With the presidential election quickly closing in, I'm pretty fed up with all the politicking and ads being shoved in my face on a daily basis on TV. I really needed a getaway and this trip did the trip!
I went with the Overland Bound crowd again, albeit most were different individuals. I signed up for the outing a good six weeks ago, so I had some time to plan and prep for the trip. The trip leader, Dave, had certain safety requirements that had to be met in order to be accepted on the trip 1) Rear-facing amber chase lights 2) a ham radio 3) some sort of navigation to get you to the next campsite should you get lost or separated from the group 4) AND enough extra fuel to make sure you make it back to the end of the trip!
I had a handheld ham radio, but I needed a better power solution, so I bought a battery eliminator that gets power from the cigarette lighter. I also needed amber lights, so I bought some 3" LED cubes with snap-on amber covers, which mounted on the back of the safari rack. While I was at it, I bought an LED front light bar.
Calculating fuel needs was a total bitch! I had to download the provided trip map and do an inch-by-inch tracing to figure out the total estimated mileage from start to finish. Then I had to forecast how much gas consumption the Jeep might eat. How was I to know? How fast would we be traveling? What are the trail conditions? I'll be airing down to 20 psi, plus we'll be at high altitude. Maybe 12 mpg? 10 mph? I had to do a worse case scenario and work off of that! But the trip leader kept changing our daily destinations. I already had two 2-gallon Rotopax containers on the back of the Jeep. At first I calculated that I would need another 4 gallons, so I found a 4-gallon Rotopax and had to design a way to carry it on the back of the safari rack. Then the mileage got longer! So I bought another 4-gallon Rotopax, but now I need an extension for the mount! As the trip approached nearer, the mileage again lessened. Oh, well- hauling 12 extra gallons of fuel, at least I was for sure not going to run out of gas!
I also spent an afternoon yanking out my gas tank skid and pounding the dents out of that (compliments of the Rubicon Trail). With the dents relieved, my gas tank was able to expand to its original shape and I recouped nearly a gallon of gas back! Additionally, my gas gauge decided to work correctly again! Since the Rubicon Trail, the fuel gauge had never showed FULL- now it does!
But before that, I took King to the 4X4 Shop in Livermore to get some upgrades done. Since next year, I'll be moving up to 35" tires, I needed to finally change my gearing to 4.56. While they were in there, I had them install Eaton E-Lockers front and rear. They also beefed up the Dana 30 front axle a bit by installing my Synergy ball joints and welding in an Artec truss, C-gussets and LCA skids. After a couple of weeks, I took the Jeep to my local Wheel Works for a 4-wheel alignment and to get all 5 tires balanced.
But before that, I had to install an electrical switch system to select the lockers and accessory lights. I wasn't really in the mood to fork out $590+ for an sPOD system, so I designed and built my own 6-switch overhead system, complete with a relay box for about $120! It took some time for me to read up on how relays work, so I would know how to wire up the box, but in the end, it was totally worth it! I hooked up both lockers, the front light bar and the rear amber cubes- everything worked like a dream!
After all the preparation and work, the day finally came. My buddy, Tony, rode shotgun. He's a little bit more city/car camping. When I first asked him if he wanted to go on the trip, he asked if he could take a shower every day. Lol! I told him that if doesn't want to drink water in the desert, yeah, he could shower with his water rations.
We possied up with our group at 7am on a Thursday morning at a nearby McDonalds and we were soon on the road. We made a couple of stops on the way to Lone Pine, picking up more rigs along the way. We took Hwy 120 through Yosemite, which required advanced park reservations, due to the Covid thing, where I just purchased an annual national park pass, since Emily and I would be hitting the road for Utah next year.
We had final gathering in Lone Pine, CA, the gateway to Death Valley. Our last chance to eat real food for four days, so we grabbed a quick meal at Carl's Jr. After the drivers meeting, we were off and running!
