Tanto

Event: Death Valley 2007
Dates: March 16 (Friday) - March 20 (Tuesday)

Imporant Information Regarding this gathering:

• This is a family trip. As such, I'm sure it would be appreciated by most if not all of us that there not be any recreational drug use, drunken stupidity, lewd and crude behavior and language, gun play, fireworks, etc.
• An entrance fee is required, and is expected to be paid when we are within a reasonable proximity to a NPS fee station. Unless some of you are passing thru DV on your way to the Friday meeting spot, the closest one will be in Furnace Creek when we get there. Those who don't have an annual pass should expect to pay $20 (per their own vehicle) at that time.
• There are restrictions on Overnight Group Camping and Campfires. Read this page for details.
• This is not a professionally sponsored or organized trip. It is simply a shared itinerary for a gathering of people with a common interest, and who will probably be doing the same things for a certain period of time. All attendees understand and agree that they assume full responsibility for their own actions and vehicles, and agree to hold harmless any organizers, trail spotters, real or perceived, from any liability whatsoever.
• Tread Lightly
• Bring WARM clothing as the temperature and possibly high wind can really drop the temp fast
• 5 gallons of extra gas will be HIGHLY RECOMMENDED for everyone.
• CB communication mandatory
• Bring a little firewood for the cabin on Saturday night. The cabin is small so 2 or 3 bundles of wood should be sufficient.

Attendees
Tanto +1 (02 Tacoma 4x4 Friday - Tuesday)
Good Times +1 (03 4runner 4x4 Friday - Tuesday)
Good Times' Guest + 1 (05 Pathfinder 4x4 Friday - Sunday)
Photog (04 4runner Monday - Friday)
Slosurfer +1 (93 4runner 4x4 or 07 Tacoma 4x4 Friday - Tuesday)
surf4runner +2 (4.5 yr old son) (02 4runner 4x2 Friday - Sunday)
expat (04 4runner 4x4 ? - ?)
Paddlenbike +1 (00 4Runner 4x4 Friday - Tuesday)
jsnby + 1 (92 4runner 4x4 ? - ?) Tentative
Scottiac +1 (97 4runner 4x4 Friday - ?)
XPLORX4 +1 (97 Pathfinder 4x4 - Fri - Tues)
Frank +1 (53 Jeep - Friday - Tuesday)

Interested...
DrBeau
Smiling_Jim
Tofer
deathrunner
tacoclimber
ecchamberlin
salad_man
MikeAWood

Caravan Options to DV:
XPLOR4 - San Jose @ 8-830am Friday
paddlenbike - Sacramento 8am Friday
slosurfer - San Luis Obispo 8am Friday
expat - Agoura Hills @ 4pm Friday Tentative
Good Times - Los Angeles Friday Night @ 9pm ETA: 1-2am
jsnby - Los Angeles Friday Night @ 9pm Tentative ETA: 1-2am
Tanto - Leaving from San Diego @ 8am Friday ETA: 3pm.

Camping Location(s):
Friday Night: PSR (Panamint Springs Resort)
Satruday Night: Back country
Sunday Night: Stovepipe
Monday Night: ::TBA:: Back country (Alternate route - Panamint Springs Resort)

Friday night camping location in PSR: (Restroom / showers located across from site #19) - Camp details for PSR at the bottom of this post
#14 taken
#15 expat tentative
#16 surf4runner
#17 Good Times + Guest
#18 Tanto
#19 slosurfer
#20 taken
driveway into campsite
#21 Contact Reggie_00 to reserve this site
#22 open
#23 open
driveway to rv site

Sunday night lodging at Stovepipe
Good Times - Stovepipe Wells Village
XPLOR4 - Stovepipe Wells Village

Organizer's Comments:
This event will not be strictly a wheeling event. We will be exploring sites and also conducting geo cache hunts. Exploration may include hikes up to 1 mile (approx), climbs and bouldering. If you spot a location you would like to see please inform the trail leader so the group can make a pit stop and take photos and explore. This entire event will be based on member participation so please feel free to do your part and stop everyone in their tracks

I will be providing an ammo can so we can bury/hide a Yotatech dedicated geocache at one of our stops. I have to do some research and make sure we hide this geocache somewhere a geocache does not exist. If you can bring an item to donate into the can that would be greatly appreciated. I need a pen and a notepad to include so we can keep track of who's visited this Yotatech geocache. This geocache will be placed somewhere outside of the National Park as we are not allowed to place any geocache on NP land.

