Just returned home last night from Death Valley

[kmcintyre]

Our first trip to DV. Awesome. Thanks for all the suggestions from people on the forum.

I'll post pictures later but there are so many highlights. DV is pretty good for dispersed camping so we did that. No heavy 4x4'ing but a little. We did the common places I think (Echo Canyon, Hole in the Wall, Saline Valley, Monarch). They all had their positives for sure.

A few notes. Saline Valley road (at the Narrows?) is being graded. It looked like they might be grading the road to the Race Track up Lippicote, but we were pretty far away with binoculars. So wanted to drive up there to see how bad the road really is but we wanted to get to the Sand Dunes.

We'll be going back as we missed a few places we really wanted to see. Titus was closed until today.

It was starting to get hot and there was wind almost every night. It howled one night and shook us around. FWC held up fine.

We saw a few other FWC's out there but either we were on our road bikes or they weren't around the rig (Furnace Creek).

Kevin

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Kevin, I think we saw you, but only had a chance to wave. I'm glad you had a good time. We will be home in a few days.

 

[SunMan]

Glad you enjoyed yourselves. Interesting to hear they may be grading Lippincott.

 

[kmcintyre]

Wandering Sagebrush... yes we thought we saw you heading south around Artist... we were on our road bikes and waved too. It was just the 2 of us so I'm sure that was you.

SunMan: I could see a big CATs out by Lippincott but don't know what it was doing. The "Narrows" was busy with CATS though and it was kind of a mess when we went through but by the end of the day I bet it was smooth sailing.

We saw the wild burros down by the sand dunes. All looked healthy except for one.

 

[ETAV8R]

Very cool. Glad you enjoyed DV. It has so much to offer. Did you camp/soak at Saline? If you didn't, especially at night, you will have to go back and check it out. Nothing like soaking under the milkyway. Can't wait to see pics.

 

[SunMan]

I'll bet they were just cleaning up the the crossing through the wash you need to travel though to get to Lippincott. That probably got pretty hammered along with everything else.

 

[BobM]

My wife and I were there two weeks ago. We missed Saline valley mainly because we came up the 190 way.

 

[ETAV8R]

?
190 passes Saline Valley Road...TWICE

 

[Kokopelli]

Was there last week - came in Sun 3/8 camped up hole in the wall, then at Teakettle jct, then down Lippencott for 3 nights at Saline hot springs (lower), then one night in Stove pipe well (nasty after Saline) then home. Amazing area and really appreciate all the info on this site for the planning. So much to see and barely touched it.

We did run into the grader coming down Lippincott - they were just grading the lower section - the tighter narrow section was still that - glad I was in a small truck. The section towards the bottom of the narrow section with the tight washed out corner was very tight- had to hug the wall and didn't know if a larger truck could get by. But we saw a Silverado at the springs who came down, so I guess so. The wife was not happy going down Lippincott, and I have to admit it got your attention. But we made it, and had a great time at the springs. Highly recommend them. And so many opportunities for exploring off the beaten path in DV.