Hello! I am fairly new here. I actually ended up buying my rig from the classifieds of this forum and looked at @turbodb's excellently documented trips to provide guidance in planning my trip. Follow along on instagram at @SearchSeekExplore
Death Valley Trip:
For Christmas, my family lives in the UK and with my dog it’s not really practical to fly anywhere. I wanted to get out of the city, every city I have ever lived in turns into a sort of ghost town over the holidays and it feels like it loses some of its energy which makes it special.
Death Valley had come up in conversations with friends and I’d never been there before. The weather looked decent, dealing with averages, and I got to planning. Using Google Earth I plotted my route, allowing for plenty of time as I went around.
With the plan down I decided to do a couple of small upgrades to my rig. I wanted to have a tablet which I could use for APRS, as well as loading on the data created in google earth to get GPS-like functionality. I could also use this as a general media device for things like Netflix or Kindle books. The previous owner already had spots for the RAM mounts - so it was an easy addition and with the pre-installed ham radio I was quickly up and using APRSDroid to broadcast my location/send messages.
I wanted add to for self recovery gear, I was doing this trip solo which was far from ideal if something went wrong, but it being Christmas week I was unsuccessful in roping people along. I bought two maxtrax and a “crazy beaver” shovel. I also added a “MountainHatch” to my trucks tailgate, this would make it easier to cook/prep meals if I did not have a dedicated table/campground.
Last, I found a beta for Gaia GPS floating around for iOS. This added CarPlay support which my truck has. I made sure to download this on my iPhone, which would provide to be an awesome addition to the trip!
Day One
I got a late start, I wasn’t feeling well the night before, and originally had planned to leave at about 5am. When 5am rolled around I felt like crap - I went back to bed until about 9am and felt a lot better. By the time I was good to go, packing more gear than I probably needed, it was 11am but I was determined to make a move on. I’m not going to claim the most precise of packing skills - I wanted to get on the road.
Due to the late start, there was a lot of traffic. I got stuck in over an hour and a half of bumper to bumper traffic and it rained nearly the whole way. By the time I got to Bakersfield it was dark and I still had another approximately four and a half hours to go. I decided to check for hotels and got a pet friendly place for my dog and I for the night in Ridgecrest, about two an a half hours from furnace creek visitor center - rain was forecasted in Death Valley for Monday. I decided to set up a basecamp and lay low for Monday to see how the conditions would alter the trails I had been researching and getting reports from others about.
Day Two
I was up pretty early - it was raining so I wanted to wait for the light to hit the road in case of flooding or snow. There was a huge Walmart in Ridgecrest and I headed there for a few things I had forgotten or still needed. We headed out around 9.
Quickly going over a small pass I go a taste of the desert environment that would become very familiar in the coming days.
Before long I was at the entrance of the park.
This is not the Death Valley I was expecting…
Next, we had to go over the Towne pass to enter Death Valley. This pass is at about 4900 feet and it had started raining at the base. Unexpectedly it was snowing on the pass.
I am not sure how often the pass is snowy like this, but it sure had me by surprise! Nevertheless, we kept going to Furnace Creek Campground where I had planned on spending the night.
An hour or so later, I was there! This campground is one of the few reservation campgrounds in the park - and I didn’t have one. I asked the ranger if there was any available and he said there was some walk up ones but recommended Texas Springs campground - a first come first serve campground across the way. I am glad I took that advise - the whole campground was no generators, and had a lower and upper section. The lower section I stayed in was tent sites only which kept it pretty quiet and it had some bushes which allowed for some privacy vs some of the parking-lot type campgrounds I had passed. Not bad views either! I was all set up by probably 1pm. It maybe was a less overland feel than others want - but being alone it wasn’t a bad spot to me.
As I knew I only had light until about 4:30, with more rain coming, I decided to just go down some of the backcountry roads - get a feel for their condition and most importantly get some exercise for the dog. We went down West Side Road which we would quickly return to the following day. Man it was washboardy, I aired down just to save my spine! The first mile or so was pretty crowded due to there being a few pull off areas and salt which gave an effect almost like snow as well as beautiful mountain views. I explored for probably 45 minutes, turned around and found a pull of area to walk the dog along the road.
Dogs are generally not allowed on trails in Death Valley - but they area allowed along the backcountry roads so I used these a lot to get the dog some exercise a lot during the trip.
Heading back to camp, it was raining, I had brats during a quick pause in the rain and read inside the tent (My tent is huge but it really worked well on this trip, I spent a lot of time inside due to spotty weather).
