6 Days of Living Death...Valley :)

Yup....what he said. +1

Great meeting you both at the campground. Appreciate the intel regarding the “closed” roads.....which weren’t really closed. Go figure?

Hunter Mtn was gorgeous! Coming down Lippencott was busy, but fun. Incredible view of the Saline Valley.

Best trail of all was that loop up the mountain directly behind Ballarat, as Rufus mentioned. But it’s called something else (not Wingate). Terrific ride, it was. A couple steep rocky hill climbs at the top. The “Panamint Loop” maybe...??

Suppose I’ll get around to doing an RR eventually. I’m enjoying yours too much right now.

Carry on . . . .

HF

Ps. we had to lay our bikes down at PSR campground that night of the horrific windstorm. It rocked my Ford Transit so hard, we both thought it might flip over! Gusts were reported to 80+ mph.

I have to say, Lippincot Pass was not my favorite ride of the trip, at least the rocky 10% of it that kicked my butt!!! Of course it was mostly operator error to stall out and fall over on those rocky sections (dang those tall Katooms)! Going to get that height issue fixed soon!!!!

Thanks again BA for helping me pick that thing up and giving me a push to get me going again!! The rest of the ride was amazing that day, at least until we got back into the wind ... not so much fun trying to ride leaned over at about 60 degrees into a huge crosswind trying to keep a straight line with minimal visibility and hoping you don't get creamed by traffic!

And by the way, the couple of stops at Stovepipe Wells were a nice respite!!

Great RR and video editing!

Thanks @jdsmetx, much appreciated . Hoping to make time to edit a video for our 2nd day's ride; also need to get our final day documented .

@JP Rider - I'd forgotten about that crazy arse ride on 190 back to PSR with the dust blowing across the road at stoopid velocities. Not quite to the level of terrifying, but pretty damn close. All I could think about was getting obliterated by the cages behind us if we had to stop because of someone stopped in front of us...would not have ended well. And riding at a crazy angle in the midst of a dust-out to keep going straight...fack.

@JP Rider - I'd forgotten about that crazy arse ride on 190 back to PSR with the dust blowing across the road at stoopid velocities. Not quite to the level of terrifying, but pretty damn close..[/QUOTE]


Yep.......we were going down the road leaned over getting sandblasted and struggling to see ahead.............it made me think of something Ed Hertfelder once wrote..................."it's a good thing that we're having fun, because if this was a job I'd quit".

Look forward to reading your RR when you get to it @HighFive! Was cool meeting you guys, glad you stopped by to chat initially. Pretty cool that you (and BigDog and others) helped inspire the Baja trek I did (JP too).

I'll have to check into that loop you mention heading out behind Ballarat, sounds like something we need to put on our list for the next trek south

EL... OH... EL!!! That's an awesome quote!

Nearly as awesome as this thread!

Ditto to that sentiment, and that's exactly what it felt like riding through it...do we really need to get back to camp...LOL.

Needed a break from the nuthouse and put a video together from our ride on day 2.

There's so much good footage to choose from the 160ish miles we covered, that I decided to split the day's videos into 3 segments. This is the first segment and covers our ride from Furnace Creek to Chloride Cliff and then onto Ryholite. Titus Canyon will be up next and that'll likely be a long vid - simply too much cool stuff that cutting it down to 5 minutes doesn't do it justice. And the third will be our rip out to Marble Canyon and back, another cool bit.

Been meaning to post the elevation profiles from each days' ride as I think they're pretty interesting. One item I highlighted from the first day, the GPS reported 293' below sea level - thought the lowest point in DV was 229' below? Maybe that's just on one of the signs by the paved routes, thought I also saw a couple points that went over 300' below sea level

In any event, it's pretty cool to see the difference in elevation as you move from place to place in the park.

Here's day one - Panamint to Furnace via Goler and Westside Road



Day 2 - Furnace back to PSR via Chloride, Ryholite, Titus, out-and-back to Marble Canyon.



Day 3 - PSR to Saline Valley



Day 4 - loop from Saline out Steel Pass to Big Pine, back to Saline via north pass.



Day 5 Saline Valley to PSR via Lippincott, Tea Kettle, Ubehebe.



I'll add the profile for day 6 when I finally get around to posting the report and pics from then

I had to cancel my big bike trip to DV in March but at least I got drive through it last week in my car on a roadtrip from AZ so this RR is as close as I'll get to riding out there... outstanding work.

I'm a little behind on keeping up with BA's posts, but here's my clip from day one cruising down Westside road, since he mentioned "JP was feeling his inner desert racer", HAHA



Good Stuff!

Time to wrap this one up on the pics front, will likely be adding videos for the next couple months given how busy everything else has been...lol.

The plan for our last day's rip was to head out to Darwin with a stop by China Spring, follow tracks toward Olancha to grab a bite, backtrack a bit to take the Swansea route up by the Salt Trams over to Cerro Gordo, down the backside and then return to PSR. Didn't quite follow that plan as JP wasn't having much fun in the sand () and we weren't sure if track from the salt trams to Cerro Gordo was under snow (turns out it was, so a good thing we opted for the easy route up to Cerro Gordo).



