Terry's 9th Annual Death Valley Trip

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Death Valley:

• Trail Rating: 4WD Easy to Moderate
• Driver's of all experience
• 4.5 miles, avg. time 4 hours
• Good Weekend Trip Rock Crawling/Sightseeing
• Desert Scenery

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Story and Photographs by: Tim Stucky - March, 2002.

The Death Valley Landscape

The desert sunset (Ridgecrest, CA)

For the ninth consecutive year, Terry's Annual Death Valley Trip was held February 15-18 to explore the trails and history in and around Death Valley. The trip was open to four wheelers of all types, which included numerous Toyota trucks, 4runners, Jeeps, and a number of Mitsubishi Montero's. Joined by my parents, I left Southern California Friday afternoon and headed for Ridgecrest, where we would spend the night in a local hotel. We stopped by the Tin Benders shop in Ridgecrest as they were having an open house and getting ready for a run the following day. Many members of Terry's group were there as well as the Tin Bender crew. After a half hour of pouring over the Bender's shop and trucks, we continued on to check into the hotel. After checking into the hotel and relaxing for a bit we talked trucks over a nice meal at a local restaurant and went to bed early in preparing for the following day's activities.

Gathered and ready to roll!

Saturday morning following a short drivers meeting, the troops were assembled and ready for battle! By 8 a.m. we were enroute to Ballarat, which would be the launching point for upcoming trails. Ballarat is now a ghost town that dates back to the mid 1890's when gold was discovered in the surrounding Panamint Mountains and the town served as a recreation and supply center for area miners. Today only a few ruins and a small store remain. Maps, souvenirs, and limited supplies are available at the general store, but unfortunately the store was closed. We then aired down to make the washboard road more tolerable and waited to hit the trail.

The Ballarat general store

Ben Lee heading up Jail Canyon

Shane Hook's suspension at work in Jail Canyon

After spending a while exploring Ballarat, we continued through Panamint Valley toward Jail Canyon. It takes off from Indian Ranch Road, which is a dirt road that leads to Ballarat and Surprise Canyon. Jail Canyon travels east towards Death Valley National Park, climbing easily the entire way. It is a very scenic trail winding up the canyon and ends at an old mining operation. There are several shafts in the surrounding area, remains of what appears to be an old stamp mill, and even a short mining railroad for ore carts. There is also a natural spring accessible by foot slightly further up the canyon from the mining operation. We stopped at the top to have lunch, enjoy the panoramic view of Panamint Valley and explore an old mining operation.

Getting 30+ vehicles turned around at the top of the canyon was quite a sight to see, nonetheless, we headed back down to Panamint Valley and set out for the Charcoal Kilns. Built in 1877, these immense structures look like remnants of an ancient civilization. The beehive-shaped kilns were built to produce charcoal from the surrounding pinon pine forest for the Modoc Mine smelter, 25 miles to the west across Panamint Valley. After checking out the kilns for a while, we drove back out to the highway and turned towards our destination for the night, Beatty NV.

We awoke Sunday morning to a typical cold, windy, desert winter day, waited for the group to gather and headed out to nearby Rhyolite. The town (now uninhabated) enjoyed several prosperous years when gold was discovered in 1904 in the nearby Bullfrog Hills. By 1907 the town even had electricity and at its peak, nearly 6000 people lived in the modern (by the standards of the time) community. A stock exchange, hotels, an opera house, and churches and saloons were built. There are many peculiar sights in Rhyolite including a house made out of beer and liquor bottles and ghostly figures created by a Belgian artist stand guard over the ruins of this once thriving town. After a thorough exploration of Rhyolite, the group headed back into Death Valley National Park enroute to Cottonwood Canyon.

The old bank	Artwork	More interesting artwork	One artist's depiction of the last supper

Located near Stovepipe Wells, Cottonwood Canyon trail leads all the way up to the canyon and ends below the spring. Here, many group members took advantage of the windy yet relatively smooth dirt road and pretended to be in the Baja 1000 while others more interested in rockcrawling took some optional lines in the canyon, giving their suspension a workout.

Oops!

Marco Beckwith in Cottonwood Canyon

After a rather uneventful ride to the top, we enjoyed lunch below the natural spring while swapping stories of the trail. As we were heading back down the canyon towards Death Valley, a jeep driver accidently hit a bank of sand caused by water erosion on the side of the wash and damaged 3 of the rims and 2 swampers. Ouch! He put on his spare tire and rim on and plugged another tire in order to get back on the pavement. By the time the group arrived back at Stovepipe Wells, it was late in the afternoon and everyone was beginning to air up and prepare for the drive out. Many drove home while others headed for Lone Pine, Beatty or Ridgecrest. I opted for Ridgecrest and by 7:30 Sunday night was settled into a warm hotel room watching the Olympics!

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