For those interested, here's a little write up of my adventure last weekend. I met up with a couple of friends from the bay area and we piled in the 80 and went out to explore Death Valley. Pics coming soon.
We headed up the Swansea-Cerro Gordo road to reach Saline Valley. On the way up one of the steep, narrow shelf roads, part of the road bed crumbled and my right front tire dropped off the edge of a very, very steep mountain side. There we were, listed 29 deg toward certain doom, looking at each other as no one dared to move an inch, or even breathe. With my foot hard on the brakes, I shifted into reverse and tried to inch back onto the road and the tire shifted a little further down the cliff. Very gingerly, my buddy in the front seat crawled over me and out my window while the other guy in the back seat cralwed across and out the drivers side back window. Since they were on the downhill side of the truck, the view down the mountain was pretty gnarly. I was calculating what to do if it let loose and started to slide but at least the other two (who have young kids) were safely out of the truck. I had them stand on the running boards and hold the doors and counterbalance as I slowly backed onto the road with the wheel turned to keep the truck as upright as possible. Back safely on the road, adreniline rushing, we didn't even know what to say and just continued up the trail. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in a vehicle.
It's actually a really beautiful trail and we made it to nearly 10,000ft before we got stuck in knee deep snow on a northeast facing gentle slope. We only had another 80 yards to go to get through the snow and onto a snow-free south facing slope but our nerves were still a little shot from the cliff incident so didn't try to push on. We dug ourselves out and, using the fiberglass waffle boards for traction, reversed out of the deepest snow. By the time we had dug ourselves out of the worst of it, the sun had gone down the our tracks were quickly going from reletively high traction slush to zero traction ice as the cold wind started freezing everything. So, I put chains on all fours and we backtracked in our tracks and back out of the snow and found a great primitive site and camped for the night.
Next morning we went all the way back down which required us to drive past the location of the cliff incident which was kind of scary. We then proceeded over the normal Cerro Gordo road to Saline Valley Road through Grapvine Cyn to Saline Valley and spent the night at the hot springs. For anyone who hasn't been there, the hot springs are amazing. Perfect temp water, nice concrete tubs that are cleaned daily, and soaking under the desert starts - it's truly incredible.
We then proceeded over Steel Pass to Eureka Valley. That trail has a few fun little dry falls through a tight canyon and the scenery was great. Once in Death Valley proper, we spent the night near the start of the Titus Canyon trail and then went through the canyon the next morning. Even though it's an easy trail, Titus Canyon is totally spectacular. One of the coolest, most scenic desertscapes I've ever seen.
Anyway, after a rough start it turned out to be a great trip. My valve cover gasket blew on the trip so I'm leaking oil all over, but otherwise everything went fine. I was a little nervous about going without another vehicle, but I've put a lot of effort into being self sufficient in preperation for our global expedition and everything worked out fine. Going to Death Valley solo was kind of like a prep for future adventures.
We headed up the Swansea-Cerro Gordo road to reach Saline Valley. On the way up one of the steep, narrow shelf roads, part of the road bed crumbled and my right front tire dropped off the edge of a very, very steep mountain side. There we were, listed 29 deg toward certain doom, looking at each other as no one dared to move an inch, or even breathe. With my foot hard on the brakes, I shifted into reverse and tried to inch back onto the road and the tire shifted a little further down the cliff. Very gingerly, my buddy in the front seat crawled over me and out my window while the other guy in the back seat cralwed across and out the drivers side back window. Since they were on the downhill side of the truck, the view down the mountain was pretty gnarly. I was calculating what to do if it let loose and started to slide but at least the other two (who have young kids) were safely out of the truck. I had them stand on the running boards and hold the doors and counterbalance as I slowly backed onto the road with the wheel turned to keep the truck as upright as possible. Back safely on the road, adreniline rushing, we didn't even know what to say and just continued up the trail. It was the scariest thing that has ever happened to me in a vehicle.
It's actually a really beautiful trail and we made it to nearly 10,000ft before we got stuck in knee deep snow on a northeast facing gentle slope. We only had another 80 yards to go to get through the snow and onto a snow-free south facing slope but our nerves were still a little shot from the cliff incident so didn't try to push on. We dug ourselves out and, using the fiberglass waffle boards for traction, reversed out of the deepest snow. By the time we had dug ourselves out of the worst of it, the sun had gone down the our tracks were quickly going from reletively high traction slush to zero traction ice as the cold wind started freezing everything. So, I put chains on all fours and we backtracked in our tracks and back out of the snow and found a great primitive site and camped for the night.
Next morning we went all the way back down which required us to drive past the location of the cliff incident which was kind of scary. We then proceeded over the normal Cerro Gordo road to Saline Valley Road through Grapvine Cyn to Saline Valley and spent the night at the hot springs. For anyone who hasn't been there, the hot springs are amazing. Perfect temp water, nice concrete tubs that are cleaned daily, and soaking under the desert starts - it's truly incredible.
We then proceeded over Steel Pass to Eureka Valley. That trail has a few fun little dry falls through a tight canyon and the scenery was great. Once in Death Valley proper, we spent the night near the start of the Titus Canyon trail and then went through the canyon the next morning. Even though it's an easy trail, Titus Canyon is totally spectacular. One of the coolest, most scenic desertscapes I've ever seen.
Anyway, after a rough start it turned out to be a great trip. My valve cover gasket blew on the trip so I'm leaking oil all over, but otherwise everything went fine. I was a little nervous about going without another vehicle, but I've put a lot of effort into being self sufficient in preperation for our global expedition and everything worked out fine. Going to Death Valley solo was kind of like a prep for future adventures.
