Trip to Death Valley Questions

[SALTY METHODS]

So I'm planning a trip to Death Valley for the 2nd weekend in October. I've never been, so I wanted to reach out to some of guys who have been there before. I have some questions that hopefully, you guys can help me answer.

1.) As of right now, I have (2) LC, (1) Jeep Wrangler, (1) F150 4x4 going. Both LCs are stock. The Jeep is built and the F150 is lifted, diesel with off road tires. Will we be good or will we need to beef up our tires, add lifts, sliders? What do you think?

2.) Do we need passes to camp overnight?

3.) What are some must-see places or trails that we should check out while there.

4.) We plan on making a long weekend out of it. We live in San Diego and plan on leaving after work Thursday night. Is that long enough to get a decent trip out of it?

5.) What are some must-haves while were out there? (Equipment-wise)

6.) Any other little tid-bits that are helpful?

Thanks for any info and if any you want to join in, feel free. We're looking to go 10/9 - 10/12.

-SoupGFX

 

[Kofoed]

So I'm planning a trip to Death Valley for the 2nd weekend in October. I've never been, so I wanted to reach out to some of guys who have been there before. I have some questions that hopefully, you guys can help me answer.

1.) As of right now, I have (2) LC, (1) Jeep Wrangler, (1) F150 4x4 going. Both LCs are stock. The Jeep is built and the F150 is lifted, diesel with off road tires. Will we be good or will we need to beef up our tires, add lifts, sliders? What do you think?

2.) Do we need passes to camp overnight?

3.) What are some must-see places or trails that we should check out while there.

4.) We plan on making a long weekend out of it. We live in San Diego and plan on leaving after work Thursday night. Is that long enough to get a decent trip out of it?

5.) What are some must-haves while were out there? (Equipment-wise)

6.) Any other little tid-bits that are helpful?

Thanks for any info and if any you want to join in, feel free. We're looking to go 10/9 - 10/12.

-SoupGFX

The vehicles are suitable. I'd suggest getting Roger Mitchell's death valley SUV trails book. Its very informative. You are technically required to pay the $25 entrance fee when enter the actual park nobody does it are there is only one guard station at the North end. The wheeling is not hard. The main issue is no services nearby. Coming from San Diego deterime where the last chance gas is and top off no matter what the cost.

The main issue would be tires and shocks. Seen way too many tires destroyed by rocks, a lot of times by careless driving. Wash board roads can ruin cheap shocks. There is a reason the rangers have two spares and a floor jack in the vehicle.

Go for the weekend and make plans for another trip later. I've been going over 25 years and love it.

 

[tag3]

Water and fuel, take plenty of each. It is a looooong way between places. Go to the race track and check out Scotty's Castle. Make sure to take a tea kettle for the tea kettle junction.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

3 days is barely enough time to scratch the surface of this great place.

Agree that tires will be your weak spot, and your running boards should be removed before the trip. You will likely need a bit of extra gas, and take 10 gallons of water minimum per vehicle.

No real "special" equipment needed. Just normal camping gear. You do need to pack out trash and human waste-so take wagg bags.

Best thing to do on a 3 day trip from the south--Probably the Goler/Mengel/Butte Valley/Warm springs traverse in 2 days, and drive down Titus Canyon on the 3rd day. If you're ambitious you could drive up Echo Canyon and out to Amargosa. Not sure how the pick up would do in Echo though.

or

Come in through Big Pine and come through north pass to the Saline Hot springs, then over lippencott grade to the race track, then through teakettle to hidden valley, over hunter mountain and exit down south pass and drive home.

3 days is just not enough time, so pick one good thing and do it right.

 

[CivicFerio]

I have been to death valley a few times and I really enjoyed it.

Since we don't camp and we want to save on hotel cost. I usually stay the first night at Beatty then head south to Rhyolite ghost town then Titus canyon.

Then pretty much the rest open to what you guys feel like doing. Maybe go to the visitor center then dunes and everything around it. We usually sleep in the park the 2nd night.

For day 3 we drive to the race track with a stop at scotty's castle for a tour or a break to eat.

We never really ventured too far off the road since we always travel solo. So I can't really give you any tips on where the best trails are.

Don't forget to check out the national park website.

http://www.nps.gov/deva/index.htm

 

[stonepa]

Pay the entrance fee for every vehicle. They can use the money. I was there last October and again a month ago. Floods last fall did a number on the roads and trails which they are budget constrained to fix with any speed. Pay the entrance fee!

For tires, I would recommend Load E / 10 ply. Lots of flats and sliced sidewalls to be avoidable.