For the first night, we were camping at Burgess Mines. The drive there wasn't very difficult. We all stopped before entering to air down our tires. I dropped to 20 psi. We first traveled in 4-Hi until we hit a short narrow rocky climb, then we switched to 4-Lo. I saw the rig in front of me spinning his tires a bit, so I got the chance to test out the new lockers. I activated front and rear- they worked like a charm! Then I noticed the front ones throwing me off my my line, so I switched to rear only. No traction lost! Amazing! There was one part where we were tipped almost to a 45-degree angle towards the drivers side. (That was due to the front lockers not allowing me to steer to the line I wanted.) Slow and steadily, we inched into the clearing. Some serious pucker action though!!! We reached the summit of that ridge and waited for the others. One of the rigs was pulling a teardrop trailer. They didn't fare as well- he slashed one of the tires on his trailer, so they had to swap out with their spare. After that, it was smooth sailing to the campsite.
We were about half an hour ahead of most of the others, so we were able to pick a nice place to set up for the night. With all the excitement, I had forgotten to pull out the steaks for that night's dinner- they were still frozen pretty good, so I threw them on the engine hood, hoping that they could defrost a little. Tony and I set up camp, but didn't deploy the awning since I felt we didn't really have time to enjoy our campsite that night. We had beers and cooked up the steaks. There was too much food for Tony- he couldn't finish his steak, but he could sure drink beers! No matter, he paid for his food. After eating, we made our way to the community fire. I offered up a bundle of wood, one out of two, figuring I could lighten our load. (We were all required to bring 2 bundles of wood, although later the requirements changed to one bundle, which wasn't even enforced anyway. Lesson learned for next time.) We spent some time talking with Khan- he showed us his Toyota FJ100 Land Cruiser and the cool pull-out drawers he just added to his rig. We soon hit the hay. As it turned out, both Tony and I were sleeping on slight slopes, so all during the night, we were sliding towards our feet. Oh, well. That's camping!
The next morning, we at a quick cold breakfast of granola and fruit, then broke camp and got packed up. We had a quick drivers meeting, then we headed out. We made our way to the
Salt Tram. Some had problems along the way. Ron's Jeep was having issues with one of his front CV joints, so while everyone was sightseeing at stop, he was busy doing a quick roadside repair with the help of others.
Next stop- Cerro Gordo ghost town. What a cool little town! There were still a lot of old buildings standing and in very good shape. Not too long ago, Brent Underwood purchased the entire property for $1.3M in hopes to build a hotel destination in DV. Unfortunately the beautiful hotel on the land recently caught fire and burned entirely to the ground. Brent and his partner, Johnny, were there when we arrived and were gracious enough to provide us with a guided tour of the town, explaining the histories of each building. Initially they had talked about charging us $20/head for the tour, but later decided to waive the fees. In lieu of the waived fees, most of us bought souvenir T-shirts for $20. There were lots of artifacts that they have collected all over the town. In one building, the Food Network had actually filmed an upcoming episode of Restaurant Impossible there!
We got in our rigs and drove to the Rainbow Canyon outlook (Star Wars Canyon) in hopes of seeing some fighter jets doing some canyon passes. The parking lot was large, so we had little problem fitting all of us in there. There we ate lunch waiting for jets to fly by. As luck would have it, we got skunked out and nothing flew by :(
Friday night, we camped at the Ubehebe Talc Mine. It was a pretty crowded little space- it wasn't very spread out and good camping spots were limited. Tony and my goal for the night was just to find somewhere FLAT to sleep. We were one of the first vehicles to arrive, so we got to pick and choose. We quickly set up camp and got the ARB awning deployed. We got the campfire ring going and we were all set! For dinner, I had thawed out the carne asada beef to make fajitas. Before cooking dinner, I noticed lots of others fueling up their rigs, so I figured it was a pretty good idea to empty out the eight gallons I had sitting on my roof. Tony helped me to get the vessels off the roof, then I filled up the tank. Amazingly, we had used less fuel than I had anticipated and I couldn't even get the entire eight gallons into the Jeep! Everyone was complaining about their California CARB compliant Rotopax spouts so a couple of people borrowed my yellow spout so they could fill up too.
