Death Valley 2022/23

[netllama]

Dang full time traveller. Husband and I consider doing something like that at some point. Its a bit scary though but I think we would love it once we get used to the lack of income and living on savings only. (The cats would not love it though....)

40+ hours of work when we cant even afford a house or to retire just feels like such a scam and waste of our short time.

yea, that scenario is tough in this country. Definitely doable in other parts of the world (which is why expats exist in less developed contries).

[Beardilocks]

Dang full time traveller. Husband and I consider doing something like that at some point. Its a bit scary though but I think we would love it once we get used to the lack of income and living on savings only. (The cats would not love it though....)

40+ hours of work when we cant even afford a house or to retire just feels like such a scam and waste of our short time.

Full time road life requires a lot of sacrifices.  At least sacrificing most of what makes up your whole world as a house dweller.  And it comes with incredible highs and incredible lows.  And long boring stretches. Lol.  Just life in a different package.  

But the idea of being a slave for 40-50yrs just to “enjoy” retirement when my body was wrecked at 65 (if I didn’t get hit by a bus first or die of cancer) was hard to live with.  

Plus I watched one of my best friends walk away from it all at a much younger age than me and just travel the continent on a 49cc scooter.  70,000mi at 26mph.  Trying it in a truck for a few years didn’t seem as scary.  😁

[Beardilocks]

This week in “Where the Hell are We and Why are We Here?” 

Brice had some “low probability bridges” he had spotted on satellite research to hunt down in the poorly named “Talc Hills” area of the southern black mountains, down Confidence Wash.  I was down for the punishment.  Attempts were made to get up this as-far-as-I-know unnamed canyon from Harry Wade were thwarted by high dry falls.  So we went in from the top this time.



Obviously the area was heavily prospected for minerals.  Insane amounts of labor were poured into… finding very little apparently in the areas we were in.  Loads of short shafts in hard tick less than 6ft deep.  

Very oddly the area is LITTERED with cairns.  I have never seen this many cairns.  Every tiny ridge line had multiple cairns on it. Every minor peak.  Every undulation of landscape.  I can only guess that a group of miners was prospecting and marking off every bit of real estate with a cairn as they checked it.  

Some signs that certain areas were deemed being worth more than a couple shovels full of checking 




Along with other evidence


Thickest glass I’ve ever seen 



Target:

After being stymied by several dryfalls we found a way down.  One of said dryfalls from the bottom


That one was probably 15-20ft

Cool canyon.  Definitely correct geology for bridge making. 









After a very long, very exhausting scramble back out of the hole (for me anyway), I hiked back down to Confidence Wash to check out something listed on my old topo as “Ruins”.


Hmmmm



Interesting little “cabin”.  Likely very pleasant in the summer.  

After that it was a rather excruciating hike back out up the wash because, contrary to normal operations in DEVA, we were headed uphill for the last ~3mi of the day.  I much prefer it the other way.  

Overall a very cool hike into an area rarely if ever visited.  Perhaps a hike only for the most dedicated desert rats who are absolutely allergic to other people.  I don’t think it’ll be featured in any guidebooks anytime soon.  But Worth it for me to see such an obscure part of the park and a cool deep hidden canyon.

[Daymoth]

But the idea of being a slave for 40-50yrs just to “enjoy” retirement when my body was wrecked at 65 (if I didn’t get hit by a bus first or die of cancer) was hard to live with.  

But the idea of being a slave for 40-50yrs just to “enjoy” retirement when my body was wrecked at 65 (if I didn’t get hit by a bus first or die of cancer) was hard to live with.  

Plus I watched one of my best friends walk away from it all at a much younger age than me and just travel the continent on a 49cc scooter.  70,000mi at 26mph.  Trying it in a truck for a few years didn’t seem as scary.  😁

Exactly. For me its likely to be retire at 70 with no property so bleh why bother. We will probably save money and end up moving somewhere very cheap. Wish I could figure a freelance job i could do remotely as I please. But im no web developer. 

Bryce is still there?? Whats his excuse? Also sold a house? Giving me serious FOMO.

[DAW89446]

Obviously the area was heavily prospected for minerals.  Insane amounts of labor were poured into… finding very little apparently in the areas we were in.  Loads of short shafts in hard tick less than 6ft deep.  

Very oddly the area is LITTERED with cairns.  I have never seen this many cairns.  Every tiny ridge line had multiple cairns on it. Every minor peak.  Every undulation of landscape.  I can only guess that a group of miners was prospecting and marking off every bit of real estate with a cairn as they checked it.  ...

... Interesting little “cabin”.  Likely very pleasant in the summer.  

