DEATH VALLEY RUN - President day weekend
- Thread starter cap510
- Start date
Sorry guys I wanted to post my report in the report sectionhttp://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/122759-Death-Valley-The-Tourist-Route
Awesome report and pics!
eurosonic
Expedition Leader
No doubt some great photos by all. Eurosonic, when is your brother going to finish up the steady cam video?
Some time soon I hope. He got some good footage.
Hey Guys,
Thanks for making this a memorable trip, me, my daughter and COCO had a great time!
This will be one of those trips that you talk about at camp while having a cold one with friends for years to come! :REOutCampFire03:
Glad to have met new friends and see old ones again!
And even though not everything went as plan, I'm glad everyone made it home safe.
Hats off to "EL BUFFET" for feeding us when we were hungry. :chef:
It was cool to see "ALL" the different vehicles brands in the trail united as one group doing what we all love to do... 4wheeling! :safari-rig:
Can't wait to do it again! :bike_rider:
Thanks for making this a memorable trip, me, my daughter and COCO had a great time!
This will be one of those trips that you talk about at camp while having a cold one with friends for years to come! :REOutCampFire03:
Glad to have met new friends and see old ones again!
And even though not everything went as plan, I'm glad everyone made it home safe.
Hats off to "EL BUFFET" for feeding us when we were hungry. :chef:
It was cool to see "ALL" the different vehicles brands in the trail united as one group doing what we all love to do... 4wheeling! :safari-rig:
Can't wait to do it again! :bike_rider:
Dennx
Adventurer
El Buffet! :chowtime:
It was great meeting you and the gang. Thanks for getting it rollin'. Can't wait to wheel with this group again!
nwoods
Expedition Leader
Who was driving my rig?
eurosonic
Expedition Leader
Torquey
Adventurer
Great time! Thank you Carlos for putting this together.
Alex and I left the lower Saline Springs about 2 hours behind the rest of our group.
Unfortunately we got news of the demise of Ray's engine shortly after leaving. Then we managed to get stuck behind every nudist acid tripping hippie leaving the Springs driving everything from a creepy van to the 19mph Hummer H3 who refused to move to the right on what is easily a 50mph road. So, we decided to hit the Race Track via Lippincott Pass since we knew Ray was safely in the hands of the rest of our group. It was definitely the most exciting trail of the trip as the rest could have been done in a Forester.
We met up with Ray at the highway and waited until we knew he'd be safely in the hands of AAA.
It was great to see old faces and meet new ones.
Lessons learned this trip: I need a Slee rear bumper, Hennessy - bad, Hantavirus - worse!.
Alex and I left the lower Saline Springs about 2 hours behind the rest of our group.
Unfortunately we got news of the demise of Ray's engine shortly after leaving. Then we managed to get stuck behind every nudist acid tripping hippie leaving the Springs driving everything from a creepy van to the 19mph Hummer H3 who refused to move to the right on what is easily a 50mph road. So, we decided to hit the Race Track via Lippincott Pass since we knew Ray was safely in the hands of the rest of our group. It was definitely the most exciting trail of the trip as the rest could have been done in a Forester.
We met up with Ray at the highway and waited until we knew he'd be safely in the hands of AAA.
It was great to see old faces and meet new ones.
Lessons learned this trip: I need a Slee rear bumper, Hennessy - bad, Hantavirus - worse!.
EmptyOly
New member
Attachments
i was able to meet the group at stovepipe wells, and joined the camp in cottonwood canyon.
my thanks, again, to wgyouree, for herding me in, and the rest of the group for hanging back enough for me to see tail lights now and then.
i enjoyed the meeting of fellow enthusiasts.
i saw ray and others on their way toward lippencott pass(?) earlier(sunday), and all seemed good w/them at that time.
death valley is real big- i only did about 190 miles in dirt.
got home 2:30 tuesday morning and had to go to work.
good run. good people.
carlos is an excellent trail leader.
let's do it again.
richard
my thanks, again, to wgyouree, for herding me in, and the rest of the group for hanging back enough for me to see tail lights now and then.
i enjoyed the meeting of fellow enthusiasts.
i saw ray and others on their way toward lippencott pass(?) earlier(sunday), and all seemed good w/them at that time.
death valley is real big- i only did about 190 miles in dirt.
got home 2:30 tuesday morning and had to go to work.
good run. good people.
carlos is an excellent trail leader.
let's do it again.
richard
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RobRed
Explorer
Forester? You missed a few trails
Glad to meet you and the crew. Let us know when the next run is.
