Death Valley: Day 3, Part 1

The weather last night was perfect for camping - calm, clear, and cool.  Death Valley National Park is famous for Badwater Basin, hundreds of feet below sea level, but I had spent the night at almost 4,000 ft.  The plan for the day was to go up and over Hunter Mountain (over 7,000 ft.) then down to Badwater - and get out of the park before noon, when things would really start to heat up.

To that end, I had the tent taken down and everything packed away well before sunrise.  The seven rough miles back to Teakettle Junction were even more difficult to negotiate in the inky blackness, but I just took it extra slow.  These are the times those $300 auxiliary lights in the catalogue would come in handy.

At Teakettle I hung a right - the straight path is where I had come from the evening before.  The sign says 27 miles to Hunter Mountain, but I knew the dirt road extended far beyond that, down the other side, before finally joining the pavement in Saline Valley.  How much farther, the map did not say.

When it finally got light enough for a non-flash picture, I found myself in some rolling hills on a high plateau, dotted with Joshua trees.  The most difficult part of the road in the dark had been the deep sand and dust washes, that were hard to spot until I was in them.  My street oriented rear tire did me no good there, but I was still able to make it through.

This part of the trail was great fun, as there was plenty of light now, and the surface was fairly solid and smooth!  I had gone over a rounded hilltop, which I took to be Hunter Mountain, taken a left at an unmarked junction, and was soon descending toward the valley far below.  I'd be on the pavement soon and headed for breakfast!

And then, the road ended abruptly at the remains of a miner's shack!

I had passed the mine a bit before, and there was even a rusty old 1930's truck in the sage brush.  Evidently this was a popular destination - more popular in fact than the through-road I was looking for.  My rule of thumb had failed me.  Nine times out of ten, the most well traveled fork is the one that goes through to the pavement.  The other(s) are dead end spurs.  This was one of those tenth times.

The sun came up as I backtracked the 2 or 3 miles to the last junction and hung a left.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized the error in my thinking.  I reread the trail description.  It stated that Hunter Mountain was covered with trees.  I had not seen any trees since the day before.  Evidently, I still had to climb Hunter Mountain before heading down to the valley.

Sure enough, before long the road began to ascend some steep switchbacks.

And then I passed the first of many stubby pine trees.  This one, in fact, reached out and put some scratches in my right pannier.  That wasn't nice.  But I was feeling good - much more confident that I was on the right track.

The top of the mountain was rocky and narrow - the most technical section I've had the big KTM on to date.  The map showed a few miles of 4 wheel drive road as opposed to just 'high clearance.'  That must have been it.  I was concentrating too hard to stop and get a photo, evidently.  The section shown above was where the road smoothed out again.

And then - another unmarked junction.  I'd been expecting a major one down in the wide valley, but not way up here.  I finally had to face the facts.  I should have brought a better map.

I climbed one of the hills to get a better idea of which direction each of the roads was trending...

...and consulted my handy dandy compass.  The right fork was heading northwest, more or less, and the left one, southwest.  That matched a point labeled 'South Pass' on my rather poor map, and if indeed, that is where I was, the left fork is the one I wanted.  Again, that was not the one that seemed to be more traveled.  A correctly used compass does not lie, however (unless you're standing too close to your bike, or to iron-bearing rocks - a definite possibility here).  I took the left, regardless, and hoped for the best.

Eureka!  Before long, I was down on the wide, flat valley floor, making up for some lost time!

The road had been a bit of a stretch for my sport touring tire, but she'd gotten me up and over, with only a couple of unplanned, extra exciting moments.

Looks good from every angle, don't you think?  I'm probably starting to lose some of my less moto-focused readers at this point, but this post is only a few more pictures long.  You've almost made it!

I finally reached the pavement - about 15 miles and an hour and a half later than I'd anticipated.  With all the potholes, it turned out to be rougher than the gravel.  And only lasted a couple of miles before reverting back to crushed rock.

By the time I reached the real paved highway, the sun was beating down pretty good and the temp was climbing.

I looked back and took this photo of all the warning signs for the road I'd just come over.  The yellow one in the background says, "Caution Severe Washouts."

Hanging a left on highway 190 took me down some amazing switchbacks to the Panamint Springs campground, restaurant, and gas station.  Fearing to spend too much time there, I skipped breakfast and sipped down a large ice-filled glass of Pepsi instead.  It was already 90 degrees and I still had about 75 miles to go to Badwater Basin.  Should have left earlier.

