2025-03-29, 09:30 AM
(This post was last modified: Yesterday, 03:56 PM by VintageDUG.)
I spent Thursday and Friday cutting through Death Valley but my actual hike was just outside of the park in the Argus Range and Wilderness. After Sunday's explore and surprise meet up with The MojaveGeek north of Jublie Pass Road, I had hoped to come home, send my granddaughter off to school and return to the area in a Jeep to hunt for an old Cletrac 15 tractor. The weather gods didn't agree and there were several days when the temps climbed up. So I cut a couple days off my trip which was supposed to include Trail Canyon and a spot Digonnet calls "Death Valley's best stocked junk yard". Instead I would focus on the tractor somewhere high in the Argus Wilderness.
I drove in Thursday after running several errands in Vegas, getting lunch and gas in Beatty. Arriving in the park I discovered Mud Canyon Road closed and traffic being routed to Beatty Cutoff. Then half way down that construction reduced it to one lane. They had flaggers and a pilot car to escort us all of maybe a 1/2 mile. Not saying it was overkill or anything, but it was. Spent a good 30 minutes watching the flagger on my side chat with the pilot car driver. As soon as we had three cars lined up, they escorted us to the other side. Must do that to save fuel or something, IDK.
Finally back on track, I made the easy drive into Snow Canyon up to the ore bin and shed of the St George/Christmas mine. I had explored here in 2021 and even hiked a 1/2 mile up the brutally steep road to the first tram tower/ore bin thing that's collapsed up there. I set up camp next to the shed which consisted of pushing the driver's seat forward, unfolding my bed and deploying Starlink. I walked a little farther up canyon because I couldn't remember if I had checked out the ore bin and relics up there in 2021. Good thing I did because a review of my pics from that time showed this was new stuff. Back at camp I got a message from a local(ish) buddy who said he could join me for the Friday hike. I sent him gps coords and we set a meet time.
Since all good Death Valley area explorations need a MojaveGeek connection, the route I planned on using for this hike was downloaded from a bird and hiking website. That route and trip was led by the MojaveGeek as he is great friends with the author/webmaster there. They went up an old use trail, looped around the mine camps and brought the hellish steep road down to where it meets the use trail again. I would do most of their route, only backwards and adding a spur to where I thought there tractor was parked. With a little daylight left and being in a cherry stemmed BLM area, I launched my bigger drone to go scout things out. I picked up the road and followed it up to where I thought it turned off from the route MojaveGeek and friends used. I overflew the area the tractor was supposed to be, but to maintain a signal connection I had to keep the drone maxed out at 398 feet above ground. If I tried to drop lower to have a look around the ridge blocked the connection. Being so high up and looking at a tiny screen proved to be no better than Google Earth. I brought the drone back and made dinner.
As expected the temps dropped overnight and it was overcast and cool when I saw my buddy's Bronco chugging up the trail. He had never been in this canyon so I packed up and showed him all the sights. We then drove a 1/2 mile back down to pick up the road we planned on hiking up. Just as I remembered the route was crazy steep and slippery. We took our time, never getting into a hurry. Soon we were at the first pile of wood that has a sturdy cable passing by. It looks like it used to be an ore bin, but it also looks like it used to hold that cable higher off the ground. Here is where the use trail meets the road. You can continue on the road or join the trail towards an ore bin off in the distance. The trail from here is on the map and has some extensive rock work along its route. I'm betting the only people who made money in all the different mines are the craftsman who built all of these stacked rocked ledges and retaining walls. I get tripped up helping grandkids with Lego sets that have instructions and these guys were eyeballing random rocks in desert heat, building things that have lasted over 100 years.
We continued up the road and I was very glad I would not be coming back down this way. What's crazy is, it is still a legal road. Someone has taken a SxS up to that first ore bin/tower, but no one has driven further in a very long time. We finally made it to the saddle and then to a triangle shaped trail/road connection. I told my buddy if we were in Utah this would be a round a bout. We took the road less traveled and head towards the spot I pinned on my map. The tractor is hidden until you are right on top of it, but it's there. We took many pics, had lunch and marveled at the insane views. When we had our fill we retraced our steps back to the junction.
From here trying to follow the marked trail on the map and MojaveGeek's gps line was impossible. So much burro activity has made everything a trail and nothing a trail all at the same time. I tried to keep the little Gaia triangle marker on the line, but in the end my track looks like a drunken sailor returning from liberty. We kept going in the general direction and shortly we could see we were above an old mining area filled with junk. We kinda just figured it out getting down there, much like I'm guessing MojaveGeek and crew did when they were coming up on their visit. Lots of cool old rusted stuff to look at and take pics of. When we finished there we rounded the corner towards the ore bin we had seen in the distance coming in. The trail we were on isn't marked on a map, but it's good enough for burros and it was good enough for MG so we kept going. It's thin, it's slippery, it's not a place to miss a step. After the ore bin it finally curves around and climbs up to the officially mapped trail. And that trail drops us off right at the road next to that first pile of wood.
From here it was just a simple matter of trying to get down a crazy steep road that wasn't even the steepest road we had been on and trying not to fall and draw blood. Sadly, even with fancy trekking poles I still went down. Gravity is not to be toyed with. We cleaned up and headed to Panamint Springs for burgers. On our way out we passed by a full sized pick up truck coming in, loaded with camping gear and firewood. I'm sure that canyon is a favorite with the locals.
