Between the BLKH2O Forks

[Beardilocks]

That's awesome, nicely done!  Have you done other "lost" trails of the Park?  I like the looks of the trails dropping into Saline Valley from various points among many others.  Hope to do some of them some day while I still have legs for bigger vertical...

Did you check for surface water at the spring?  How did you get talking to the "naturalist" with the knowledge of such a route?

I have hiked a number of other "lost trails" in the park but just in fits & spurts.  None all the way through on an old trail like this.  When I hiked Dry Bone through top to bottom I picked up the old road on the valley floor to hike back to my truck.  It was a straight line but also cross-wash.   The East side of the Panamints is absolutely criss-crossed with old paths, both ancient and from miners.  I lost count of how many trails I crossed or followed going to the crater near Chuckwalla. That hike was stunning and I wish I'd had ore time.  I have a bunch of others pinned on my maps that I hope to get to "next time".  Don't we all?

I know of a few of those that you reference going into Saline.  You can see a few from Ubehebe peak.  I would love to hike a few of those through.  Hell I'd love to do cross the park West to East.  Haha.  

The water at BLKH2O was horrific.  The burros have utterly ravaged the place.  All vegetation was trampled and everything was covered in burro crap.  It was bad.  There was surface water there in Feb, but I would have had to been BAD off to drink it even after a filtering.  Filtering gets the bad stuff out but doesn't help the taste.  Burros don't understand "don't sh*t where you drink". 

Usually when I get to DV I spend about 2-3mo there.  And if you ask about enough far back country road conditions and about enough weird through hikes in rarely visited areas, the staff eventually tells you to just come in when their unofficial expert is working the desk.  In 2017-19 that was very nice guy named Tom who was the resident Naturalist who spent most of his off time doing bonkers hikes and was inclined to chat with fellow lunatics about such things.  We traded quite a few secrets.