Death Valley: Day 2, Part 2

After being denied access to Scotty's Castle, I headed for the end of the pavement at Ubehebe Crater, pronounced 'YOO-bee-Hee-bee.'  The wind here was incredibly strong.  I took my glasses off for this photo because I was afraid they would blow off into the crater if I didn't.

Perhaps as recently as 800 years ago, magma flowing near the surface super-heated the groundwater, causing a steam explosion that resulted in this half-mile wide by 700-foot deep hole.  There's a walking trail that circles the rim, but the sun was already sinking low, and I still had 30 miles of rough road between here and my campsite.

I'd been hoping that the washboards would be better on this road than the last - they were worse!  At least I wasn't heading directly into the sun this time.

It was also beginning to cool down, which was very nice, indeed!

And the slow speed required by the extreme washboarded surface made it easier to stop for photos, like this one of a Joshua tree forest under the nearly full moon.

Forward progress was very slow, however, and I started to wonder if I would make it to the Racetrack Playa before dark.

Six miles before the playa (dry lake bed) there is a fork in the road, where it is customary for travelers to hang teakettles with messages on or inside them.  I've seen pictures of this sign in motorcycle and 4 x 4 magazines since I was a kid, and in my mind, it has always symbolized exotic adventure travel.  For me, making it to Teakettle Junction was more of an accomplishment than the famous playa, six miles beyond, or even than Death Valley itself.

It was very appropriate that the 21-mile road from the pavement was so grueling.  Despite all our modern advancements, Teakettle Junction remains a fairly difficult place to access.

A quick internet search revealed very little about the how, why, or when of Teakettle Junction - and that's a good thing - just adds to the mystique and appeal. 

Mountain climbers have the 'Seven Summits' and adventure travelers have places like Teakettle Junction, Ushuaia's 'Fin del Mundo' sign, and the Arctic Circle sign on Alaska's Dalton Highway.  More on that last one later this summer - if all goes well.

The last 6 miles to the playa was even worse than the previous 21 - yes, that is possible.  After being all alone since leaving the pavement hours ago, I did a U-turn in the playa parking lot and found myself nose to nose with this guy in his little rental car!  From what I hear and what I've seen, Western Europe is pretty much completely paved now.  The people there may not even know about high-clearance vehicles, so he may not have been aware that that was an option at the rental counter.  They do know about off-road motorcycles, however, and my KTM, in fact, was designed and manufactured there.  So when I asked my fellow adventurer that day where he was from and he answered, "Austria."  I immediately asked if I could take his picture in front of my Austrian motorcycle!

Would love to have seen the underside of that car, when he finally made it back to the pavement that night!

The Racetrack Playa is a mysterious place where rocks seem to travel across the lake bed with no discernible means of propulsion.  At first glance, I didn't see any of the traveling stones I had read about in my geology texts in college.

The little pebbles on the surface at my feet were far too small.  They could easily be blown about by the wind.  No mystery there.

There were some larger stones farther out, so I began to make my way across the dry lake.

This was the best example I could find.  Though I admit, I didn't walk all the way to the other side, where there appeared to be more.  The ones in the text books have obvious trails leading directly to the rock and stopping there, as though someone had pushed the massive stone through the mud to its new resting place.  This one seems to have a trail that passes all the way under the rock.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I discovered an entirely new phenomenon and should write something up for a scientific journal!

But it was getting dark, and I still had a couple miles to go to get to the supposed 'undeveloped' campground where I would stop for the night.

And here it is!  End of the trail.  The tiny structure across the road (just above my helmet and to the left) is the port-a-potty - the only development save for the few graded-out parking spots and rock campfire rings.

I took a few shots of my spot before unloading and setting up the tent.  There was one other couple across the road and behind me a bit, in an old Toyota pick-up.  They'd been here for a week, but while amiable enough, were still not very chatty.  All was very quiet that night.

And the moon, and later the stars, were beyond adequate description.

Death Valley: Day 2, Part 1

As the sun came up on the second day, I crept out of the campground and into town.  Yep, this is Milford.  Milford's only claim to fame appears to be the fact that it is only 61 miles from Reno.

