Death Valley (another one)
 

My second round with Death Valley and first with the "new" FJ.

This is the KMZ file including the route and most of the stops we made:

Death Valley 11-2013 kmz
An overview (Green=First Night, Blue=2nd, Orange=3rd)
Attachment 95404



First off - this trip could have been broken up better to spread out the mileage. The last day was kind of spur of the moment - and ended up being very... very long.

Day (Night) 1: We left the LA area around 6pm Friday and headed for Saline Valley Rd. to find a camping spot. We ended up settling on Boxcar Cabin because it was already getting pretty late by the time we arrived.
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Day 2: This leg of the trip was spent descending into the Saline Valley then up Lippencott, visiting the Racetrack and Ubehebe Crater. I love seeing the Playa - I brought along some guys along who had not been to DV before and to me this is the must see. Our initial thought was to make the Furnace Creek area to camp this night but we decided to get camp set earlier at a campground just South of Scotty's Castle and have a more relaxing evening - we'd pay later.

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Day 3:
So we decided to take the Southern Route out - that is the trail that leads to Mengal Pass. This was my first trip through the area so I had no idea what to expect. This part of the valley is pretty neat because it is even less traveled that the remote parts in the north. Some neat mining sights to see along the trail. Warm Springs camp is an abandoned "compound" that conveniently has a pool (empty but I probably would advise against going in even if there is water). It was housing for miners working the area - abandoned in 1989 if I remember correctly - fairly well preserved.

After this was a long trek up to the Geologists Cabin and Mengal Pass. This part of the "road" is really a wash trail full of rocks - nothing huge - completely passable but it does slow down the trip quite a lot. The Geologists Cabin was pretty amazing. Very clean and well kept. It would definitely be a place I would like to come back and stay a night.

Mengal pass was pretty rough - to get all of the rigs up and over we had to make some slight modifications... sorry hard core guys - we needed to add a couple of rocks here and there to avoid body damage and help with traction. In the end 2 very stock Toyota pickups made it with relatively little problems. (Both with open axles and no traction control).

We were going to stop at Barker ranch but it was getting late and we didn't know what the rest of the trail held for us so we decided to pass it up. The rest of the trail ended up being very tame but very cool - large rock walls guide you out of the mouth of the canyon. The rest of the way is a relatively smooth dirt road up to Ballarat and out to the roadway.

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Cool!

Thanks for sharing!
I've been interested in a DV run since I bought my truck, reading this gave me a few ideas of places to visit!

Love the pics of the famous "moving rocks". Looks like another planet.

looks like you had a ton of fun. nothing better than that!