Death Valley 2022/23

[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.