It's even less to the Nevada state line.  Those of you who are more astute may recognize that I appear to be leaving,rather than entering Nevada.  That is because the bike, laden with all my touring gear, does not rest very reassuringly on its side stand when there is a pronounced upward slope to the pavement, right to left.  For that reason, I have done a temporary u-turn, so that I can park with the slope rising left to right (as one is seated on the bike).  This is very important to remember - for the rider, more so than the reader.  I learned it the hard way a few years back, while on a trip to South Dakota on the KLR.  Anyway, rest assured.  I am, in fact, entering Nevada.

For the entire day before, I had debated whether to go to Death Valley via the Nevada side or the California side.  The more I thought about it, the more complicated and multi-faceted the problem became.  Reno was the branch point.  South of there, there are no easy ways to switch sides.  Somehow, I had to decide.  I spent half an hour, standing by the bike, staring at my map spread out on the seat.  More than one person, thinking I was lost, offered help with directions.  In the end, it came down to the morning chill in the air, which had sunk down a bit into my bones as well.  At that point, a ride through the desert sounded much better than a ride over frigid Sierra Nevada mountain passes.  I decided to save that route for the ride back, even though it would mean quite a bit of back-tracking in the park.

By the time I reached Walker Lake, above, I was feeling very good about my choice.  The weather was perfect, and the warmth radiated through me like I was wrapped in an electric blanket.  Nice.

By the time I passed Tonopah, 130 miles later, and pulled up alongside these Joshua Trees, the warmth was baking me like a Thanksgiving turkey.

I gassed up at Beatty, including an extra gallon in my reserve can.  I knew it would be a long time before I passed another service station.  Just before entering the park, I took a short side road into Rhyolite, NV.  No cold drinks at the store today.

No cash at the bank, either.

I entered the park along the Titus Canyon Road, in the center of its east side.  By the time I reached the boundary sign, only a few miles from the pavement, I had already stopped to wrap another strap around the gas can, which had almost shook off its rack, due to the extreme washboarded surface of the road.

A bit farther and I noticed that my add-on wind screen was only held on by two of the four bolts it had started the trip with.  The bolts were no where to be found, so I removed the screen entirely and strapped it to the top of my tent, which became its spot for the next 1300 miles.  This was the worst washboard road I had ever attempted on any motorcycle.  The pictures don't do it justice.  Mile after mile after mile - fast, slow, left side, right site, middle - didn't matter.  I'd let some air out of my tires, which helps with off-road traction, but didn't seem to do much for the washboards.  There was plenty of daylight left, however - too much, in fact, as the sun was shining right in my face and temps were in the high 80s.  Whose idea was this anyway?

When I finally reached the mountains and the road began to climb, the surface became more packed and smooth.  Ahhh.  Much better!

The switchbacks even gave me momentary relief from the blazing sun - and awesome views!  Life was good again.

One last pause, just short of the pass.

Then a new world opened up below me, to the west.

I was surprised how well my street-oriented tire had done on the steep grade coming up.  I just might make it after all.  Knobbies are for sissies!

The front tire was only marginally better, having gone to Florida and back the previous year.  You certainly wouldn't want to go too fast out here with these tires, but I was more enthralled with the scenery, and just the fact that I had finally made it to Death Valley after dreaming about it since I was a kid. 

Down from the pass, I entered the canyon from which the road got its name.  It began innocently enough.  This bit of shade was a welcome relief.

Just above the tightest part of Titus Canyon, this pullout makes a good place for photos.  For some reason, I like the effect I got from digitally taking all but a hint of color out of this shot.

There we go - back to brilliant orange.  Am thinking of painting the house that color.

Down deep in the narrows, it looks a bit like some roads in Utah - but the rocks are much different in color and texture.

When you come out of the canyon, you have to descend a steep debris fan of loose gravel.  It was the trickiest part of the road.  Once back on pavement, I stopped to pour my extra gas into the tank.  Out of nowhere, a lone car stopped to ask if I needed any assistance.  Not this time, but it's nice to be asked.

Somewhere in the distance, up this long steady grade, is the famous Scotty's Castle.  A cold beverage was sounding real good by this time - especially on the shaded terrace of an expansive, ornate, Spanish-style mansion!

Not this time.  The parking lot had just closed.  So close!  I did get some good information on the campground I was headed for, however - and an offer of extra water if I needed it.  Everyone here seems to think I'm in trouble.  I still had almost 24 ounces in my tank bag, and a gallon in my saddle bags, so I told him I was good.  It wasn't cold, though.

I turned and rode back out into the desert.  Maybe should have asked him for food.  Forgot about that.