Dress appropriately for all weather conditions. The desert can be deceiving so please make sure to wear layers.

Pot Luck Dinner:
Saturday March 17 @ Campsite. Please bring ample food to cover a few additional members outside of your party. Don't forget to bring your own chairs / tables / utensils / drinks / firewood.

Itinerary:

16 - Friday
Arrive and sleep at Panamint Springs Resort (PSR) campground or lodge

17 - Saturday
Meeting junction 1 @ PSR 8:45am
Meeting junction 2 @ Ballarat 10:30am (22.9 miles from Hwy 190 and 3.4miles from paved road)
Route = Panamint Valley Road - Indian Ranch Road - Jail Canyon - Wingate road - Goler Canyon
Gas: Panamint Springs Resort
Camp Location: Geologist Cabin
Sights:

• Darwin Loop (approx 30 miles) - Difficulty: Easy - Moderate
• Jail Canyon (5.6 miles) - Difficulty: Moderate
• Lotus Mine
• Newman Cabin
• Barker and Myers Ranch - Lunch
• Carl Mengel's Grave
• Mengel's Pass - Difficulty: Difficult / Moderate
• Russell Camp
• Mengel Cabin Greater View Spring
• Geologist's Cabin

18 - Sunday
Depart Geologist Cabin @ 9:30am
Routes = Goler Canyon - Warm Springs Canyon - Warm Springs Canyon Bypass - West Side Road - Johnson Canyon or Trail Canyon
Gas: No gas stations available until Sunday night (Furnace Creek / Stovepipe)
Camp Location: Stovepipe Wells (Lodge / Camp)
Sights:

• Warm Springs Mine
• Two unknown mines
• Grantham Mine
• Johnson Canyon (10 miles)
  Beyond the end of the road a 1.5 mile hike leads up the canyon to Hungry Bill's Ranch, with its rock-walled terraces and fruit trees. Continue on foot up the south fork another .5 mile to several old mining prospects.
• Hungry Bills Ranch Site (1.5 mile hike from Johnson Canyon) - 0.5 miles to several old mining prospects.
• Trail Canyon Trail (12 miles) - Lunch[indent]Climbing up the eastern flank of the Panamint Mountains, this road leads to a spring and old mining area at the forks of the canyon. Although some old maps show the road connecting with the Aguereberry Point road, that section was officially closed to vehicle traffic after a wash-out made it impassable.
• Artists Palette Loop
  This is one of the most colorful sites in Death Valley. The rocks exposed here belong to the Miocene Artist's Drive formation. The formation consists of a lower sedimentary member with volcanic tuffs dated to approximately 13Ma and an upper member composed of pyroclastic deposits, sedimentary deposits and basalt flows. The whole formation exceeds 4,000 feet in thickness (Wright, et. Al., 1991; McAllister, 1970). The lower pyroclastic member and the upper sedimentary layers are the most colorful throughout the formations outcrop extent. The varied colors are due to trace elements within this predominantly volcanic formation, especially those associated with the more felsic rocks. At the GPS coordinates location, one can get a good view of the Black Mountains frontal fault which is oblique (right lateral and normal) slip. At this point, you are standing within a small north-south oriented graben (Miller & Wright, 2004).
• Hole in the Wall (4 miles to the "hole" and 2 more miles to road's end)
  The road begins 5.5 miles east of Furnace Creek Inn on Highway 190 and traverses east up a rugged gravel wash. After passing through the 400 foot deep gap called Hole-in-the-Wall, the road becomes rougher (4x4 required).
• Echo Canyon (10 miles) - Difficulty: Difficult
  The road begins two miles east of Furnace Creek Inn along Highway 190. The road tends to have deep gravel and is quite rocky three miles from the highway (4X4 required). The Needle's Eye, a natural arch, is located within the canyon narrows. The Inyo Mine is up the right fork nine miles in and contains several old structures and remnants of mining equipment. The left fork continues past other old mines eventually becoming very rough 4x4 and exiting the park in Nevada.
• Inyo Mine / Schwaub Ghost Town (located on Echo Canyon) and Lees Ghost Town (Time permitting)

