Death Valley Planning....

[kmcintyre]

Time to start a plan for a road trip in our FWC. We don't have any nights in it yet for 2021 (2019 and 2020 we had about 130). Thinking of heading back to Death Valley (scene of this and other "adventures").


We've been there twice and never made the racetrack or Titus canyon but have been out to Saline Valley and areas around the visitor center (all the normal places) on our road bikes. We disperse camp (up echo canyon, chloride cliff and the dunes in saline valley) but looking for other places to seek out and suggestions.


We'll take our gravel/mtn bikes this time as we want to stay as remote as we can for social distancing.


Some other ideas but not sure and looking for recommendations:
Anything along West Side Road?


Any better spots to try and camp?


The picture is from the road/creek crossing heading into Saratoga Springs... we didn't make it

. That was not a fun day.

 

[buckland]

Bummer... I have been in similar circumstances.... was your truck/camper stuck as in photo?

 

[ski3pin]

You are welcome to check out our blog -

Geographic Locations

and scroll down to Death Valley.

 

[AWG_Pics]

All of our Death Valley camping/hiking photos are geolocated: https://www.flickr.com/photos/awg_pics/albums/72157626377094340

You can look at the map on flickr or look at the EXIF information for each photo to get the gps coordinates.

 

[Occidental]

I think I have 5 posts on Death Valley, not a lot but a few ideas. Best way to find them is to go to the map page https://www.occidentalist.org/map/ scroll in to the Death Valley area and click on the pin to go to the post. Digonnet's book on hiking the valley is my recommendation for getting you where you want to go, with a lifetime of ideas.

 

[kmcintyre]

Bummer... I have been in similar circumstances.... was your truck/camper stuck as in photo?

Yep. It was an ordeal and a long story but the short version was that once we walked a few miles and got spotty cell service, a tow truck (aka Cat D9) came and got us out. There's so much more to the story but after about 8 hrs we headed out of DV and to a hotel where we could shower, re-group, etc. and headed on to Baja (DV was a detour for a few days).

 

[kmcintyre]

You are welcome to check out our blog -

Geographic Locations

and scroll down to Death Valley.

I think I've seen most of your trip reports and will double check them out! Thanks!

 

[kmcintyre]

I think I have 5 posts on Death Valley, not a lot but a few ideas. Best way to find them is to go to the map page https://www.occidentalist.org/map/ scroll in to the Death Valley area and click on the pin to go to the post. Digonnet's book on hiking the valley is my recommendation for getting you where you want to go, with a lifetime of ideas.

I'll check them out! Thanks again!

 

[fuzzymarindave]

Will be watching this timely thread as we are thinking of spending a week in Death Valley the second week of March. Will be our third time there.

 

[kmcintyre]

Will be watching this timely thread as we are thinking of spending a week in Death Valley the second week of March. Will be our third time there.

The 2 links posted have a lot of info. Ski3Pin spends a lot of time there and we're working our way through their trip reports.

 

[ntsqd]

I grew up a couple blocks away from a debris catch basin. As a kid I rode all around it on my bicycle, but when the rains came we all knew to stay off the little 'playa' created by the dam. The first time you walk out on what looks like dry playa only break thru the top crust and then have your shoe so stuck in the goo that you step out of it is pretty educational! I wore lace-up boots for the rest of grade school by mom's requirement after that.

There is only one known to me firm bottomed water crossing in all of the Mojave, The West end of Afton Cyn. And that is only because either the BLM or the RR (I suspect the latter) periodically dump rocks and gravel in it, which was recently done as it is no longer ~3' deep. I consider any others that are damp or more to be bottomless quagmires to stay out of.

As I recall the rule for camping off West Side Rd is that you have to be at least a mile up any of the DVNP maintained spur roads. They're all on alluvial flows and are pretty exposed for several to many miles, and I've never experienced them to be graded nearly as nice as West Side Rd is.