Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

Woke up one of the mornings over the weekend to find this group that had setup camp ignoring the No Camping Sign..

 

Were all the other spots filled up?
Did anyone speak to them about not being allowed to camp there?
Glad my plans changed and I wasn't there for the New Years Eve fest. Maybe next week I can sneak out there.

 

Will miss you by a day! I'm planning on Feb 5-8th at the moment though there is a chance I'd end up someplace other than DV depending on the weather then.

After 17 years of visiting I think based on my last visit I'm just going to write off the Springs. Will stop by for a hot shower when exploring in the area perhaps but no more dedicated visits unless some weather washes out all the roads to restrict visitation to sensible levels. In the past I could choose particular times to have a pleasant visit. Now midweek in the least busy week of the year (excepting midsummer that is) there are more than 15 vehicles between the two springs and at least half are new folks most of which are nice people but a few of which are complete numbnuts. This visit featured two morons blasting music all day at the lower springs that was actually still audible at the upper springs. They were talking about arranging to bring out a big group at some point in the future...

NPS is two years late and counting on their management plan for the springs. They went to a lot of effort polling the long time user community and coming up with some inventive potential management alternatives in comparison to the typical draconian NPS approach. Things are getting bad so quick I'm now voting for draconian. Either rip out the pools (the so called "Restoration Alternative") or regulate the living hell out of it requiring advanced online permits (the so called "Recreation Management Alternative"). They put a lot of good thought into a balanced "Community Engagement Alternative" but just in the three years since they came up with that it is totally OBE in my opinion and no longer workable.

All good things eventually come to an end I guess and I feel lucky I got to experience it for a good long while.

 

One variable missing for the past couple seasons is a seasonal camp host at the upper springs. George and Ria were quick to school people on normal practices in the area. Lee, the lower springs host and general host for area year round, is absent in his duties. I think if an able and willing camp host at the springs were there things could change. Plus more ranger visits.

The way it is now I'm not for ripping out the pools but more and more I'm thinking a ranger station for making sure fees are paid is becoming a necessity. Logical location would be Bat Rock Road since north and south passes are actually controlled by Inyo County and cannot be regulated by the park.

There was a recent post on FB where someone posted pics of using collected wood in Saline for kindling. It was pointed out that collecting firewood is against park rules.

 

I'm going to be out there with a couple of buddies the 13th through the 16th. If I were to run into any of you fine gentleman I would be quite happy to share my whiskey with you.

 

Indeed some sort more active onsite host or ranger would go a long way. I'd prefer to not rip out the pools either so I think the "Recreation Management Alternative" is what we are left with. Given the distance to the springs it has to be advanced permitting online - people aren't going to just turn around if they get there and it is full. That's what the NPS does at similar places where the whole point of the place is destroyed by too many people so visitation restrictions are required but the site is too far away to turn people away once they get there.

Unfortunately there is no way on earth the NPS can afford to have a ranger out there regularly and as demonstrated to date people likely to volunteer to be out there for a long duration tend to self select for being less than ideal hosts. George and Ria were by no means ideal but were about the best seen so far and they only lasted a few seasons. And they didn't have to cope with nearly the influx of the uninitiated that arrives constantly these days.

So that's the only reason I bring up the "Restoration Alternative" as a potential outcome. If you can't afford to manage a recreational resource that is being killed by visitation and really from the get go doesn't align with typical NPS goals then "restoring" the natural resource (i.e. removing the man made one) starts to become the preferable alternative to them.

That said I think the "Recreation Management Alternative" could be made to work even with a sub-par host if there are occasional ranger patrols that provide stiff fines for illegal camping and they just sit on the place with LEOs on the historical party weekends. Which would still suck because up until the past 3-5 years the whole place seemed to coast nicely on its own with a long time status quo but it just isn't sustainable with the exposure it has now.

 

It was a good amount of people there overall, but not as many as I thought would be there for the holiday weekend. And there were spots open and available. They were being spoken to when I walked by with my dishes and was surprised by how fast they packed up and left..