 

[SALTY METHODS]

Nice guys... I appreciate all the feedback. Keep 'em coming. Thank you for giving me some names of places. That will help me look them up on the web and assess which places look the most interesting. I know, we're not giving ourselves enough time but it's the best I can do when my wife is giving me this small window to leave her and the babies at home.

I've already removed the running boards, so I'm good in that department. I want to get beefier tires, so maybe that will be my upgrade for this trip.

 

[Kofoed]

Pay the entrance fee for every vehicle. .

Or you can be in possession of an annual interagency pass and have it covered

 

[SALTY METHODS]

@Kofoed & @stonepa You guys hit it on the head. You're advice was dead on.

So my friends and I ended up doing a portion of our trip in Death Valley. Once entering the South West entrance and heading down a "Road Closed" road, we ended up camping a Mahogany Flat in the Southern part of DV. Surprising to us all it's elevation was around 8,100 ft. Another cool thing about Mahogany Flat Campground is that it's free. The next day was to wake up early, drive through the heart of DV, stop by Scotty's Castle then drive through the Northern part of DV on dirt road. According to Roger Mitchell's map, the road was supposed to take us to Big Pine 395 then up to the rest of our final destination (which was Lake Tahoe area to camp and white water raft).

We woke to perfect blue skies, my bud still drunk from the road trip there and 1.5 hour search and rescue adventure to find my downed drone, that went hay wire and shot off to parts unknown. I luckily found the downed drone and decided it was time to leave before things got any worse. Quick visit to the Charcoal Kilns. Then we drove on to Stovepipe to pay our fee and then on to Scotty's Castle. We left SC and found the dirt road out to Big Pine. We were warned by a simple sign saying "Next Services 75 Miles". We laughed and continue on. ...For a whole .25 mile until my tire popped and loudly hissed. I quickly pulled over and we assessed the damage. Once assessed and drank a celebratory beer, we got to changing to the spare. After a hair-whitening, mad scramble to find the "lost" lug key, we (more like I) changed the tire. Once the spare was put on, I put up for vote. Do we continue on this 75 mile dirt road that obviously we had no business traveling on or do we turn back and take the paved road. I made an executive decision for the safe bet and took the paved freeway.

You guys nailed it on the head. So thanks for the non-listened to words of advice. I vow to not ever in the future not, not listen to the voice of the all knowing, all-wise IH8MUD community of intelligent and questionable looks band of LC adventurers. Here are some pics of our trip:

Do you take the safe route or do you go where you're not supposed to?

The drone.. Stupid thing.

The Charcoal Kilns

Inside one of the kilns

Scotty's Castle

Where the hell are we? Here? Here! No here... Wait, no here? Just keep driving.

The Road

These guys working real hard to get us back on the road

Needless to say we made it to our campsite up in Tahoe (China Flat Campground)

Literally one of the nicest campgrounds I've ever stayed at

 

[Kofoed]

Nice. Mahagony flat is the trail head to telescope peak. Well worth it if the weather cooperates. Scotty's is pretty wild given when and where it was built. I'm headed out to the Butte Valley area over Thanksgiving. Glad you survived LOL

 

[stonepa]

Tires are always the problem in Death Valley. A single piece of 'gravel' can bring more grief that you'd think.

 

[Brian Anderson]

Nice write up! I'm putting Death Valley on the to do list. Thanks!

 

[SALTY METHODS]

@Brian Anderson We didn't even scratch the surface of that place. I am definitely going back and I plan on experiencing a lot more next time.

 

[SALTY METHODS]

So, I'm heading back to Death Valley. The plan is to leave San Diego Thursday early morning on Oct. 6th and head home on Sunday the 9th (10/6 - 10/9). Another fairly short trip but now that I've had a taste of the place, it's time to dig deeper into all the DV has to offer.

Our first stop is going to be a friend's family's old mining cabin. It's just outside the park about a half way down Owlshead Mountains Trail / Harry Wade Exit Route. We'll probably take some rifles and do some target shooting for a day and camp there. Being outside the park, we should be OK, to shoot.

Our original plans were to drive way further North during our trip but I'm starting to rethink that plan. I want to do some quality off road trails but I don't want to be driving the whole time either.

Here's my question: so if we're going to be starting out at the Southern part of the park, close to Baker, what trails and landmarks would you go try to see in the 3 days we'll be there.

 

[Patineto]

I will say the Saline Valley hot springs are the best place to camp, I have meet so many funky people there, not just the typical stoners on the old painted school bus, but the real "Off the grid, what years is it..??" committed travelers..

