Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[DVexile]

Jackass has been on my list for past few years. Thanks for the ground truth! Bummer about the tumbleweed invasion.

[MojaveGeek]

Looks pretty empty out there. Great pix!

[edward]

Nice report and photos. I recall the climb out of and into the canyon to be a bit gnarly in June 2021, but you may have had it worse after Hilary. I have a similar photo (sans snow on the high points) after just getting out the canyon...

[Brice]

I had an assignment to take photos from the Eureka summit.  Here are two looking in opposite directions.

First, towards the dunes.



And back towards the vehicles, up the wide canyon right of center.



And a bonus photo.  The view from Crest benchmark beats the Eureka summit view in my opinion.

[Beardilocks]

Hey Edward: what were you driving to get up Jackass in 2021? Just curious. I’m wondering if the hurricane flushed out some of the loose gravel that might have made the climb difficult. 50/50 if you prefer rock steps over gravel. I was advised I needed a rear locker going up but never even spun a wheel.

Geek: Very empty. Other than a few tiny birds and some pack rats, I didn’t see much sign of life. Odd with all the water lately. Finally saw a pair of ravens the last day. But no coyotes or sheep or burros or anything at all. Definitely no ppl. They’re all paddling on the lake or naked at the springs I guess.

Brice: Nice! Great shots man. Still pissed I couldn’t make the summit. ;-)

@Netlama: how about that last shot as a banner?

[netllama]

@Netlama: how about that last shot as a banner?

sure, although @Taco has all the photoshop skillz, i just keep the lights on

[MojaveGeek]

I love the view of the Last Chance Range. And the similar though more lowly view of its strata from the top of the Dunes. I had that as my home screen wallpaper for years. Thanks! and you both, thanks for keeping the forum interesting for us gawkers so far this winter. I'll be out in a week, though, but it's pretty hard to post here from marginal wifi at SPW or whatever, as I first have to upload pix to some place.

[TacoLand]

@BeardedLlama: Love the photo but doesn't crop well for the banner format

[Beardilocks]

While up in the North end of Death Valley (generally), I stopped at this big boulder that is just outside of the park boundary. 

It has quite a few petroglyphs on it, but how many exactly is nearly impossible to tell.  With the naked eye you can make out quite a few on the light side of the rock, but the lichens make it very hard to make out what they are and also make it nearly impossible to photograph.  To the point where you can't really tell what's maybe natural and what's definitely a petroglyph.  SOME of the features are definitely man made, but it's hard to decipher.

There was a fair bit of lithic scatter (mainly obsidian again) around and I have seen photos of arrowheads found nearby, but the tumbleweeds and the snow made any searching pretty futile. 

Still, a very cool site and I'm quite curious as to the age of these glyphs. 



There are a few petroglyphs on the top of the rock that are visible from ground level.  I did not attempt to climb the rock due to the delicate nature of the glyphs.  I did however fly my drone to get a better look at the top (yay for being just outside the park boundaries) and found mainly bits & pieces of glyphs, as the a lot of the patinated surface on the top has been worn away.





If you squint long enough glyphs start to appear.  Lol. 

[edward]

Kidding!  Joke photo.  Don't go on the base kids.  You would only save something like a couple hundred yards of hiking by cutting the corner. 

Ha! As you know, that fence just ends a few hundred yards to the north, so it would be easy to wander into the restricted area without GPS.

It sounds like you guys got out there without too much difficulty. I recall a section on Owl Hole Spring Road - not sure if it was just before the Owl Lake area or just before Lost Lake - where there was still a bit of paved road but erosion around it made it narrow and a little sketchy. Do you remember that spot and if it posed any problems for you? I am considering heading out there this weekend.

Hey Edward: what were you driving to get up Jackass in 2021?  Just curious.  I’m wondering if the hurricane flushed out some of the loose gravel that might have made the climb difficult.  50/50 if you prefer rock steps over gravel.  I was advised I needed a rear locker going up but never even spun a wheel. 

I drive something similar to Brice (white '21 TRD OR, 3" lift w/ 33s), so when I saw your video I though I was looking at a negative reality inversion. I do recall it being rocky - not sure if that big boulder was there or not - but I don't think I used anything more than 4WD low.