Cottonwood Marble loop question

[DAW89446]

Growing up in the Mojave, my grandmother and I explored lots of trails in her '49 Chevy. Various VWs took us anywhere we wanted to go. And I used to blast lots of dirt roads in my '61 Caddy convertible.    

Basically, what I was conveying is what advertising makes people think they can do - go anywhere they please at breakneck speeds. Just add plastic cladding. In the hands of some, safety, reliability and environment be damned.

Even those who are careful and conscientious can run into trouble out there. The only time I ever used my Hi Lift jack I carried in my Tacoma TRD was on a stranded middle aged couple in a 1st gen Ford Explorer with a flat tire about five miles north of the turnoff to Racetrack Valley on the Big Pine-Death Valley road. They had a spare tire, but could not drop it down because they didn't have the crank handle. The one in my Tacoma fit and worked just fine. And the way the truck was parked the bottle jack didn't lift the axle enough to unload the weight off the flat tire.

Anyway, back to topic ...