Death Valley trip report

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ucdzombie

ucdzombie

10 Year
Joined
Sep 13, 2012
Threads
15
Messages
55
Location
CA
I went 4wheeling in Panamint Valley and Death Valley this Thanksgiving. I brought 2 spare tires, 7 gallons of external fuel, 8 gallons of water, tons of food, coolant, motor oil, batter jump starter, air pump, and a satellite phone.

On the 1st day I did a solo attempt with my cousin and went as far as Fish Canyon. We wanted to find Goler Canyon but had no luck. We didn't want to accidentally go into the China Lake Weapon Testing Center and become test subjects, so we headed north to Ballarat.

Fish Canyon/Escape trail was a bit rough. There were many rock gardens, and sometimes the trail seemed to completely disappear. I was busy paying attention to the road so I didn't take any pictures during the last segment of the trail before hitting the BLM P170 trail (north-south connecting Goler and Ballarat).

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We then entered Death Valley National Park via 190 and camped at Furnace Creek.
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The next day I was joined by my friend Dave with his Cherokee to explore other classic spots of Death Valley.

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A former gas station at Scotty's Castle. Gas price was $2.09.


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We visited Racetrack after a crazy 27 miles of washboard ride. Next time I'll remember to install shocks underneath my brain. After nightfall we camped at Homestead.
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A five second exposure shot with my old Canon Powershot.
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After breakfast we headed towards Lippincott.
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My cousin was super excited about this trip.
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The moon landing site.


We went south via Grapevine trail. There were washout and rock gardens, and a couple of water crossings.
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Nice to see in the couple of days after we went thru right before Thanksgiving that some have already started 'repopulating' tea kettle junction. There were NO tea kettles on the sign when we went thru Sunday/Monday prior to turkey day - NONE.

How was Lippencott? We went over Hunter Mountain because two of us were towing trailers.
 
Lippencott was pretty rough and narrow. There were a couple of tight turns with very loose rocks and sand on the edge, so that was a bit scary at first because my FJ80 is 5000 lb after loaded with all thoese luggages and two people. Most of the vehicles I saw there were SWB. I didn't see any other Land Cruiser at all.
 
NLXTACY said:
Did you make it to the Saline Hot Springs? You are were pretty much right there. Great place to get buzzed by fighter jets early in the morning ;)
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No I didn't, mainly because my friends didn't want to see some older folks in their birthday dress :P
 
NLXTACY said:
Only 95% of them are old. The other 5% are older ************
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By the way, I noticed you own a couple of FJ60. That's fancy! I want an FJ60 so bad. I really want to save up some money and buy one in a couple of years but I don't know where to find a clean one. They're not on Craigslist often and if so, they're usually heavily modified and trashed. I really want one in sand/ivory color and maybe with those narrow wheels (Australian spec?). How did you acquire yours?
 
ucdzombie said:
By the way, I noticed you own a couple of FJ60. That's fancy! I want an FJ60 so bad. I really want to save up some money and buy one in a couple of years but I don't know where to find a clean one. They're not on Craigslist often and if so, they're usually heavily modified and trashed. I really want one in sand/ivory color and maybe with those narrow wheels (Australian spec?). How did you acquire yours?
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I have two 60s but one of them is being donated to a family that could use it more than I can: https://forum.ih8mud.com/chit-chat/662085-giving-away-rizzabella.html

The other is my new DD but it will go to my son next year when he turns 16.

Both of my 60s I purchased here from a mud member and each one cost me ~1k. That being said I dumped plenty of money into each of them. Now that I have the resources I will just buy something that is ready to go because I just don't have all the spare time I used to.

If you want something, check the mud classifieds everyday. It could take weeks or even months but something always pops up.
 
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