SoCalMonty
Explorer
Forester? You missed a few trails
Glad to meet you and the crew. Let us know when the next run is.
I don't think so...there was one section up the second half of Echo Pass where I needed 4WD for about 20 feet.
The rest of the entire trip was 2WD.
The Toyota 80/100 group that was afraid to go up Echo Pass (they stayed at Inyo Mine) missed some great trails!
off-roader
Expedition Leader
Good fun by most all (except me on the last day). 64GB of raw video to sift through along with lots of pics which I'll post up as time permits.
Day 1 I missed where Carlos said to meet at Trona Pinnacles since I based my info on what was shown on the maps he put up. Had no clue where the pinnacles where anyways even if I did remember he mentioned them. So day 1 we (my HS buddy who flew out from Las Vegas to San Jose for the trip) drove in from the Bay Area arrived just after 2:00 am. After searching for Carlos for a couple of hours, we simply stopped where we were by the original meeting spot and slept in the front seats of my rig since there were no smooth campground spots there to set up a tent. Carlos arrived later that morning with the rest of the crew though.
First day on the trail I had a bit of a miscombluberation when i took the wrong line on what should have been an easy turn up hill on a trail switchback. My rig was teeter tottering back and forth so i quickly told my friend not to move lest he throw open the door and the weight shift be enough to roll us over. Once the rig settled down, I told him he could jump out and he was out quicker than lightning & happy to be out of there.
I called up to have someone come back down the trail so I could winch off of them. Carlos drove down and I used his bumper to winch off of and get back on solid footing. I have video of the winch out which I'll post up later.
After finding camp later that night in the valley a mile or so from the bottom of the mountain range below the Pass (?) we stayed up late chatting around the camp fire. During the night we saw lights from a rig as it came down from the pass. It was moving extremely slowly and it was only much later that we surmised it must have been damaged and limping out of the pass. Not sure what happened but it was literally moving at less than 5 mph.
The trails the following day were incident free but on the 3rd day when I left a couple of minutes behind. Once I was ready to go, I drove off quick to catch up with them not realizing he had taken a certain turn off the trail I drove right past it doing 35-55 mph off road. About a mile or so later I hit a rock on the rear passenger tire which blew out a 2" square patch of sidewall & an additional 6" gash to the tire tread.
By the time I was almost done changing tires, 2 other vehicles going in the other direction had stopped by so i asked them to notify Tyson and the 2nd half of our group of my predicament so they would know where I was so I would be stuck doing DV alone.
Tyson and the group finally arrived as I was finishing up putting the spare on. Not knowing where exactly Carlos and his group was (didn't know if they waited or not), I elected to continue on with Tyson's group to do the easier trail over to the hot springs. We got there without incident (albeit via a long slow bumpy road).
Tyson left that evening since his son had a project to finish for school and his wife had to work the next day. The following day I drove out with 3 other rigs and on the way out, my engine suddenly developed a loud terminal knock (rod knock?)... It still starts and so Juan strapped me all the way to the trailhead where AAA could pick me up. Unfortunately Verizon had no signal there but luckily ATT did. I made a call to AAA and they told me they would have a tow truck there in 2-3 hours. At this point I told the guys to go ahead while I waited for the tow truck. It eventually arrived just before sunset and rather than have them tow me all the way home, I stayed under my 200mile limit (AAA Premier membership) and had them tow me 3+ hours into Bakersfield. In the mean time I rang up my friend Michael (aka Grasscat) who was kind enough to get out of his warm and comfy bed to hook up his trailer and drive the 4 hours from Livermore to Bakersfield to meet us there so he could tow me home.
When he got there we discovered his trailer was a 2 wheel kind so we first drove my rig onto the trailer then undid my rear driveshaft. We also discovered his trailer straps were just a tad too short to reach around my 35's but I discovered we could just barely fit them if I completely aired down my tires which I did. Then once strapped in, I aired them back up just enough to apply tension to the straps so they weren't too loose.
By that point it was already 2:00am when we got back on the road. After a long grueling drive, we reached my place at 7:00 which was just early enough that my friend Eric could catch the train back to catch his flight home that morning. I stayed home and slept yesterday rather than sleep at work. So currently I'm w/out a rig but luckily I have friends who I commute to work with who can give me a ride to and from the train station while I swap in a 2nd motor I recently purchased from Carlos.
We hope to begin the swap process this weekend as I'm sure I can't rely on these rides to and from the train station for too long.
