April 7-13, 2002: Death Valley National Park

One of many trip reports by Alan Silverstein.
Last update: April 15, 2008

This report consists of a couple of saved, edited emails I sent...

From:  Alan Silverstein <ajs@fc.hp.com>
Date:  15 Apr 2002 18:36:22 -0600
Subject:  Death Valley NP report
Newsgroups:  rec.backcountry

...There's a lot more to the rest of the story of course, but in brief overview the actual order of events was:

• I flew into Las Vegas on Sunday, April 7. After waiting about an hour and a half in hot sun, I obtained a Suzuki XL7 SUV instead of a compact car when Dollar was out of compacts. We made good use of it.

• I met Jenny Pruett and Greg Carr in the moonless dark at 8:45 pm at Texas Spring campground near Furnace Creek.

• Monday: The Badwater hike (see below), about 9:15 - 11:00 out, 12:00 - 1:15 back, and a family from LA with two little kids tagged along with us! Also lots of scenery stops like Devils Golf Course, Mars Hill, and Artists Drive. We swam at Furnace Creek, watched sunset at Salt Creek, and camped at Stovepipe Wells (SPW; bad gnats this time).

• Tuesday/Wednesday: I started up Tucki Mountain from Mosaic Canyon at 7:15 am (see below). I kept in touch with J+G by ham radio while they toured and hiked, until I was down at 2:22 pm the next day. I met them back at a rented room at the SPW motel. Later we went to Aguereberry Point for sunset, and laid in the sand dunes near SPW under the stars.

• Thursday: We piled into the SUV to visit Teakettle Junction, Ubehebe Lead Mine, the Grandstand, Racetrack Playa, Lippincott Lead Mine, the Lippincott 4WD road, the Saline Valley road, the hot springs (which are incredible but don't tell anyone, it's a secret), and drove all the way back; out about 10:45 am to 00:05.

• Friday: J+G headed home, and I climbed Tucki the back way, by the "Telephone Pole" 4WD road, 1:15 pm - 6:06 round trip, and later camped at Texas Spring again.

• Saturday: Sunrise at Zabriskie Point, and back to Las Vegas for my flight home.

From:  ajs@fc.hp.com (Alan Silverstein)
Date:  16 Apr 2002 00:24:03 GMT
Subject:  Death Valley NP report
Newsgroups:  rec.backcountry

More tidbits from last week there:

• Low point on the salt flats (-282', 361431N 1164932W WGS84), shown on the Badwater 7.5 minute topo, is 3.3 miles out from Badwater. This time, the second time, I took a GPS so I could confirm my location. But there's really nothing special out there, no markers or obvious relief seen. It's cool to know you're at the lowest point in the western hemisphere, but the scenery looks the same 20 minutes out from Badwater.

  Distance from the low point to the West Side Road is about the same... If I hike to the low point again, I'll go from Tule Spring on WSR next time.

• Tucki Mountain, 6726', south of Stovepipe Wells (at sea level) is an amazingly massive and tedious hill. The trail up and out from the 920'+ trailhead past the large dry fall in Mosaic Canyon (about two miles in, look back on river right) leads to a higher part of the same drainage, thence up a ways to a fork, thence no further signs of trails or cairns (although I saw a few much higher). The ridge to the right at this fork leads up to steep but straightforward access of the west ridge of the Mosaic Canyon bowl.

  After 10+ hours and 5000' with a full backpack, including 20 pounds of water, I was spent, so I overnighted at the 5920'+ high point at the head of the canyon (last 400' steep and tough), with a tremendous view especially down to the north to Stovepipe Wells and beyond. There was still 2.1 miles direct and ~1200' more gain to the true summit!

  The next day I spent nearly 7 hours descending the west ridge to the Mosaic trailhead, taking great care to read the map and stay on or near the correct ridge as drainages appeared -- there is only one way down here!

  Tucki is almost all limestone/marble, in dozens of colors and patterns, sharply weathered.

• Tucki Mountain's easier route is an unnamed 4WD road that takes off at about 2600' on the Wildrose road, when it enters a canyon itself. Look for an unmarked turn left across the wash, then downhill a mile or so before heading up the unnamed canyon into which Telephone Canyon drains. Good high-clearance road, under an hour to go 9.5 miles to a fork, and a left here takes you another 1.9 miles over a ridge (very steep up and down) to the closest departure point at 5450'.

  Tucki is still a long hike from here, with difficult route-finding on ridges and/or lots of sidehilling and/or drops into drainages (upper Tucki Wash). It took me 1:52 up for "only" 1300' gain. Nice view from the top, and seldom visited.

  Around Tucki's summit there is a lot of mineralized white quartz, sort of anomalous mixed in with the limestone.

• Racetrack Road is in better shape than it was 5 years ago, pretty easy going. The Racetrack had fewer rocks on it this time, and many of the tracks were southbound toward the source cliff (north winds?) Also lots of "fossil" footprints in the playa that weren't there 5 years ago.

  Walking from the Grandstand to the south end (while friends commuted in the vehicle) was 2.13 miles direct (GPS), took 0:50, and was interesting, including a serpentine swale of darker dirt in the playa with some vegetation (mostly tumbleweed).

• Lippincott road (about 7 miles from south of Racetrack to Saline Valley road) was serious 4WD but passable. It took us about 1.5 hours in a rented Suzuki SUV. As the sign at the top says, don't try it unless you have 4WD experience. Some spectacular views.

• Saline Valley Road is remarkably rough from the Lippincott junction north to the warm springs turnoff; better south of the junction. Road grading equipment was parked along it but had done nothing useful (grin).

  From the lower springs back to Stovepipe Wells was 37 miles GPS direct, 98 miles odometer, and via the south pass with minimum stops, it took 3:05! This is an amazingly remote area, except for the China Lake jets that thunder by occasionally.

• Mars Hill still has no marker sign, probably never will, but it's at the right spot on the AAA map now, across from the Artist Drive exit and worth a short walk to the top to admire. Imagine orange sand instead of brown, and it's like a Viking Lander photo.

• Camping at Texas Spring or Stovepipe is now $10/site/night. Upper TS (loop B) was closed (plumbing problems?)

A number of other places I revisited really hadn't changed much, which is something I really like about Death Valley! (grin)