![[Image: 54422770326_19c73bdbd7_k.jpg]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54422770326_19c73bdbd7_k.jpg)
IMG_4981 by Doug Ames, on Flickr
I drove in Thursday after running several errands in Vegas, getting lunch and gas in Beatty. Arriving in the park I discovered Mud Canyon Road closed and traffic being routed to Beatty Cutoff. Then half way down that construction reduced it to one lane. They had flaggers and a pilot car to escort us all of maybe a 1/2 mile. Not saying it was overkill or anything, but it was. Spent a good 30 minutes watching the flagger on my side chat with the pilot car driver. As soon as we had three cars lined up, they escorted us to the other side. Must do that to save fuel or something, IDK.
Finally back on track, I made the easy drive into Snow Canyon up to the ore bin and shed of the St George/Christmas mine. I had explored here in 2021 and even hiked a 1/2 mile up the brutally steep road to the first tram tower/ore bin thing that's collapsed up there. I set up camp next to the shed which consisted of pushing the driver's seat forward, unfolding my bed and deploying Starlink. I walked a little farther up canyon because I couldn't remember if I had checked out the ore bin and relics up there in 2021. Good thing I did because a review of my pics from that time showed this was new stuff. Back at camp I got a message from a local(ish) buddy who said he could join me for the Friday hike. I sent him gps coords and we set a meet time.
Since all good Death Valley area explorations need a MojaveGeek connection, the route I planned on using for this hike was downloaded from a bird and hiking website. That route and trip was led by the MojaveGeek as he is great friends with the author/webmaster there. They went up an old use trail, looped around the mine camps and brought the hellish steep road down to where it meets the use trail again. I would do most of their route, only backwards and adding a spur to where I thought there tractor was parked. With a little daylight left and being in a cherry stemmed BLM area, I launched my bigger drone to go scout things out. I picked up the road and followed it up to where I thought it turned off from the route MojaveGeek and friends used. I overflew the area the tractor was supposed to be, but to maintain a signal connection I had to keep the drone maxed out at 398 feet above ground. If I tried to drop lower to have a look around the ridge blocked the connection. Being so high up and looking at a tiny screen proved to be no better than Google Earth. I brought the drone back and made dinner.
As expected the temps dropped overnight and it was overcast and cool when I saw my buddy's Bronco chugging up the trail. He had never been in this canyon so I packed up and showed him all the sights. We then drove a 1/2 mile back down to pick up the road we planned on hiking up. Just as I remembered the route was crazy steep and slippery. We took our time, never getting into a hurry. Soon we were at the first pile of wood that has a sturdy cable passing by. It looks like it used to be an ore bin, but it also looks like it used to hold that cable higher off the ground. Here is where the use trail meets the road. You can continue on the road or join the trail towards an ore bin off in the distance. The trail from here is on the map and has some extensive rock work along its route. I'm betting the only people who made money in all the different mines are the craftsman who built all of these stacked rocked ledges and retaining walls. I get tripped up helping grandkids with Lego sets that have instructions and these guys were eyeballing random rocks in desert heat, building things that have lasted over 100 years.
We continued up the road and I was very glad I would not be coming back down this way. What's crazy is, it is still a legal road. Someone has taken a SxS up to that first ore bin/tower, but no one has driven further in a very long time. We finally made it to the saddle and then to a triangle shaped trail/road connection. I told my buddy if we were in Utah this would be a round a bout. We took the road less traveled and head towards the spot I pinned on my map. The tractor is hidden until you are right on top of it, but it's there. We took many pics, had lunch and marveled at the insane views. When we had our fill we retraced our steps back to the junction.
From here trying to follow the marked trail on the map and MojaveGeek's gps line was impossible. So much burro activity has made everything a trail and nothing a trail all at the same time. I tried to keep the little Gaia triangle marker on the line, but in the end my track looks like a drunken sailor returning from liberty. We kept going in the general direction and shortly we could see we were above an old mining area filled with junk. We kinda just figured it out getting down there, much like I'm guessing MojaveGeek and crew did when they were coming up on their visit. Lots of cool old rusted stuff to look at and take pics of. When we finished there we rounded the corner towards the ore bin we had seen in the distance coming in. The trail we were on isn't marked on a map, but it's good enough for burros and it was good enough for MG so we kept going. It's thin, it's slippery, it's not a place to miss a step. After the ore bin it finally curves around and climbs up to the officially mapped trail. And that trail drops us off right at the road next to that first pile of wood.
From here it was just a simple matter of trying to get down a crazy steep road that wasn't even the steepest road we had been on and trying not to fall and draw blood. Sadly, even with fancy trekking poles I still went down. Gravity is not to be toyed with. We cleaned up and headed to Panamint Springs for burgers. On our way out we passed by a full sized pick up truck coming in, loaded with camping gear and firewood. I'm sure that canyon is a favorite with the locals.
IMG_4981 by Doug Ames, on Flickr
![[Image: 54423020113_01fc3d9b28_k.jpg]](https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/54423020113_01fc3d9b28_k.jpg)
IMG_4994