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Stovepipe WELLS
#1
I spent most of the last month out in various deserts, including DV, SW Utah, and Gold Butte, NV.  Once I get a few days' sleep to make up for all my hiking, I will do a TR here.   Unlike our resident dirt bags, I stayed in lodging except for Gold Butte.  In DV we stayed at SPW for 12 nights.

This is an NPS franchise and I guess it comes up every 5 years or so.   So it's new management now.   Here are some things that are different.

Branding.  They now call it "Stovepipe" (no "Wells")  I guess they got some PR folks in who did not like the proper name.  And they printed up a fancy new color map to show where the rooms and RV sites are. There is a new logo which I guess is supposed to be an abstract sand dune.  And the staff all wear baseball caps with "STOVEPIPE" blazed across the top.  (My personal take:   If you take away the "Well" then WTF is a place named "Stovepipe" out in the middle of the desert?).

WiFi:   Yes!   In the room (password protected, but everyone must know it) and also a "Guest" network that covers the rest of the area.  The Guest worked pretty well at non-prime time.  The in-room worked great the whole time.

Furnishings:  They took out the in-room coffee makers.  And the morning coffee urn in the lobby disappeared with Covid and I'm sure will never return.   Otherwise unchanged.

General store:   Really, it's been mostly a cheaper gift shop for years.  Well now you can't find any T shirts that say "Death Valley" (except for DVNP) - they all say "Stovepipe".  Which I'm sure all your friends at home will appreciate, not.  There seem to be fewer and fewer food and other "general" options there.

Web site.   Grrr.   It doesn't tell you anything about availability, offering only a "request to book".  Strange. So you can't really poke around and see what is actually available.

Otherwise seems pretty much unchanged.   One of the ice machines (nearest the pool) is gone and the one hidden in the Roadrunners building is not on the map but still operative.

There was trenching for a cable of some sort going on between SPW and FC.  Wonder what that is.  I don't know if the WiFi back haul changed to give more bandwidth or what.  The cell site is still up.
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#2
AFAIK they’re laying fiber optic into the park. Purpose undisclosed.
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#3
(2024-04-04, 05:42 PM)Beardilocks Wrote: AFAIK they’re laying fiber optic into the park. Purpose undisclosed.

Yep, fiber optic. From what I've read in past park planning documents it is almost certainly for telephone/data (land and cell) back haul.

Right now the microwave repeater on Mormon peak is the only way any phone or internet (land or cell) gets into the valley (other than satellite solutions). The Mormon repeater is piss slow (like 90 Mbps aggregate) which is one reason cell data stinks in the valley. There has been a plan in the works to upgrade the Mormon peak repeater to 1.5 Gbps for awhile now but I've yet to see any notification since the public comment period a couple of years ago.

Fiber optic backhaul is of course preferred. A planning document from 2022 indicated at the time fiber wasn't expected until 2027 and hence upgrading the repeater was desirable. Maybe the fiber project got pushed forward with funding from the flooding?
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