Jersey, my dog, quickly got comfy and we settled in the for night.
Death Valley Trip:
For Christmas, my family lives in the UK and with my dog it’s not really practical to fly anywhere. I wanted to get out of the city, every city I have ever lived in turns into a sort of ghost town over the holidays and it feels like it loses some of its energy which makes it special.
Death Valley had come up in conversations with friends and I’d never been there before. The weather looked decent, dealing with averages, and I got to planning. Using Google Earth I plotted my route, allowing for plenty of time as I went around.
With the plan down I decided to do a couple of small upgrades to my rig. I wanted to have a tablet which I could use for APRS, as well as loading on the data created in google earth to get GPS-like functionality. I could also use this as a general media device for things like Netflix or Kindle books. The previous owner already had spots for the RAM mounts - so it was an easy addition and with the pre-installed ham radio I was quickly up and using APRSDroid to broadcast my location/send messages.
I wanted add to for self recovery gear, I was doing this trip solo which was far from ideal if something went wrong, but it being Christmas week I was unsuccessful in roping people along. I bought two maxtrax and a “crazy beaver” shovel. I also added a “MountainHatch” to my trucks tailgate, this would make it easier to cook/prep meals if I did not have a dedicated table/campground.
Last, I found a beta for Gaia GPS floating around for iOS. This added CarPlay support which my truck has. I made sure to download this on my iPhone, which would provide to be an awesome addition to the trip!
Day One
I got a late start, I wasn’t feeling well the night before, and originally had planned to leave at about 5am. When 5am rolled around I felt like crap - I went back to bed until about 9am and felt a lot better. By the time I was good to go, packing more gear than I probably needed, it was 11am but I was determined to make a move on. I’m not going to claim the most precise of packing skills - I wanted to get on the road.
Due to the late start, there was a lot of traffic. I got stuck in over an hour and a half of bumper to bumper traffic and it rained nearly the whole way. By the time I got to Bakersfield it was dark and I still had another approximately four and a half hours to go. I decided to check for hotels and got a pet friendly place for my dog and I for the night in Ridgecrest, about two an a half hours from furnace creek visitor center - rain was forecasted in Death Valley for Monday. I decided to set up a basecamp and lay low for Monday to see how the conditions would alter the trails I had been researching and getting reports from others about.
Day Two
I was up pretty early - it was raining so I wanted to wait for the light to hit the road in case of flooding or snow. There was a huge Walmart in Ridgecrest and I headed there for a few things I had forgotten or still needed. We headed out around 9.
Quickly going over a small pass I go a taste of the desert environment that would become very familiar in the coming days.
Before long I was at the entrance of the park.
This is not the Death Valley I was expecting…
Next, we had to go over the Towne pass to enter Death Valley. This pass is at about 4900 feet and it had started raining at the base. Unexpectedly it was snowing on the pass.
I am not sure how often the pass is snowy like this, but it sure had me by surprise! Nevertheless, we kept going to Furnace Creek Campground where I had planned on spending the night.
An hour or so later, I was there! This campground is one of the few reservation campgrounds in the park - and I didn’t have one. I asked the ranger if there was any available and he said there was some walk up ones but recommended Texas Springs campground - a first come first serve campground across the way. I am glad I took that advise - the whole campground was no generators, and had a lower and upper section. The lower section I stayed in was tent sites only which kept it pretty quiet and it had some bushes which allowed for some privacy vs some of the parking-lot type campgrounds I had passed. Not bad views either! I was all set up by probably 1pm. It maybe was a less overland feel than others want - but being alone it wasn’t a bad spot to me.
As I knew I only had light until about 4:30, with more rain coming, I decided to just go down some of the backcountry roads - get a feel for their condition and most importantly get some exercise for the dog. We went down West Side Road which we would quickly return to the following day. Man it was washboardy, I aired down just to save my spine! The first mile or so was pretty crowded due to there being a few pull off areas and salt which gave an effect almost like snow as well as beautiful mountain views. I explored for probably 45 minutes, turned around and found a pull of area to walk the dog along the road.
Dogs are generally not allowed on trails in Death Valley - but they area allowed along the backcountry roads so I used these a lot to get the dog some exercise a lot during the trip.
Heading back to camp, it was raining, I had brats during a quick pause in the rain and read inside the tent (My tent is huge but it really worked well on this trip, I spent a lot of time inside due to spotty weather).
Jersey, my dog, quickly got comfy and we settled in the for night.
