I was fortunate enough to meet up with the NorCal landcruiser club on their annual Death Valley trip. My co-driver, Ray flew into ABQ on Saturday and we headed out on Sunday morning.
On Monday, our first day into the trip was a straight shot into Saline Valley hot springs from Las Vegas. Ray has never been to L.V. so a drive through the strip at night was in order. Upon departing blacktop in DV national park, we encountered our first forty mile of washboard road to the hot springs. This was a good time to test out the Bling 7100s so we maintained a speed of around 50 mph to the hot springs. Saline Hot springs has couple of hot pools that did wonders for the tired bones after couple of days of driving. The hot pools are lined so you don't get the oozy mud and I didn't smell the usual Sulphur smell either. This is where we met up with the trail boss and one other 80.
As we were breaking down camp, F18s did bunch of fly bys. I'm sure they were looking for the nudy chicks in the hot pools but we could just about see the grin on the pilots' face as they flew over. Lots of fly bys took place that morning before heading out of camp. We went over Steel Pass and down to the Eureka Dunes to meet up with the main group. This is where we encountered a strong storm with high winds; not fun if you're camped in a sand dune. A make shift wind block was created using a huge tarp between two vehicles. The third vehicle drove over one end of the tarp as an anchor. Using HAM radio, it was decided to meet the main group on the following morning at an intersection about 10 miles away. The storm brought rain and snow for the travelers who were driving from No Cali and So Cali and they didn't want to take a chance on the passes.
We were able to hit a 2M repeater Tues night and joined a "net" at 2000hrs. Bunch of HAM dudes were chatting up a storm and talked to us while the storm was raging.
On Wednesday, we went to Phinney Canyon at the north end of DV and camped there. This is a beautiful canyon with lots of trees and natural shelter. Temps dropped to 30 degrees that night.
On Thursday we drove through the town of Rhyolite into Titus Canyon. Rhyolite town is a ghost town and you can still see the buildings. I took lots of pics of the bottle house and some "art".
Titus canyon has been closed for the last few years due to soil erosion but it is now open. We encountered lots of hikers and back packers as we wound our way through the canyon. They all gave us the "evil" eye as we made our way to through the canyon onto blacktop. After topping off supplies at Furnace creek, we headed to the Echo canyon into Inyo mine. There are lots of mining equipment to check out and some cabins in decent shape.
On Friday, we made our way through the Marble canyon, Panamint valley then up South Park pass. This is where we encountered Chicken rock and Scary bridge. This particular shelf road is very narrow and the bridge is rated for 3 Tons. Along the way, we saw old mining cabins that were adopted by certain individuals and are in great shape. Anyone can camp or stay in the cabins and there were no signs of vandalism. One of the cabin was wired with 12vdc and solar panels. Someone installed a very nice A/V panel with built in cig sockets and a AM/FM/CASS in dash stereo. It was cool to listen to music while you explored the cabin.
Saturday found us going through a very dusty canyon floor into Rita's cabin. This area was protected from the wind and the group set up camp there. Along the way, we saw lots of Burros (introduced by the miners) and great scenery. We parted ways with the main group at Rita's cabin and headed home.
One 80 suffered a broken rear DS and he borrowed my spare one. I experienced a upper shock mount bushing failure on one of the rear Bilstein shock. I changed the upper Heim joint (corroded) to a Poly bushing and it has deteriorated quite a bit. Our first day of driving 50 miles on washboards killed it. After that, I made up a new bushing every day only to have it last for a couple of hours. One Disco 1 suffered a door ding on the lower part of the door. A slider would've averted that.
We used 2M HAM radios extensively on this trip. Only three out of 11 vehicles didn't have 2M radios. The range on these radios on simplex (radio to radio) was excellent. We hit as far away as 50 miles through canyons and over mountain passes. This was the only way to communicate from the Trail boss to the Trail gunner since the group was stretched out to couple of miles due to dust and deep canyons. Also, couple of late comers joined us along the route and they all had 2M radios. Without these radios, we would've never been able to guide them to our camp sites.
As we were aired up and pulling out of the park, I ran into Pismo62. Sorry we didn't chat much but we had a long haul home!
Pics are uploaded at my photo site: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/alia176/album/576460762395403801#page1 I tried to keep them in order but didn't have time to label all of them.
