Death Valley 2022/23

[Kauri]

I think Candace66 spotted this (or something similar) in that Salt Creek area many years ago and posted on the old forums, and may or may not have gotten an answer. If we're lucky she'll spot this post and chime in if she knows anything about this... but it also looks like unfortunately she hasn't been on the forums for a while. Any other "old timers" here remember that discussion?

[DAW89446]

Here’s a bit of a mystery.  I’m fully stumped and would love any insight.  Since everything around there is Devil themed I dubbed it Devils Sack.  

This location is near McLean Spring/Salt Creek area.  I spotted it on satellite a couple of years ago and wanted to check it out.  It’s along an old road grade through and empty part of the desert west of 190.  

I found the old road and "Devil's Sack" on Google Maps. I traced the old road north to CA190, which then became the road that is now closed to access Original Stovepipe Well and south to a point where it disappeared shortly before reaching the Salt Creek road. I also found a branch road that ran northeast from a point south of CA190 and went north a ways before it disappeared shortly before it reached CA190 after it makes its curve southerly. I'm thinking these might be part of the early road network graded either by Eichbaum interests or the Park Service after Death Valley became a monument in 1933. I have a hunch that the road northeast might have been an early access to Beatty and built in the same time period. The portion in your photo looks to be pretty well preserved.

[Kauri]

Awesome, thanks for the historical info DAW!
I'm really enjoying these discussions, especially since I had plans to get to DV this December which unfortunately were thwarted yet again due to work and a few other things.

[MojaveGeek]

That's the old road that goes straight from the spring NE to 190 if I'm not mistaken, going by a couple of mesquite thickets. I don't recall seeing the Devil Stick there but it's been at least 15 years since I was out there. There is a more interesting, but harder to follow, road, that also follows the Salt Creek wash SW from 190 on the west side of the creek. There's one bridge over Salt Creek but then you have to take care a bit for the rest of the crossing. I have read that there was an old store / trading post place out there near the creek, but I saw no evidence of it.

[Beardilocks]

Awesome! Thanks for all the history everyone. I’d love to see some photos of that area when it was in use. But it’s rather likely that none exist anymore. Sort of the B-roll from anyones trip to DV in the 30s. Thrown out or lost in a great great grandchild’s attic.

It was odd seeing the road grade so clearly but no tire tracks. Obviously time has filled them in as it will the grade eventually as well. But it had the feeling of something prepared and then abandoned before use. I have some plans to hike more of the old road networks in the main valley there. Both here (SaltCreek/Stovepipe) and Blackwater Wash/Trail Canyon/old extension of West Side Rd. I’ve hiked a few parts of it up at the north end of the Cottonwoods. Always fascinating.

More updates coming later today I hope.

[Beardilocks]

A couple of days after Xmas I cruised up to Lemoigne Canyon.  I’d been down the road before but I had never hiked up to the old cabin/mine.  

It was a very cloudy/moody day with just enough wind to turn sweat into chills if you stopped moving for more than a minute.  The atmosphere fit the canyon very well.  










I was surprised to see the bright red kazoo in the wash, the splash of color was very unexpected.  I left it there for the next person to enjoy or more likely to set up in a nearby rock as everyone seems to like to do.  Or for a musically inclined kangaroo rat.  




Lemoigne’s old cabin.  Still (mostly) standing.  Aesthetics are a bit ruined by the very bright more modern cabin behind me in the shot.  But not a bad place to live and work out here.  

I’m generally not a big fan of modern cabins and/or graffiti.  But on the walls of this cabin is a really amazing history and record.  Most of the notes (it’s not entirely without bad poems, dirty words, and the typical silliness) is a detailed record of visitors.  Most interesting to me, the years of about 1972-1994.  The years between the last mining attempts here and the closure of the road after the monument became a National park and this area was designated “wilderness”.  Almost everyone gave a date, the make/model of car they used, the weather, and road conditions.  Fascinating to me see someone coming up in 1977 in a 1972 Land Rover but they had to hike the last few miles because there was 5” of snow (and they complained at length about 2wd cars ruining the road!  Lol).  Or the notation that someone made it up in a Trans Am, only to have the tantalizingly vague notation from another in the group saying “he cheated!!!”   The last inscriptions in the period included a 1992 Jeep Cherokee in 1994 staying the vehicle was in completely stock configuration and although he made it, he’d damaged it on the rough road and was planning bigger tires and a skid plate.  