I had just finished securing both 4-gallon tanks to the roof rack. I stood on the rear passenger fender and hopped off the Jeep backwards. When I touched down, my left shin made contact with a cactus, so instinctively I went into a hop and body roll to avoid the plant. Immediately when I got up, I knew something was wrong- one of the ribs on my left side was feeling odd and uncomfortable. I was thinking that I might have rolled onto a rock (that might've been the case). This painful rib would plague me for the rest of the trip and beyond. But that didn't stop us from having a good time. I proceeded with grilling the vegetables, then the beef. Tony soon took over the meat, since he knew better how to cook it. Meanwhile a few more people dropped by to visit. Sonny, who had come up from San Diego joined our campsite and we all took shots of Jim Beam Kentucky Fire. He stayed for dinner and stories. He had a beautifully set up red 2-door JL Jeep. Khan and his brother (and his son) dropped in to enjoy the fire and a shot of whiskey. After dinner, we all trekked up to the group fire, where I had excellent conversations with Mike Shaffer (of Shaffer's Off Road Automotive) and Rho. Tony and Sonny were hitting it off famously as they both realized that they grew up near to each other in Sacramento, and both knew some of the same skateboarder crowd! They snuck off and did all the dishes, while they drank more beers. Very nice of them! Tony and I enjoyed a nice night of sleep on [relatively] flat ground!
I got up around 5:30a again. (I'm always worried about not getting all packed up in time.) Again, we had awesome Peet's coffee and cold cereal. We mustered up and headed out of camp. Our first stop was Teakettle Junction. What a weird little spot, but a nice place for a photo op! Mark and Lorna brought a teakettle for us all to sign and hang on the sign. Michael (a French guy who pronounces his name Michelle) had a tripod, so we all posed for a group picture. But today's drive was going to get more challenging. We had talcum powder dusty roads, which reduced visibility to about 10 feet! And when we hit the dusty part of the road, it was so soft and deep, it dropped our speed about 10 mph! Everyone was on their radios communicating, so we wouldn't hit each other! We finally ended up at Racetrack Playa. We all had a chance to mill around for about 45 minutes before it was time to drive again. The weather was nice- no clouds in the sky, but slightly hazy, about 85 degrees. Then we were off to Lippincott Pass, a very slim rocky shelf trail with some pretty good drop-offs, but the views were gorgeous!
Once we finished traversing the shelf roads, we turned right into Saline Valley. After some very dusty driving, we stopped by the Lower Warm Springs to take a quick lunch break. The Warm Springs are a bunch of manmade hot tub pools that have natural hot spring water plumbed in. I only saw the Volcano Pool and it was drained, but I believe they were all drained now due to Covid.
We got back in our rigs and headed up Steele Pass Road. It was pretty gravelly/rocky, but not bad. There were a couple of technical sections that took some real judgment to navigate, but nothing that was out of my ability. We took a break at the Marble Bath to wait for others to catch up to us. I was fortunate enough to be in the front again- there was Papa Dave, King, then Shaffer. (We had a variety of different rigs on this trip. As mentioned before, we had a teardrop trailer with us, but after just the first day, they decided to go a different route. There was a Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk, a couple of Toyota Land Cruisers, a good number of Jeep Wranglers, some Toyota Tacomas and one full-size Chevy Silverado 4x2 truck. Some of the drivers aren't very familiar with off-roading, so there were times when the rest of the group took 45 minutes to get caught up.) Everyone else was a mile plus behind us. Tony and I took a short walk up to see the bath tub. There's literally a porcelain bathtub up there imbedded in the ground filled with blue marbles adorned with rubber ducks! What the heck?! When we got back, they still weren't there. It took them about half an hour to catch up.
Next we were doing some wheelin'!! Dedeckera Canyon! It's only three sets of steps going down, but if you're not accustomed to crawling, it can be pretty scary! Again, we were the second rig in line, right behind Papa Dave. That meant that we wouldn't have to wait for others to pick their way through this obstacle. The first steps were nothing- all we had to do was go straight down the middle and let the pumpkins drop right through the ruts. The second obstacle is just narrow- the trick is just to try not to scratch your rig. With the final steps, I chose a line that started wide to the left, then hugged the right side then I drove out driver. Easy peasy- I've got a Jeep! I followed behind Dave who had a pretty built Tacoma with King suspension. He didn't have any problems either. Mike Shaffer stayed in the area just after the second steps to spot others coming through. Most everyone did well with some coaching. The full size truck had problems and needed to be plucked back. That took about an hour for everyone to get through. Then we were off to the campsite at Eureka Dunes!