Those leaving will split off at West Side Road

19 - Monday
Depart Stovepipe wells @ 9:30am
Gas: Stovepipe Wells in the morning (Scotty's Castle gas station currently has no gas right now)
Camp Location: White Top Mountain (Tent camping)
Sites:

• Sand Dunes
• Keane Wonder Mill and Mine (3 miles)
• Chlorine Cliff (14 miles) Difficulty:L Moderate
• Titus Canyon (27 miles) - Difficulty: Easy
• Scotty's Castle
• Ubehebe Crater (10 miles) - Lunch
  Ubehebe Crater is the largest of several maar craters in the immediate area. A small quantity of basaltic magma encountered underground water producing a series of phreatic eruptions that are recorded in the black layers of pyroclastic ejecta seen across the crater from the parking lot. The next largest crater, Little Hebe, can be reached by a short, steep walk up to the right (south). Ubehebe itself is about ? mile across, 500 feet deep, and is early Holocene in age (Sharp and Glazner, 1997). The colorful rocks that make up the crater walls below the basaltic ejecta are sedimentary deposits of fluvial and/or lacustrine origin belonging to the Navadu formation and range from 6.2 to 12.1ma (Klinger, 2001). Note that the banded orange layers across the crater are in fault contact with the yellow rocks on the left. Ubehebe Crater and its sister craters sit near the junction of several fault zones. The Tin Mountain fault extends southward from here forming the right hand slope of Tin Mountain. The valley extending south from the craters towards the Racetrack (Site CM2) is a graben and the Tin Mountain fault forms the west boundary of that structure. The main trace of the Death Valley Fault zone, which trends north-south, lies just to the east of the craters and is quite visible as a chain of pressure ridges as one drives north towards Ubehebe from the south. It may have last moved within the past 300 years (Klinger, 2001). South of the craters lies the Oligocene-Miocene Ubehebe Crater fault (which is normal) and the Ubehebe thrust (Wernicke, et. Al., 1993). These faults lie between the craters and the base of Tin Mountain and be reached by a moderate hike from the Racetrack Road about 4 miles south of Ubehebe Crater.
• Teakettle Junction (25 miles) - Optional Lunch
• Racetrack (optional)
• Lost Burro Mine
  The cyanide dump deposits indicate that this was a gold mine. The one remaining building is rapidly falling into disrepair. Most of the tilted rock is the Lower Mississippian Lost Burro Formation. The Tin Mountain limestone lies above that and the Devonian Hidden Valley dolomite lies below. The Lost Burro Mine was operated in the early 1900?s when most of the gold mines the Death Valley area were active and it was again operated in the 1930?s up to World War II. Only a small amount of gold was extracted from near the contact zone between the limestone and injected Mesozoic plutonics.
• White Top Mountain (13.2 miles)
  This is one of four places in this guide that offer a great view of Death Valley. When you make the left turn at Lost Burro Junction, you are at the north end of Hidden Valley which is a bolson. The view on the way up from here includes views of the Stovepipe Wells area. At the top, the view towards the Grapevine Mountains is very impressive. The massive folding, the colorful Paleozoic sediments and the fans and bajadas of northern Death Valley are all visible. The view to the west is blocked by higher mountains. En route to the summit you will pass through Ordovician, Devonian and Mississippian age sedimentary rocks, mostly shale and limestone. These rocks are much younger than the pre-Tertiary rocks that dominate in the central and southern parts of Death Valley. At the summit some unusual Mesozoic plutonic rocks with beautiful feldspar crystals form the road cuts near the point.

20 - Tuesday:
Depart White Top Mountain @ 9:30am
Gas: None available until return to PSR
Sites:

• Hunter Mountain to Panamint Springs (42 miles)
  The broad summit of Hunter Mountain is probably an uplifted Tertiary erosion surface cut into the Jurassic pluton that makes up the mass of the mountain. The rolling upland surface is dotted with pinyon-juniper woodland and weathered boulders. While most of the pluton is granitic, there are some rocks from the contact aureole on the northeast side of the pluton which are visually unique leucomonzogabbro. Boulders from this part of the pluton can be found in northern Chicago Valley east of Shoshone. Even allowing for significant fluvial/mudflow transport, much of this current separation must have been accomplished by late Tertiary extension. Places of interest on the upland area include an old abandoned log cabin located off a side road 5.2 miles from South Pass to the south just east of the western summit and a great view of central Death Valley and the isolated Sand Flat bolson can be seen from a hill at 7.3 miles from South Pass. This is just where the road drops off steeply down to Goldbelt.
• Ulida Mine
• Ubehebe Talc Mine
• Keeler Mine
• Quackenbush Mine
• Lee Mine
• Santa Rosa Mine
• White Swan Mine
• Alliance Talc Mine
• Silver Dollar Mine
• Talc City Mine