All of this was highlighted by how impossible the drive would be today in anything other than dedicated rock crawling rig.  The old road is in amazingly perfect shape in fits and spurts, including some tire impressions in the gravel wash that look like someone came through last week!   But any sections in the narrows and where the dryfalls were filled in have been completely reclaimed by nature.  The contrast in the parts of the road, those that looked recently used and other sections where I couldn’t fathom a route, was highlighted nicely by the those recorded on the cabin walls in such detail.  

Shot of the valley looking stunning on my way out.  

[Beardilocks]

The next day I ran into some cool 4wd guys at Stovepipe, out enjoying the holiday and a birthday.  I recognized their company (Goose Gear) and chatted about trucks & cool places to visit.  They were planning on camping off West Side Rd and were interested in mines.  I suggested Queen of Sheba as a fun stop and agreed to meet them there later after I dealt with a few other things.  

I got to the turn off to Queen of Sheba at late dusk.  I don’t say that I got to the “road” because there’s no longer a road.  There’s a 4mi wash of approximately 12,000 cross-cuts mostly filled with geologic features somewhat larger than rocks and somewhat smaller than boulders, most about the size of your head.  Honestly I would have turned around but Im the idiot that sent them up there and I could see s dim light where they’d set up camp off to the north from the mine.  And I couldn’t chicken out with a bunch of 4wd guys up there watching my progress.  Lol.  Lucky my Land Cruiser was built fir this kind of thing, even if I usually do my best to avoid anything this rough.  A couple of the cuts were more than 3ft deep and actually required me to lock up my rear axle first first time!

Once I got to the top I got some good natured ribbing about how I was trying to kill them.  I’m not sure why the floods damaged that road more severely than the others off West Side.  

Here’s a shot from the next morning coming down.  This is a “better” part of the road on the way down.  I was too busy white knuckling through the tough parts to take photos.  Lol.  Anyway Photos don’t do it justice at all.  It was brutal. 

[Kauri]

Great photos of Lemoigne Canyon!!

Only time I've been in the canyon was in the early 2000's, and I remember enjoying the hike until I lost a baby tooth during lunch when eating an apple, but not much more about the trip than that! (@MojaveGeek, did any of your kids loose baby teeth in DV? Something I'm admittedly kind of proud I can say I did ) It was a long time ago for me.

I also remember my dad driving our 4Runner out the first part of that road in December 2013, and despite being very careful, repeatedly bashing the stock "skid plate"/gravel guard and rear tow hitch on washed out bits of road, and finally quitting on it at a particularly large washout. Someday I will get back out there. Probably after I put a lift on the 4Runner.

[TacoLand]

Nice shots of Lemoigne Canyon. Got to camp up in that area and hike to the cabin in March 2020 in moody/inclement weather and had an absolute blast.

Funny story about the Goose Gear crew as well, and the obligation we feel to see a bad idea through after already sending someone down that road. Though I tend to get yelled at by people following me after we arrive at the destination.

Sure wish I was down in Death Valley right now instead of shoveling snow in Northern Nevada. D’oh.

Here are three Lemoigne photos from my Pandemic Kickoff 2020 Solo Trip that I never did get around to doing a report about ... my bad.

[MojaveGeek]

Only time I've been in the canyon was in the early 2000's, and I remember enjoying the hike until I lost a baby tooth during lunch when eating an apple, but not much more about the trip than that! (@MojaveGeek, did any of your kids loose baby teeth in DV? Something I'm admittedly kind of proud I can say I did ) It was a long time ago for me.

Well, Kauri, I guess you get the prize on that front, I don't recall either of mine losing a tooth out there.   You have the privilege of being a DV rat from near birth probably, lucky you!

Haven't been up Lemoigne in years but I do love that little cabin of his.  The big one, I could do without personally.  But it is lovely up there.   There is a shortcut from the wilderness boundary, runs just to the south of the main canyon and intersects it a bit further up.  IIRC there is a Lemoigne sig carved into a soft wall there; not sure I have a pic, it's been a while.