 

Rangers were out there Friday looking for a drone pilot and ultimatly gave out 3 tickets for dogs not being on a leash.

 

At least they picked up and moved. That's a good sign. Not like the sob who refused to wash his feet in the footwash getting into the Wizard pool and basically had the attitude he didn't need to follow any rules. Pretty easy but some people are just jackasses.

Sounds like a good thing all around. Hope they found the drone operator (they aren't pilots lol).

 

Is this true? I need to add this to the wish list.

 

Yes, which is why I found him advocating for keeping VSC engaged while offroad to be interesting.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/abs-kill-switch-mod-for-05-offroad-easy-way-pics.170927/

 

After one time visiting I pretty much wrote it off. Went back in March and it was an absolute zoo. Like at least 50 vehicles between the two springs, travel trailers, people everywhere, dogs running around. Camps that looked like people had been there for months. I'll stick to my much less well known springs where I can go out and be the only person around for miles. But unfortunately even my favorite springs that used to be almost unknown are being geotagged, blogged with turn by turn directions, and ruined.

 

I think National Park status did the place in. And maybe the Jeep rental place didn’t help.

 

That wouldn't surprise me with it being "Spring Break" during that time, the few times I've been through there I haven't seen a whole lot of people, but I'm usually passing through on a weekday or during inclimate weather. If you want to go out there with no one else, go on a weekend with shitty weather, they'll close North and South pass and the only ways in are 4x4, really cuts down on the visitors.

 

There are lots of places in and around DV to get away from people and crowds. Saline was pretty good in October. I'm guessing right now it is pretty good after the holidays. Most people have to go back to work. I may venture out next week.

Regarding North and South passes, it takes a lot of snow to actually close them. Since we've not seen much precipitation this year they are wide open. Sometimes the county puts up road closed signs but it means nothing. Just prevents law suits. Oh the grand washout a few years ago was pretty impressive. One of these days some boulder will get loose on South Pass and block things for a while.

 

When I was there in March the road right off 168 into North Pass had a road closed sign. Good thing I had read about them doing that beforehand or I probably would have turned around. It was clear sailing though.

 

increase in hot springs users, increase in hurt feelings over the increase in new hot springs users, no new hot springs

Until the folks who built this came along

Shhhh.... somewhere in the Nevada desert:

 

Or a repeat of the infamous bulldozer incident...

 

As far as road conditions go the primary change that will consistently provide more access than in the past decade or so is that Inyo County now plans to grade South Pass annually. For a number of years some sort of financial dispute between NPS and IC meant that SP was almost never graded which restricted access for 2WD and standard clearance vehicles to NP which frequently got snowed in during the winter months. That meant as soon as NP got snowed in access was restricted for a month or so until it cleared.

When SP did get a rare grading typically it only took a summer or two for a thunderstorm to render Grapevine impassible to standard clearance 2WD vehicles. If memory serves at least once Grapevine got hit within a few months of being repaired and was then left in that condition for a few years because IC rarely maintained SP.

That's no longer the case and NPS and IC worked out their differences so SP will get annual maintenance including Grapevine meaning easy access except for the most extreme snow events. Usually such extreme snow events still only keep SP closed for a few weeks at most. If they follow the same schedule they have the past two years they will grade in the fall just after any summer storms might have hit Grapevine meaning nearly continuous easy access to the springs during every peak season.

So we've got a double whammy of exponential growth in new visitors due to execessive social media exposure along with the easiest access in a decade or more. All while NPS dithers on coming up with any sort and plan for the resource. Hence my grumpy pessimism.

I talked to the grading crew in early December - old salts that probably have worked for IC for decades - they were flabbergasted by the number of vehicles they were seeing compared to a few years ago. And of course just the number of vehicles being "left behind" is growing. For the month of December there have been two rollovers and one burned out hulk along the road.

Will be interesting to see how it all pans out in the next few years!

 

Accident victim wrote up a trip report on ih8mud:

https://forum.ih8mud.com/threads/trip-report-death-valley-and-a-wrecked-80.1033660/

Was a brand-new-to-him and freshly modded '97 80 on its first trip.