The rip out to Darwin was great, nice and easy fast stuff to start with a decent climb and some rocks thrown in going up. China Spring is still crazy to see given the surrounding area, especially with all the gold fish (koi?) swimming about. It was a great rip through the wash heading down and back to the spring, good aerial footage of JP ripping up the canyon.















Stopped in Darwin and chatted with a local who was hanging out the post office, she wished us a good ride.



It took several wrong turns and backtracking to get on the right track out of Darwin, but we were heading west soon enough and the riding out there was fantastic - especially the climb up to a small bluff before heading down. And the views of the Sierras is something else.







Our original track was supposed to dump us out relatively close to Olancha, but we didn't want the 5-hunny overheating, so we took a bail-out track that hit 190 straight away and were soon slabbing it to the Cerro Gordo turn. Glad we stopped by the plaque, not only to get the historical perspective which is neat, but also to throw coats on as it was going to be cold up top.





Even though it's an easy ride up, it's a cool ride as it winds through a canyon and then starts climbing - affording fantastic views of the valley and Sierras behind.





We pulled up and were the only two visitors there, which was perfect timing as Robert (caretaker/manager) stopped by and gave us a short tour. I'm astounded by the knowledge this man possesses, not only the historical knowledge of the mine, but of mining itself. We ended spending a fair amount of time with him and it was very well spent - even if we made if quite late for his lunch. A very cool character indeed.





One of the 50lb ingots they shipped from the mine - effin' cool.
















Robert gave leave to grab his lunch, so we wondered into the American and took a look around. It wasn't open the last time I was here, so it was really cool to look around inside.

Note the snow in the lower right hand corner of this pic...still chilly up there and it snowed after we left.






This lady's ghost has been seen by some.








Think this might be the bullet hole Robert talked about, though I'm not sure - didn't see any blood stains running down it.




There's something neat about setting back in time, even for just a bit. We thought about checking out the other open buildings, but didn't want to get stuck in any snow that decided to start falling so we made our way down the backside.

Having climbed up from the back during my previous trip, I can say for certain that I like going down better . It wouldn't be tough to go up, but there was plenty of deep gravel to contend with. We came across a group of Jeeps heading up a parallel track and they waved me over. Turns out they'd just come down the same section and were trying to make their way to Saline Valley. While I'm not all that versed in the area, I was pretty sure they weren't going the right way. Looked at my GPS and the DV map and told them they needed to turn around and take a right when they hit an intersection down a ways.

It was then that JP came riding up and said the track double-backed on itself...hmm. The Jeepers decided to go down and check it out for themselves as I was sure the wash they were in wasn't the right way. We hung out for a bit letting the 500 cool and then decided to do the same thing. We found the place that was causing the problem, the wash dumped into the main track and looked like the intersection I was seeing on my GPS. Went a bit further and found the real intersection...but no Jeeps. One of 'em had mentioned going left, which wasn't the right way to Saline, so I bombed that way for quite a while and never saw 'em. Figuring they chose to go right, we jumped on the bikes and started heading back toward PSR.

Unfortunately, never crossed paths with the Jeepers. They were loaded with fuel and supplies, so I hope they made their way to Saline Valley - told JP it was his fault if we read about 'em in the news.

The ride back to PSR was uneventful, didn't even stop to take any pictures. We made it back to camp for a much needed shower, then JP treated dinner and beers. Kicked back for our last night with a great fire, what a fantastic trip!








Hoping to get some video edited in the near future, want to get the ride through Titus put together and our rip through Marble Canyon.

Oh yeah, and our elevation profile from the last day's ride. Note the spike at 50ish miles - that's going up to Cerro Gordor and then back down

Had some time to get a video together from our rip out to Marble Canyon and back. Fun ride out there through the flats with some sand (which JP loved - not...lol), then the wash through the canyon was super cool.

We didn't ride very far back after coming out to the wide wash, but I pulled the Mavic out and had it chase us back toward the canyon - pretty cool footage.

It's like the thread that won't go away, though I feel like I'm just talking to myself...lol.

Put a video together for Titus canyon, had a hard time cutting the clips down as the views for the majority of the ride are quite stunning. I might make a much longer video that shows a much longer portion of the ride - it's really that good.

As it is, this vids a bit on the long side at nearly 10 minutes, but well worth watching if you like the scenery of Death Valley in all its splendor. The colors, topography, and canyon itself are something special - awesome that we get to ride through it. I would've liked to pull the Mavic out and have it chase us a few times, but didn't want to piss anyone off given how popular the drive/ride is.

In any event, if you're looking to waste some time over lunch, a beer, not listening to the people around you, take a look:

Titus cyn is a ride I will never forget, thks for the vid and reminder.

Thanks for the prop @eaglescan! I appreciate it, glad you liked the video too, think I’m going to make time to put a full length version together. Simply too much good footage to not do so. Really wish I would’ve captured some aerial footage too, that would add a seriously cool element.

Have a short video to post from the rip we did the following day, will get that posted later

Put a short video together from our 3rd day's rip, with a nod to Benny Hill with our tube change starting the day...lol.