During the 1902-1907 era prospecting became frenzied as the nation came down with "Tonopah Fever." The prospecting fever quickly spread to the south and into Death Valley and surrounding country. In my research in the Inyo County courthouse, I've worn out my eyeballs going through huge 10# books of handwritten documents of mine claims from all over the county, especially Death Valley and vicinity. Some individual's claims took several dozens to a hundred or more pages, filled with vague locations and boundaries that they had staked out on the ground, likely with those very same cairns. W.L. Hunter, of Hunter Mountain and Beveridge fame along with his brother Bev, was county recorder in most of those years, and he had deplorable handwriting that is very hard to read. Oddly, he went to using a typewriter when those newfangled devices came into use, but then reverted back to his horrible handwriting.

I was thinking that your interesting little cabin might be a good candidate for Camp Holdout, Walter Scott's hideaway, but checking Lingenfelter's DEATH VALLEY & THE AMARGOSA, Camp Holdout was simply a shelf under an overhang not far from the Confidence Mine.

[Brice]

Bryce is still there?? Whats his excuse? Also sold a house? Giving me serious FOMO.

I'm also a full-time dirtbag   

I was glad to have some company for once, on a somewhat pointless, hours long trek, to check out one specific place I identified as possibly, maybe, but probably not having a bridge.  I got pretty excited when I turned the final corner and saw this 



Unfortunately, it was another "not a bridge" by a gap of about 18 inches.  Oh well.  It's still fun to be in a part of the park that hardly anyone ever sees.

Here's another photo of the dryfall that Beardilocks posted above, but this one has him in it for scale.  I believe his exact words were "I can definitely climb this."  I disagreed  

[Beardilocks]

Here's another photo of the dryfall that Beardilocks posted above, but this one has him in it for scale.  I believe his exact words were "I can definitely climb this."  I disagreed  

it’s a sliding scale:  Gun pointed at me?  I could climb it.  Gun pointed at someone I’m less fond of?  Only a maybe.  Lol.

Fun hike & cool canyon even if I was crawling towards the end.  Thanks for finding it.

[Beardilocks]

During the 1902-1907 era prospecting became frenzied as the nation came down with "Tonopah Fever." The prospecting fever quickly spread to the south and into Death Valley and surrounding country. In my research in the Inyo County courthouse, I've worn out my eyeballs going through huge 10# books of handwritten documents of mine claims from all over the county, especially Death Valley and vicinity. Some individual's claims took several dozens to a hundred or more pages, filled with vague locations and boundaries that they had staked out on the ground, likely with those very same cairns. W.L. Hunter, of Hunter Mountain and Beveridge fame along with his brother Bev, was county recorder in most of those years, and he had deplorable handwriting that is very hard to read. Oddly, he went to using a typewriter when those newfangled devices came into use, but then reverted back to his horrible handwriting.

I was thinking that your interesting little cabin might be a good candidate for Camp Holdout, Walter Scott's hideaway, but checking Lingenfelter's DEATH VALLEY & THE AMARGOSA, Camp Holdout was simply a shelf under an overhang not far from the Confidence Mine.

I LOVE this kind of knowledge and history.  I wish I had more time for real, on paper research.  Eventually something will capture me enough to make dig.  Hopefully while there’s still places to dig.  Which reminds me that I need to contact the museum in Shoshone…

Did they identify Camp Holdout as being in what we now call Scotty’s Canyon?  Or am I making that up?  Different camp?   

Huge thanks for this.  That’s why I’m sharing these adventures: so all of you here who know more than me can tell me more about where I’m adventuring.  If that makes sense….Great community!

[DAW89446]

Yes, Camp Holdout is said to be located in Scotty’s Canyon. Lingenfelter claims that Scotty furnished his hideaway with a metal tub pilfered from the Confidence Mine, towels from LA hotels, utensils from railroad dining cars.

[MojaveGeek]

That's a cool part of park. Quiet. The Talc Hills do look like they've been mined, or at least explored, extensively. For talc? I guess there's money in that but those tunnels you showed have nothing to do with talc so probably gold fever? I see the "ruins" on the topo. I've been on Jubilee peak but not into that wild area you were in. Thanks for the pix, I'm armchair traveling with pleasure, watching temps go down to a forecast -30 F windchill tomorrow night. I may not get far out of the house tomorrow, definitely won't get my daily bike ride in

I was very fortunate in that I got my 5 years before the mast in when I was 19-24. It was completely free time. You talk about highs and lows... man I saw it all from wonderful hospitality in off grid villages to some pretty sick and lonely days, almost burning down my tent in the Himalayas (would not have survived that night) and later getting up close and personal with Everest. Especially hitch hiking - just really exposed to whatever the world will throw at you. From cops in Kenya threatening to beat me if I was still at the side of the road when they returned to truck drivers in India sharing their food and beds. There was no Internet then, or guidebooks outside of Europe, "budget travel" meant making a story up as you went along, but I'd never have traded those experiences for any amount of money.

Then I came back and got a real job.. big gap in my resume but so what? I lucked into a great academic job which gave me a lot of freedom and time off, and also supported a bunch of travel. And, eventually, a couple of kids. Teaching a kid to love and appreciate the outdoors and be happy with solitude and roughing it is itself very rewarding.