Communications:
CB Channel 16
FRS = Ch 4 Sub 4 (for exploration by foot)
Ham Radio = 146.430

Please email goodtimes (at) chaosedition.com or private message "Good Times" with your contact info (name, username on forum and forum name, contact number, email address). This will ensure that I keep an accurate head count.

Directions:
To Panamint Springs Resort (PSR)


Driving From Las Vegas (175 miles)Directions from San Diego area (350 miles ~6hrs):Driving From Los Angeles (235 miles)Alternate Route:Camping Location(s):
Friday Night: PSR (Panamint Springs Resort)
Satruday Night: Back country at Geologist's Cabin
Sunday Night: Stovepipe Wells
Monday Night: Back country at White Top Mountain

The "hotel" rooms at PSR are about 50-100 feet from the campground at PSR. Just a heads up, they are not AAA accomodations. If you mean the "adopt-a-cabins", they are spread out thru the Panamints and Death Valley, and are on a first-come, first serve basis, and will very likely already be occupied as it will be a busy time of year. We should be in the area of some if we b/c camp in Butte Valley area Sunday night, and can check them out anyways, JIC.

Those of you not staying Sunday night risk the chance of being pretty far into the trail by Sunday afternoon/evening, and will either have to backtrack or finish the trail to Badwater and take the pavement all the way back. As the Goler Wash/Mengel Pass/Butte Valley trail isn't difficult, it shouldn't be very tough to run some portion of it in the dark, as long as you tracked the trail with your GPS and are with another vehicle.

PSR Campground Info:
PSR's campgrounds are the only campgrounds in the entire national park with shower facilities for the guests, there are toilets and water, and firepits, however, only a quarter of the sites currently have benches, and these are "grab-n-growl", or first come, first served...Reservations can be made on line at www.deathvalley.com, or by phone at 1-775-482-7680... Click on "Reserve Your Room Online", then click on Online Reservations with the yellow icon on the left side of the page. When you reserve, you will be prompted for RV site, tent site, etc. $15/day for four people. Additional people are $2.50 each. I do not know what the max. # of people are, though. I reserved tent site #17/18, so try to get adjacent sites if possible. I'll also be sleeping in my truck, so I think the site will accomodate two trucks and a tent.

Panamint Springs Resort is a pretty cool place to hang at. It is low key. It is not a zoo like Stovepipe or Furnace Creek. The accomodations aren't AAA, but the people are good folk, the restaurant food is good, there is a bar, and the location is great for our itinerary.

I'm pretty sure there is decent back country camping close by, so please don't anybody panic if the campground gets full and you don't have reservations. That would be off the 178 Hwy. south of 190, 'bout 5 miles or so from PSR, and it would be on BLM land and not on NPS property. We can fine tune the details on that down the road.

Stovepipe Wells Campground
The Stovepipe Wells campground (first come first serve)
Located at sea level, Stovepipe Wells has 190 sites with water, some tables, some fireplaces with the tent sites, flush toilets, and dump station. $12.00 per night.

Stovepipe Wells Village (lodging - $111 per night)
http://www.stovepipewells.com/
Phone: 760.786.2387
Fax: 760.786.2389
E-mail: reserve-spw@xanterra.com
Reservations office hours of operation: 24-hours, daily.

Resource Links:
http://www.palomar.edu/geology/DVWeb.htm
http://virtualguidebooks.com/SouthCa...athValley.html
http://deathvalley.com/exploring/backcountry.shtml
http://www.death.valley.national-park.com/sights.htm
http://www.deathvalley.com/4x4_death_valley/
http://www.ubehebe.com/
http://www.gbr.4wdtrips.net/4x4/echo.html
http://www.totalescape.com/active/ca.../NP/death.html

reggie 00

1. Yes
2. Anything that's cool. Never been there. Manson cabin, any old ghost towns/mines.

Might have my son if he's up to going this time, so fam friendly.