Note: they are in Saline Valley, One valley over from Death valley and even a front wheel drive Mamivan can get there on a wide dirt road, but the mountains are right there in front of you with plenty of routes with different degrees of difficulty..

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.7582542,-118.0707217,10z

PS: I participate on the "Death valley Days" (A mini Motorcycle rally, the last week of january rain or shine) for 16 years and still get lost there, endless roads, trails, singletracks, shortcuts, most people tell you be careful of the heat, I tell you be aware of the Cold and the freaking wind..

 

[sacmaster]

When I was younger and dumber, three friends and I drove through Death Valley without any prep in my 100. Was fantastic but lucky we didn't have any trouble.

 

[Cruiserdrew]

Death Valley is mostly easy trails. Perfectly appropriate for a stock or nearly stock truck. With good tires and a spare, you're good.

Great place to visit, remote camp, hike, etc

 

[SALTY METHODS]

My friends and I did the trip. We headed out of San Diego and made our way towards the South-East side of Death Valley. This trip happened the first weekend of October. Here's a really condensed version of some of the sights we saw and the things we did. Most of our route was the Mengel Pass. It pretty much runs the whole Southern border of the park from West to East or vice-versa in our situation. Super fun trail that I would recommend to anybody. We didn't have as much time to really get to see everything that trail had to offer but we sure did have a great time.

On the way out, I lost a huge chunk of one of my tires doing about 85 on the freeway. It was from a set of BFG Mud Terrains KO2s that I got a smoking deal off of Craigslist. Now I know why. Look at those cracks. Not a good way to start out the trip. After a quick stop at a tow truck yard, we put on the spare and kept going.

Our first destination stop. Bedsprings cabin. If you look really hard, you'll see the cabin in the center of this shot.

The cabin.

Another shot of the cabin.

Inside the cabin.

Welcome sign inside the cabin.

Cabin at night.

So the next morning, we packed up and headed into Pahrump, NV to pick up a new set of tires. I wasn't all that enthused about having to drop a little over $1,300 on a new set of tires but at the same time, driving deeper into DV without a solid set of tires isn't such a smart thing to do. Here's my new set of tires that just got delivered to the Big-O in Pahrump.

The LC up on the lift with the old tires.

No mo' s***ty tires. The owner of the tire shop said my tires had "Death Cracks" in them. That definitely help seal the deal when he put it that way.

Our second campsite. It was pretty cool spot right up off the mail trail. It was located by a talc mine. I guess a lot of talc was pulled out of this location.

Some old mining equipment at night, next to our campsite.

Messing with my SLR camera. Playing with the exposure times.

The next big mine we came across. Obviously, they don't want people going into this one.

Looking down that mine tunnel.

The next cabin we came across. I guess the rangers stay at this one quite often. We could tell since it was one of the nicest cabins we came across. Nice and clean and the view of the valley was of the best we came across.

Inside the cabin.

 

[SALTY METHODS]

This next cabin was tucked away in a little finger and little further down the trail. We just happened to come across this one. We could tell this one gets used but seemed more like a crack house than a legitimate cabin. Weird thing was, that someone put in a brand new outhouse just recently. At this point, we lost our friend in the Jeep. He didn't keep up when we left that last cabin and he didn't see us turn up to this cabin. It does get a little nerve racking when you lose someone for around an hour or so without any radio contact.

Toyota Land Cruiser UZJ100 Heading up the Trail - YouTube
One of the gnarlier sections of the trail but as you can see, it wasn't anything for the LC.

4th Generation Toyota 4Runner Coming down the Trail - YouTube
Once we got through that section we ran into two other guys heading the other way. They were a little skeptical about going down this section but we convinced them once they got through this, the rest was easy. So they did and they scraped.

Further down the trail. By the time we took this picture we found our Jeep friend again. He was a bit pissed at me for leaving him.

We found our next campsite. We pulled in at night. This was our last night here.

Here we are leaving our last campsite in the morning.

The main wash that leads out to the Southern West side of the park.

Another mining camp. This one definitely had an eerie aura about it. Doesn't help that it had two signs said "Do Not Enter". We did anyways.

Dirty...

We made it! Time to air up and head for home.

My friends all agreed and are already talking about going back. Like I said, there was so much more we saw and experienced. Many beers were drank, many stupid stories were told. All in all, this was one of my top 5 trips. We will be going back. Which part? We don't know yet. We just scraped the surface.

 

[mmaakk]

This trip looks great! Maybe I can join you next time...