Day 1 I missed where Carlos said to meet at Trona Pinnacles since I based my info on what was shown on the maps he put up. Had no clue where the pinnacles where anyways even if I did remember he mentioned them. So day 1 we (my HS buddy who flew out from Las Vegas to San Jose for the trip) drove in from the Bay Area arrived just after 2:00 am. After searching for Carlos for a couple of hours, we simply stopped where we were by the original meeting spot and slept in the front seats of my rig since there were no smooth campground spots there to set up a tent. Carlos arrived later that morning with the rest of the crew though.
First day on the trail I had a bit of a miscombluberation when i took the wrong line on what should have been an easy turn up hill on a trail switchback. My rig was teeter tottering back and forth so i quickly told my friend not to move lest he throw open the door and the weight shift be enough to roll us over. Once the rig settled down, I told him he could jump out and he was out quicker than lightning & happy to be out of there.
I called up to have someone come back down the trail so I could winch off of them. Carlos drove down and I used his bumper to winch off of and get back on solid footing. I have video of the winch out which I'll post up later.
After finding camp later that night in the valley a mile or so from the bottom of the mountain range below the Pass (?) we stayed up late chatting around the camp fire. During the night we saw lights from a rig as it came down from the pass. It was moving extremely slowly and it was only much later that we surmised it must have been damaged and limping out of the pass. Not sure what happened but it was literally moving at less than 5 mph.
The trails the following day were incident free but on the 3rd day when I left a couple of minutes behind. Once I was ready to go, I drove off quick to catch up with them not realizing he had taken a certain turn off the trail I drove right past it doing 35-55 mph off road. About a mile or so later I hit a rock on the rear passenger tire which blew out a 2" square patch of sidewall & an additional 6" gash to the tire tread.
By the time I was almost done changing tires, 2 other vehicles going in the other direction had stopped by so i asked them to notify Tyson and the 2nd half of our group of my predicament so they would know where I was so I would be stuck doing DV alone.
Tyson and the group finally arrived as I was finishing up putting the spare on. Not knowing where exactly Carlos and his group was (didn't know if they waited or not), I elected to continue on with Tyson's group to do the easier trail over to the hot springs. We got there without incident (albeit via a long slow bumpy road).
Tyson left that evening since his son had a project to finish for school and his wife had to work the next day. The following day I drove out with 3 other rigs and on the way out, my engine suddenly developed a loud terminal knock (rod knock?)... It still starts and so Juan strapped me all the way to the trailhead where AAA could pick me up. Unfortunately Verizon had no signal there but luckily ATT did. I made a call to AAA and they told me they would have a tow truck there in 2-3 hours. At this point I told the guys to go ahead while I waited for the tow truck. It eventually arrived just before sunset and rather than have them tow me all the way home, I stayed under my 200mile limit (AAA Premier membership) and had them tow me 3+ hours into Bakersfield. In the mean time I rang up my friend Michael (aka Grasscat) who was kind enough to get out of his warm and comfy bed to hook up his trailer and drive the 4 hours from Livermore to Bakersfield to meet us there so he could tow me home.
When he got there we discovered his trailer was a 2 wheel kind so we first drove my rig onto the trailer then undid my rear driveshaft. We also discovered his trailer straps were just a tad too short to reach around my 35's but I discovered we could just barely fit them if I completely aired down my tires which I did. Then once strapped in, I aired them back up just enough to apply tension to the straps so they weren't too loose.
By that point it was already 2:00am when we got back on the road. After a long grueling drive, we reached my place at 7:00 which was just early enough that my friend Eric could catch the train back to catch his flight home that morning. I stayed home and slept yesterday rather than sleep at work. So currently I'm w/out a rig but luckily I have friends who I commute to work with who can give me a ride to and from the train station while I swap in a 2nd motor I recently purchased from Carlos.
We hope to begin the swap process this weekend as I'm sure I can't rely on these rides to and from the train station for too long.
Sorry to hear about the engine/tire problems you had Ray... we'll take care of that engine in no time! :ylsmoke:
NOW, in regard to not knowing where we were supposed to meet Thursday night, I don't know how you got it wrong? even my first post was updated as of 2/10/14 at 8:45pm and I was very clear (in red) that camping for Thursday night was changed to the pinnacles and I provided the GPS coordinates. :Wow1:
In fact on te 10th you even posted that you were arriving at trona at midnight Thursday! :Wow1:
The old man is the best! :iagree:
This was definitely a learning experience with dealing with a large "unknown" crew (for the most part) and will definitely make changes to the "rules" in future runs if a group ever gets as big as this one did.
There were a few things that I was not ok with (to say the least) but I understand we are all humans!
Hope the next one gets even better! :sombrero:
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