Death Valley Deep Dive 2024

[Beardilocks]

Careful.  It's habit forming. When your driving starts to suffer because you're constantly rubbernecking at peaks, it's time to get yourself checked into a program.

I already do that.  I’m just rarely motivated to actually do the literal legwork.  Lol.  That’s changing.

[DAW89446]

Tracks are in this area if anyone wants to scope the satellite:

(36.5508578, -116.8552362)

LOL. I was locating and "walking" the road on GE when you posted. I measured it at approximately 1.09 mile, not including deviations and spurs. It's narrowness is baffling, but early autos weren't that wide and might have fit.

I'm uncertain of its intent nor can I hypothesize its reason for being. I assume it started at the current paved road or its predecessor, originally heading up the alluvium; now erased by time and elements. It ends on the east in another drainage. I followed that drainage up the mountainside looking for a path it might have run, but the terrain climbs in earnest. I might have dropped back down to the valley floor in the northern drainage to create a loop, sort of like an early Artist Palette sort of attraction.

It's an oddity. Maybe an early attempt at creating an attraction in the early days of the monument.

[Beardilocks]

Having walked this and by now many other roadways in this type of desert terrain I’m… at a loss.  Almost every other graded pathway is much wider, no matter the age.  That includes tracks out by Burned Wagons Point that are extremely old but there’s still twin depressions from vehicle travel within the graded track. Not to mention the end loops and weird endings where it’s be impossible to turn a car around without damaging the edges or banks of the grader.  Which seem perfectly intact other than natural washouts.  For that matter I’m not aware of a grader that could cut the tight end loops of these runs.   

I can only guess it was being designed as a tourist thing that was never completed.  Odd because it’s on the backside of the hill and therefore blocking any kind of view of the valley that someone could have been going for.

The first time I saw it I assumed it had some mining/prospecting purpose.  But there absolutely no signs of that here either.  So I’m flummoxed.

Unless it was really a Zamboni.  Those things can really turn on a dime…

[MojaveGeek]

I have walked on that track, no wonder it looked familiar.  No idea why those circular pullouts were there but I think that a pretty old narrow wheelbase vehicle could do it, though parts were pretty sandy.  But it did follow hard packed desert pavement mostly.

As for following social and other media, this is a good thing for NPS to do IMHO.  Charlie C used to do it, and everything wasn't online back then.  I subscribed to the Sierra Club DPS Sage newsletter, which was not online back in the day, and one TR described a TH campsite that, it turned out, was within the wilderness boundary.  Charlie called them on it, and they published a correction in the next issue.

As for the side by sides... absolutely, there are magnetic stickers you can put on a door with a logo, etc.  If people see those they could, as you say, get the idea that the park is a good place to take theirs as well.  Also, if they show the colors in remote areas, it does help tell the public how our meager public funding is being used, which is a good thing.

Three Bare Hills?  Or Three Bear Hills? 

[DAW89446]

As for following social and other media, this is a good thing for NPS to do IMHO.  Charlie C used to do it, and everything wasn't online back then.

I've been contacted both by Charlie Callahan and ranger Dave Brenner because they were watching my website in the past. Never met Charlie in person, but spent a day riding with Dave and BLM ranger Phil Butler in the western Panamints.

As for the track, I wonder if it was created by park service personnel to practice operating equipment. Since it's in a hidden place, out of sight, out of mind as far as the tourists are concerned.

[Beardilocks]

Here we have another undisclosed location.  I ask that any of you who have found this place to keep it to yourself.

I've explored much in this area and I am continually fascinated by what I find out here.  It's definitely not overflowing with items to discover.  But it seems that every time you're just about to give up you stumble across one more thing.  And that keeps driving you on. 

To my amazement, the first thing I stumbled across this time was this killer rock alignment. 



It's placed oddly on a slope and that made it very difficult to photograph.  I can't tell if the circle was intentionally left open or if gravity/erosion made it that way.


Sorry for the weird black-outs, but this is a very sensitive site. 





Very occasionally there are petroglyphs.


More often there are hunting blinds and odd short walls.  Lots of cairns, but I didn't get many pics of those. 





Very very interesting design here. 








Oddly I found a lost Nalgene up here.  Did you lose one up here MojaveGeek?


Very cool map-like petroglyph here. 


Extremely odd placement here.  A friend had visited this site 5 or 6 years ago and has a photo of this stone propped up vertically.  Now it seems that in the intervening years someone has come along and partially deconstructed a hunting blind to set up this rock like this.  Extremely weird thing to do. 

Again:  PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH OR MOVE THESE ROCKS.  We have no idea how important their positioning or angle is.  The context of this glyph is completely ruined now. 


I love when they wrap around the edges like this. 


Odd and rather larger rock circle.  Impossible to say if it was a rock alignment or served another purpose.  The slope makes a foundation for a temporary structure unlikely. 





I did report the rock alignment to NPS.  We'll see if I get any response this time.  I saw no NPS tags, so I don't think this site has been surveyed.  I'm hoping to one day make a comprehensive map of the whole area, if only because I'm fascinated by the randomness of it all.

[MojaveGeek]

Oh no, I used to use Nalgenes just like that, I hope it wasn't mine! Though I did lose one out there some place. That looks old enough that it could have been. If you hauled it out, I owe you a beer!

[TacoLand]

Dang, really impressive exploring you've got going on there. I'm particularly fascinated by the golf cart road you found. I'm also reevaluating my natural impulse to kick over all cairns while out and about. Gotta leave the really old ones for WASPs to pontificate on.

[Beardilocks]

Geek: yep, carried it out. Too sun damaged to use. You’re not the one that set that petro panel up on those rocks are you? ;-)

Taco: I’m a certified cairn kicker. I hate them. Well, the useless ones. It’s usually not hard to spot historic ones (mining or Native American). They’re usually much larger than the sissy ones made today. Ie: you would not want to kick them. Lol.

Not counting weirdly elaborate ones some ppl do. Those don’t last long in the wind out here.

[MojaveGeek]

Geek: yep, carried it out. Too sun damaged to use. You’re not the one that set that petro panel up on those rocks are you? ;-)

Well you did good carrying that out. And no, I never disturb those things, and something I pick up goes back exactly as I found it.
I looked through my photos and I didn't find anything that matched so maybe I've not been to that site. You are vastly more knowledgeable about DV sites than I. But I have a good quantity mapped out in SW Utah to visit after my next DV trip.