Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

If you plan on approaching the Racetrack from the north then you'll drive right by Ubehebe. Or, are you thinking going from Titus up into Saline then Lippencot to Racetrack?

 

If you're going to take Hunter Mountain make sure you stop by Lost Burro Mine. Very cool old mine site.

 

If you are already at Racetrack I'm not sure going around and over Hunter will save you much if any time compared to Lippincott. Downhill on Lippincott with 4x2 and locker should be just fine.

You really can't get to Racetrack from Titus without going past Ubehebe. And if you drive by it takes all of two minutes to get out and look into the crater.

If you are really late into Panamint Springs a fast and easy camp spot is along the road towards the Panamint Dunes. Just drive east on the 190 and just as the road gets ready to climb the fan on the east side of the valley the road runs off north. Drive at least a mile from the 190 and you are legal to camp.

 

Behold,

Racetrack road, Vehicle destroyer.

 

Mengel is typically a lot worse than Lippincott as far as traction and clearance goes. Mengel's pain is short but very acute. Goler varies from walk in the park to severe dry fall depending on what has gone on in the wash lately. Lippincott is just longish haul of narrow and steep low quality road that is sort of scary because of drop-offs. It rarely has anything that will really hang you up though unless you are just too wide or too long for it. On occasion of course it gets washouts, but local crews seem to repair them pretty fast.

 

Endless washboard that shakes your mind into oblivion embroidered with impatience driving up vehicle speed punctuated with unexpected sharp rocks and deep ruts that come out of nowhere.

Worse if you take a wrong turn in the dark and start driving into the middle of nowhere halfway across the valley - but @Crom wouldn't know anything about that (EDIT: Whoops, I'm remembering wrong - it was Saline Valley Rd. that Crom got going the wrong way on. Both of those roads match my description above!)

 

Keep speed down and it will be fine!

 

Ugh. When we drove it from Teakettle Junction to the Racetrack in March it was insane. Worst washboarding I've ever seen. It actually shook one of the coil pack bolts right out of the engine block. We had been debating between Lippencott and Hunter Mountain, but after driving over that to get to the Racetrack, my wife, who up until that point had been pushing for Hunter Mountain because of all the stories she had heard about Lippencott, said, "Nope. No way we're going over that again. We're going out Lippencott."

There was a young couple at Racetrack who had taken their Audi A6 out there. It was destroyed. The suspension was just completely gone, the wheels were resting in the wheel wells. Some piece of broken suspension had pierced the gas tank, it had left a trail of gasoline down the road. There was another group there helping them out, otherwise I would have stopped. Which is probably a good thing, I don't think I would have been able to prevent myself from face-palming.

 

I've bombed the racetrack road with Duratracs and all four of them did fine. Hands down the worst washboard I've ever driven. No way was I going back that way and Lippencot was a piece of cake.

 

Dammit. Every time this thread gets active I want to go out and bum around Death Valley for a week again. You bunch of enablers, you.

 

Just incase anyone was missing Death Valley

 

Yep. Familiar with the road and solo I can usually do it in about 45 minutes. Took an Excursion down it once and that took two hours due to lots of pauses for spotting and multi-point turns.

 

I was on C rated Duratracs my last trip. I ended up clocking in 1500 miles in and around the park. I tried to hit dirt any chance I got. All I got was a single layer sidewall slash on Mengal and a cactus quill thru the sidewall in Argus.

Started my trip yesterday morning. In South lake Tahoe atm. Camping at Bridgeport tonight, should be in Bodie Saturday morning. Then south and east to Beatty. I'll take pictorz!

KK6OKX

 

I was on 33's and was aired 14-18 psi.

 

I have SL Duratracs. We'll make it happen.

 

Hmm. Yeah, I'm on C A/T3s. Take it slow, watch where you're going.

 

Warranties don't mean squat when you've got two flat tires and no cell service. Ask me how I know. You just missed the $100 off deal for DTD on EBay, expired on the 31st, but I bet they'll have a deal coming up for Veterans Day or Black Friday.

I happen to think that E-rated tires are overkill unless you're doing serious rock crawling. I'm sure someone will be along to burn me at the stake for saying that.

 

Not here to burn you but I don't agree. I run 235/85/16s in a fairly non aggressive tread pattern. My current set has given me about 40k miles with no issues. Most of the crawling I've done has been in the Panamints and portions of DV. Prior to these I had non E-rated General Grabbers and had two flats. Both happened in and around DVNP. One was what I consider a fairly mellow section of Saline Valley Road. You never know what conditions will cause a flat. The E-rated tires are just a bit of insurance imo.

 

Were those C-rated Generals? I mostly crawl the mountains around Prescott, just spent almost a week up there for hunting season. Lot of stuff up there looks like Lippencott, if not worse. I've had a couple of, "Oh, God, this is it," moments hitting rocks or bumps with my C-rated A/T3s, but so far they've held up really well, knock on wood. And they haven't killed my gas mileage, which is good since my truck is my DD.

Whatever tires you have, the best insurance is still having a full-size, fully-rated spare, a good tire repair kit, and a heavy dose of common sense.

 

Who offroads without a full size spare?