Tanto

This would definitely be a stock-friendly, Family-friendly trip. The usual rules of any YT run would apply to include:

ALL drinking done at the end of the day
NO recreational drug use whatsoever
....and of course, Tread Lightly

I want to include as many people as possible on this run so the trails will be easy to moderate.

Sleeper

I'll see what's up as we approach. The second half of March sounds good. I never got to the "Racetrack" last time so I woud like to see that. Otherwise, I'm game for whatever.

DrBeau

Woo! Hopefully I can get this off of work. The 16th - 18th is perfectly in line with my Spring Break.

1) >above<

2) Um...I know there's stuff I'd like to suggest, but I don't have it readily at hand. There's a place that involves driving along the Nevada border just outside of the valley and up the backside of the mountains. The ride up is not too difficult, but the view at the top is spectacular. It's a view of the north end of the valley from the east (facing west). Ubehebe crater is also pretty cool (but all asphalt if you come from the highway; although it's on the way to Tea Kettle Jun. and Racetrack).

Woo...I'm already getting stoked about this trip! Hopefully I can make it.

Bob_98SR5

i am tentatively going to say yes

Smiling_Jim

If there is lots of fast cruising on the flats then maybe I should bring the Taco.

The crawler likes stuff that's steep and slow.

What do you guys recommend?

sschaefer3

That you make it a side option to run the hardest thing out there and I'll drive the Dana 44 4Runner over. But like he said, it likes slow and steep.

Tofer

my springs break is in april i think, but i'll double check and see if i can join.

deathrunner

I'd like to come out. Ryan, how far is the trek from SD?

jsnby

I'd like to see the manson cabin and the racetrack, but i'm only going to be able to go for the weekend. I hate being a contract-to-hire....i get no time off, no benefits, and I'm paid hourly

jsnby

google maps is showing roughly 350 miles and 6 hours to the middle of the park.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=e...=UTF8&z=8&om=1

DrBeau

It's quite a drive. I have family at the 15/395 junction, so I stay the night up there on the way up. Still, it's quite a drive from there.

I don't know exactly what's out there for the crawler, but I've seen some built Jeeps out there...so there must be something. Unfortunately everything is very spaced out, meaning going from hard trail to hard trail involves a lot of distance driving.

Good Times

DV is more of an expedition trip rather than a rock crawling event. Most of this will be high speed action (meaning faster than 1mph). Expect average distances travelled in the 50-150 miles depending on the proposed route. So far the previous DV trips has all been very mild and 2wd friendly for the most part. There's one section that can be a bit rocky but a stock 4wd vehicle make it with no problems. (only if you go there)

The beauty of DV is that it has a lot of varying terrain depending on what elevation you are at. I personally won't be able to make this years trip due to the timing of the beast but I will offer my help to get you guys organized.

Since it looks as though you guys will be trailing off the TTORA trip I'd like to see what they're doing and figure out what would be nice for the other days out after that event is done.

Tanto

It took me about 7 hours with some traffic on the 15 and eating dinner. Had to stop twice to gas up on the way there since the area was remote and I didn't want to run out of gas somewhere so it would take about 5 hours driving straight through.

Sounds like Ubehebe Crater, Racetrack Playa, the Manson place, and the Ghost Town on the CA/NV border are the popular places so far. Good input so far, once we get some more input and get a good idea of what we want to do I'll start the trip's actual thread to make it easier.

sschaefer3

Oh ok. That's not really for me then.

sschaefer3

Hey you know what? I sold a System 1.5 lift kit to a park ranger up there. I'll shoot him a line and see of there is anything for the "slow" people.

He'll know. I heard Surprise Canyon is right there, but as everyone knows that is closed.

Tanto

There is a rock garden not too far from Panamint Springs for the SAC rigs to play around on, but it'll be overkill for the trails we're going to run as a group. A guy with a stock '03+ 4Runner loaded to the gills with gear and his family did everything we did last year so yeah, it'll be pretty tame for the most part.

I would bring the Tacoma

Tanto

It was a great idea last year to have the last night of the trip in Furnace Creek. Pretty cool feeling when our caravan of dusty rigs rolls into town and everyone's like "where did THEY come from".....maybe that's just me

This trip will definitely show you the "real" DV other than the sugar-coated comfy living (relatively) of Furnace Creek.

surf4runner

count me as a definte maybe
march and any other time is good