Our original camping goal was taken, so we just found another area off the trail and made camp. By 4:30p, we were setting up camp. It was windy for a little while, but by night the wind died off. We had dinner and finished off our beers and whiskey. Everyone pitched in the last of their firewood and we had a big bonfire to end the trip. Dave passed out ice cream bars, while he went around the group asking everyone to say something nice about the trip. I was feeling a bit worn, so I hit the hay earlier than most. The campsite across the field was blasting house music until 3a in the morning. Lucky for me I brought earplugs :) The night probably got down to the mid-30°F in temperature. I was wearing my expedition weight Capilene underwear, so I was pretty comfy, but if I wasn't prepared, it could've been a pretty miserable evening.
We got to sleep in the next morning. I think I set my alarm for 7:30. We leisurely packed up the camp, said our good-byes- by 9:15a we were on the road. Sonny followed us out, so caravanned together. Tony kept asking me if we were headed the right way. When we hit the pavement, we both stopped to air up. It was windy as heck! I had Tony hold only my hood, so it wouldn't blow way open, as I pressured the tires. When we got to Big Pine, we topped off the fuel at Arco and got rid of our trash. I had planned to have a barbecue lunch at Lee Vining, but the restaurant was closed. We got more gas at the Chevron and the guy recommended the burger place across the street. I bought lunch and we chilled for a bit.
We were rolling into Livermore around 5:45p. A pretty easy and eventless drive back. Tony quickly helped me to unload the Jeep sticking stuff into the small garage, then he was gone. All in all, I would say it was a pretty great trip. We got to see lots of things I never imagined I'd see. We saw things that literally 99% of everyone else will never see. I'm very glad that Tony was able to do the trip with me, although I know this wasn't really his cup of tea. But still, I believe that he enjoyed the trip just the same. We were with a great group of people and had wonderful conversations! We were well prepared and had everything we needed. We were fortunate that nothing broke and we didn't have any issues.
I spent the next two weeks hitting the reset button. The following Monday, I had just enough time to do an initial dust and wipe down of the driving area. A couple of days later, I did a deep cleaning wash of the exterior. I later cleaned the interior again, then did a thorough vacuuming. It literally took me 10 hours to clean the Jeep after that trip! That desert dust just gets into everything!! I would estimate that between all the planning/preparation before the trip plus the cleaning/resetting after the trip, that time would rival the actual time that we spent on the trip!!
Then came the change of season thing. I removed the safari rack and installed the ski racks. I washed down all the camping equipment, trying to get all the dirt and dust out of it. I finally put it all away and got that small garage cleaned out, so I can park the Jeep in there before the rainy season gets underway.
One last thing- one night, I had a conversation with Dave. Besides just getting out there, seeing stuff that no one else can see, I also see it as a chance to test out our gear We spend all this money to build up our rigs and we want to see if we made the right decisions. Did the equipment meet our expectations? Did anything break? Did was actually install it correctly? Do the parts work in concert with the other parts? We also get a chance to play with our camping stuff. My new awning, the campfire ring, the folding table, etc. I think on this trip, I was most impressed with my Yeti Tundra 65 cooler! I loaded it with 6 large Cooler Shock packs on a Thursday morning. The temperatures in Death Valley were easily over 90°F. On Saturday night, my beer was still partially slushy! On Sunday morning, my milk was still a bit frozen too! This cooler totally rocked!!
If you ever get the chance to go to Death Valley, DO IT!!! It's an odd and eerie place to go, but it's beauty is so rare, there's nowhere else on Earth like it! Just make sure that your vehicle is capable and ready. Also be prepared with water, plenty of fuel, communication and some sort of navigation. Death Valley doesn't mess around!!
