Trip Report: Death Valley Christmas

tomtaylz

Member
Spooky. No kidding!

Only wild burros, coyotes and rain and snow,,,,,wet roads, cold nights, barren lonely landscapes......And no second spare with you either !

Wow, what a great, gutsy solo winter adventure. I truly enjoyed your pictures and stories. Thx mucho for sharing it with us house bound, armchair adventurers.

Thanks! It was a fun trip. I know a lot of people do that area solo but there definitely are risks involved in it, always good to be as prepared as you can ?

In an ideal world, next time I would get a friend to come also, having two rigs out there would be a good safety net.
 
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BADDANDY

Adventurer
I was there solo then also, 24-28 Dec at Stovepipe Wells. It rained all day Christmas and closed every Pass in CA with snow that afternoon. Had plenty of interesting conversations that night at the store where traffic was closed. Awesome riding days 26th and 27th. If you go again, try Echo canyon to Beatty. That way you can do a loop thru Ryolite and Titus canyon (which was closed).
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tomtaylz

Member
I was there solo then also, 24-28 Dec at Stovepipe Wells. It rained all day Christmas and closed every Pass in CA with snow that afternoon. Had plenty of interesting conversations that night at the store where traffic was closed. Awesome riding days 26th and 27th. If you go again, try Echo canyon to Beatty. That way you can do a loop thru Ryolite and Titus canyon (which was closed).
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Nice I’ll have to check out Echo Canyon! I think it was the 26th it actually rained :). I wanted to do Titus Canyon and Ryolite but Titus was basically closed every day I was there - next time
 

Justincredible

Adventurer
Great trip report.
My son and I were there a week after you.

Were there deep footprints at the racetrack when you were there? Because there were when we were. Someone had walked out around the island and back making two tracks that were an inch or two deep, and it was terrible to see.
I tried to not get the footprints in my pictures, but you can see some I. This one.
I can't help but wonder how long it will take for nature to smooth them out...
 

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luthj

Engineer In Residence
A few years ago some idiots took their truck out on the wet racetrack playa making a bunch of deep tracks. The rangers tracked them down weeks later and they ended up with criminal charges.

The boot prints will fill in eventually. Could be 5-10 years. Every few years the playa floods in the winter, and gets smoothed out as the ice on the top gets pushed by the wind (this is how the rocks make tracks).
 

tomtaylz

Member
Great trip report.
My son and I were there a week after you.

Were there deep footprints at the racetrack when you were there? Because there were when we were. Someone had walked out around the island and back making two tracks that were an inch or two deep, and it was terrible to see.
I tried to not get the footprints in my pictures, but you can see some I. This one.
I can't help but wonder how long it will take for nature to smooth them out...

It wouldn’t surprise me, I didn’t spend much time there just to it being later in the day so I didn’t go past the sign. Always a shame to see stuff like that though.
 

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