Death Valley day #2: the Racetrack, Hunter Mtn & the boxcar cabin
This post is part 2 of the "dv-2008-10" series:
- Death Valley day #1: driving, Darwin Falls & camping
- Death Valley day #2: the Racetrack, Hunter Mtn & the boxcar cabin
- Death Valley day #3: Owens Valley
- Death Valley day #4: Warm Spring, Badwater & Wildrose
- Death Valley day #5: sand, salt & holes
- Death Valley day #6: Titus, Eureka & flying things
- Death Valley day #7: Saline Valley
We woke up fairly early (around 5:30AM), and drove up to the Racetrack. I've done this drive twice before, and other than the \~25 miles of miserable wash-boarding, its not a difficult drive. Teakettle Junction was its usual, quirky self. We looked at the kettles, and added one of our own to the mix. After another 6 miles of some truly awful washboard driving, we reached the Racetrack itself. One interesting thing is that we didn't see anyone else on the entire drive, or once we reached the Racetrack. We always ran into at least one person on the previous two visits.
We parked at the trailhead for Ubehebe Peak (which is across from the Grandstand). This is likely the best source for details on this hike. Several months ago, someone else did this hike, and posted a ton of amazing pictures which captured my attention, and I decided that I wanted to try it too. While I didn't expect that i'd make it the full 2000ft to the top of the peak, I expected that almost any distance up would provide awesome views of the Racetrack & Grandstand below. We headed out at around 9AM, and made good initial progress. However, after climbing the initial alluvial fan, and entering into the first few switchbacks, it started to get alot steeper & the trail became much more narrow. Denise & David decided to turn back, and I continued, however I wasn't sure how much further I was going to go at that point. However, the trail had this addictive quality, where the further I hiked, the better the views became. The Grandstand is this large house sized cluster of rocks when viewed up close, however from the trail, it quickly looked like a bunch of black marbles, and the Racetrack itself appeared as a large flat plate, stretching out for miles below. The car looked like a tiny box, and the random times that I saw David or Denise, they were little more than tiny colored specks. While the actual summit was still very far away, I knew that there was a saddle coming up which might make a good stopping point. From the saddle, the views were even more amazing. In addition to seeing the entire Racetrack Valley spread out before me to the east, I could also see a portion of Saline Valley (including the salt flats), on the other side of the mountain, spreading out to the west. I took numerous awesome pictures, and then began my descent.
On the way up, I was so enticed by the view, that I neglected to notice that the trail continued to become more & more steep, more & more narrow, and more & more treacherous. By treacherous, I mean that it was composed of fine, slippery sand & gravel, that was sloped _away_ from the mountain side. This meant that without walking very carefully, I could lose my footing and slide _off_ the mountain. When climbing, it wasn't all that noticeable because I was leaning into the direction I was walking, which was up so even if I slipped, I'd just fall into the mountain side. However, on the way back down, I was looking down the mountain, and it was rather frightening. While most mountain descents take much less time than the ascent, since gravity is working in my favor, this descent took nearly as long as the ascent. I had to work very hard to control my speed so that I didn't slip, and fall off the mountain. I got back to the car about 2.5 hours after starting, and had some lunch. Denise mentioned that while I was on the mountain, this German tourist driving a Chevy Cobalt came by to ask if this was the Racetrack. European (and especially German) tourists are becoming legendary for driving alot of Death Valley's back roads in ridiculously insufficient rental cars (and often getting stuck/stranded in the process). We spent the next hour exploring the Racetrack itself.
Our initial plan for that night was to camp at Homestake Dry Camp, which is a stretch of flat gravel about 2 miles south of the Racetrack, however since the day was barely half over, it made no sense to setup camp so early. We discussed our options, and decided that we had enough time to complete part of the planned drive for the next day, and would take the Hunter Mountain Road from Teakettle Junction, all the way south over South Pass, down to the Saline Valley Road, and camp somewhere along the last few miles of the Saline Valley Road, for a total of about 49 miles of additional off-road driving. The entire road required a high clearance vehicle, and a portion (primarily the climb & descent of Hunter Mountain) also required four wheel drive. I was fairly excited, as I'd never done this drive before, and it sounded like a fun & semi-challenging stretch. This page does a great job of documenting the route, although I drove it in the reverse direction. Overall, the drive went well, with no major problems, and we didn't run into any other people for the entire length. The portion through Hidden Valley was very scenic, and somewhat sandy to drive through. The one bit of drama was when the dashboard temperature warning came on while climbing Hunter Mountain. When it first happened, I was midway up this bumpy, semi-rocky slope, and put the car into Park, jumped out and checked to see whether I had been leaking coolant, but thankfully was not. The light stayed lit for a while, until we were coming back down over South Pass, and then just went off as oddly as it came on. I'd like to blame the altitude, but we weren't all that high up (only 7100ft). After we came down the steepest descent from South Pass, we started looking around for a good place to camp for the night. Joshua Flats was gorgeous, with the largest Joshua Tree forest in the entire park, but there weren't any good flat, wide open spots for setting up camp, so we continued down hill. About 5 miles from the end of the road (the intersection with CA-190) we spotted the Buckhorn Boxcar Cabin just to the west of the roadway. We checked it out, and decided that it would make a great camp spot for the night. It was in reasonably good condition, with several chairs, a functional outhouse, and even a queen sized mattress.
This post is part 2 of the "dv-2008-10" series:
- Death Valley day #1: driving, Darwin Falls & camping
- Death Valley day #2: the Racetrack, Hunter Mtn & the boxcar cabin
- Death Valley day #3: Owens Valley
- Death Valley day #4: Warm Spring, Badwater & Wildrose
- Death Valley day #5: sand, salt & holes
- Death Valley day #6: Titus, Eureka & flying things
- Death Valley day #7: Saline Valley