From others:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80_on_i...7600029869169/
http://flickr.com/photos/63193190@N00
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7517308@N07/437187752/
Cheers!
On Monday, our first day into the trip was a straight shot into Saline Valley hot springs from Las Vegas. Ray has never been to L.V. so a drive through the strip at night was in order. Upon departing blacktop in DV national park, we encountered our first forty mile of washboard road to the hot springs. This was a good time to test out the Bling 7100s so we maintained a speed of around 50 mph to the hot springs. Saline Hot springs has couple of hot pools that did wonders for the tired bones after couple of days of driving. The hot pools are lined so you don't get the oozy mud and I didn't smell the usual Sulphur smell either. This is where we met up with the trail boss and one other 80.
As we were breaking down camp, F18s did bunch of fly bys. I'm sure they were looking for the nudy chicks in the hot pools but we could just about see the grin on the pilots' face as they flew over. Lots of fly bys took place that morning before heading out of camp. We went over Steel Pass and down to the Eureka Dunes to meet up with the main group. This is where we encountered a strong storm with high winds; not fun if you're camped in a sand dune. A make shift wind block was created using a huge tarp between two vehicles. The third vehicle drove over one end of the tarp as an anchor. Using HAM radio, it was decided to meet the main group on the following morning at an intersection about 10 miles away. The storm brought rain and snow for the travelers who were driving from No Cali and So Cali and they didn't want to take a chance on the passes.
We were able to hit a 2M repeater Tues night and joined a "net" at 2000hrs. Bunch of HAM dudes were chatting up a storm and talked to us while the storm was raging.
On Wednesday, we went to Phinney Canyon at the north end of DV and camped there. This is a beautiful canyon with lots of trees and natural shelter. Temps dropped to 30 degrees that night.
On Thursday we drove through the town of Rhyolite into Titus Canyon. Rhyolite town is a ghost town and you can still see the buildings. I took lots of pics of the bottle house and some "art".
Titus canyon has been closed for the last few years due to soil erosion but it is now open. We encountered lots of hikers and back packers as we wound our way through the canyon. They all gave us the "evil" eye as we made our way to through the canyon onto blacktop. After topping off supplies at Furnace creek, we headed to the Echo canyon into Inyo mine. There are lots of mining equipment to check out and some cabins in decent shape.
On Friday, we made our way through the Marble canyon, Panamint valley then up South Park pass. This is where we encountered Chicken rock and Scary bridge. This particular shelf road is very narrow and the bridge is rated for 3 Tons. Along the way, we saw old mining cabins that were adopted by certain individuals and are in great shape. Anyone can camp or stay in the cabins and there were no signs of vandalism. One of the cabin was wired with 12vdc and solar panels. Someone installed a very nice A/V panel with built in cig sockets and a AM/FM/CASS in dash stereo. It was cool to listen to music while you explored the cabin.
Saturday found us going through a very dusty canyon floor into Rita's cabin. This area was protected from the wind and the group set up camp there. Along the way, we saw lots of Burros (introduced by the miners) and great scenery. We parted ways with the main group at Rita's cabin and headed home.
One 80 suffered a broken rear DS and he borrowed my spare one. I experienced a upper shock mount bushing failure on one of the rear Bilstein shock. I changed the upper Heim joint (corroded) to a Poly bushing and it has deteriorated quite a bit. Our first day of driving 50 miles on washboards killed it. After that, I made up a new bushing every day only to have it last for a couple of hours. One Disco 1 suffered a door ding on the lower part of the door. A slider would've averted that.
We used 2M HAM radios extensively on this trip. Only three out of 11 vehicles didn't have 2M radios. The range on these radios on simplex (radio to radio) was excellent. We hit as far away as 50 miles through canyons and over mountain passes. This was the only way to communicate from the Trail boss to the Trail gunner since the group was stretched out to couple of miles due to dust and deep canyons. Also, couple of late comers joined us along the route and they all had 2M radios. Without these radios, we would've never been able to guide them to our camp sites.
As we were aired up and pulling out of the park, I ran into Pismo62. Sorry we didn't chat much but we had a long haul home!
Pics are uploaded at my photo site: http://new.photos.yahoo.com/alia176/album/576460762395403801#page1 I tried to keep them in order but didn't have time to label all of them.
From others:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/80_on_i...7600029869169/
http://flickr.com/photos/63193190@N00
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7517308@N07/437187752/
Cheers!
