, and for some reason, not in any way comparable to all the rest of the time I spend in the Mojave. It was great to get back, even if it's likely my only trip of the season now that temps are starting to rise.

 

Awesome photos and report, as always. Really bummed that I haven't had a chance to get out to DV (or anywhere, really) so far this year. Hopefully I'll find some time to get out there in the fall.

 

Lol, I had both of those canyons at the end of your trip report on my "to do" list for my February trip. Instead I came down with a nasty head cold that ate up two days of my trip. Now at least I know they are worth doing in the future!

 

Thanks! Starting in October (I hope), I'll be there on a regular basis again. Access between Eureka and Saline should be opened up again, and by then, access through South Pass will be sanctioned again as well, I hope. So many hikes I want to do up in the Cottonwoods and Hunter Mountain area that I've been wanting to get to.

Ahh, bummer, I remember you mentioning feeling under the weather! Both are beautiful hikes - as Digonnet might say - you may find yourself wandering through a beautiful world, where the light continuously changes with the time of day, with the northern one being easy if you stick to the old mining grade, and the southern one being no problem as long as there's a way to scale that large dry fall.

There's a lot more to explore at both mines than I had time to do, though some danger involved as it requires going deeper into the adits at the first and scaling some rather steep canyon walls at the second.

And of course, more photos and story to come for each.

 

My bad... but I came up like two days later, for what that's worth. Basically as soon as you left, actually.

Glad you made it out of the canyon -- they seem to be particularly treacherous in that range.

And that's a most excellent lizard, dude!

Here's some random unrelated photos from the eclipse trip. Sorry I missed you in AZ... I couldn't even find my APRS radio, and that drive was insane anyway.



And for the rest of the thread readership... sorry for being off topic, but the eclipse was epic. Or at least it was down in meh-ih-co!



And perhaps slightly more on-topic... then cactus bloom in the Mojave is CRAZY this year!



I'm used to seeing the cacti blooming in the spring, but instead of the usual handful of blossoms I've seen before, every cactus was pushing out like six billion flowers. Truly reckless... I hope they survive.

Not just the pancake ones, but the fuzzy ones too!



Shit, even the ass-hole stabby ones were popping out occasional yellow blossoms. It was nuts out there!



@omegaman2 there in the background.

 

Story of my life.

 

Does anyone have a picture of the Range Rover that lost all it's tires and DESTROYED their rims on Mengel Pass about 6-8 years ago?

 

Good to know

 

I am certainly no expert. I would think this guy may have some credentials (I have no idea - this was just from a quick Google search)
https://www.simmrinlawgroup.com/faq...lifornia-law-to-drive-with-a-gun-in-your-car/

In all the CA CCW training I've been to, they remind you that it must be on your person or in an area that only you can reach.

Locked containers can not be permanently attached to the vehicle. You could put a locked container in your center console I would suppose.

I've always been told to have a locked container that is cabled or chained to the seat mounts.

 

Not really as I still have the OEM ones in the wheels and have done it this way for a very long time - original valves too. I just try to be careful and figure the air coming out keeps any dust from getting between the valve and the stem.

 

None of this makes any sense. This is great.

Edit: Nope, still can't make sense of it.

Couldn't be more enthusiastic though.

 

Rail spikes hammered, bullet train being built from Sin City to the City of Angels

I've been following this for several years, never really expected it to go anywhere, but appears to be entering a phase of more active financing and at least symbolic construction. Not sure if it'll ever actually function, but seems to suddenly be making progress vs. the state's voter-approved high-speed rail.

Would run pretty much up the median of the 15, from the IE to Vegas at up to 125 mph. Which is normal off-hours traffic speed on the 15, but would give it a solid advantage for weekend traffic, and hopefully reduce the congestion. If they build a gigantic cheap parking lot, I think the idea could actually work.

 

What’s another $12b between friends?

 

125 mph is the speed of their existing trains in Florida. The goal is 186 mph for the Vegas route. (Why such a nice round number? It’s 300 kph and of course fast trains aren’t made in the United States of Anachronistic Units.)

Since most Vegas visitors Uber or just stumble their alcohol saturated flesh around the same handful of gridlocked intersections all weekend, the concept makes some sense.

I’m glad the route follows the I-15 right of way to minimize impact. In fact there was some mention that they will have to improve wildlife crossings across the entire right of way during construction, so a small chance it is actually a catalyst for improving the existing I-15 corridor.