Death Valley day #7: Saline Valley
This post is part 7 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
The night in Eureka Valley was, by far, the coldest of the entire trip. It was 32F when we got up in the morning. We were definitely unprepared for such low temperatures, and we all spent much of the night shivering. We got up, and got moving fast, just to warm up.
We drove back north out of Eureka Valley, and then headed west on the Death Valley Road, all the way over to the junction with the Saline Valley Road. This was to be my first trip into Saline Valley, and I really had no clue exactly what the road would be like (other than reading some accounts from others). The drive up, over & down the North Pass into Saline Valley wasn't too bad from a technical driving perspective, but it was rather miserable nonetheless. The road was just brutally rocky. Not huge rocks, but rocks ranging in size from plums all the way to grapefruits. We passed two other vehicles going in the opposite direction as we were coming down into the valley. Considering how that was more people than we had seen in a single day since leaving the paved road to Scotty's Castle, it stood out. Once we got down the pass and started the final descent into the valley, we were looking for the turnoff for Warm Springs. According to the mileage on our maps (we had the 'Jeep' Death Valley Back Roads map and the National Geographic Trails Illustrated map), the turn off should have been at a very specific place, but instead, we got to an unmarked (well, they're all basically unmarked) road heading east less than a half mile early. Since we didn't want to start blindly driving down an unknown road, we continued southward, and after going well past the mileage where the turn off should have been, and coming parallel with the sand dunes, we knew that we missed the turn off. Since we knew that we were going to be tight on gas (we last filled up back in Beatty, NV, two days earlier), we didn't feel comfortable risking back tracking, and decided to skip Warm Springs. It was a bit disappointing, but that was better than the alternative of running out of gas.
We chose a random spot to pull over, and David & I hiked out to the sand dunes to explore. David loves sand dunes, and can't resist them. Both at the end of August, and again in mid September to flash floods rampaged through Saline Valley. We saw blatant signs of this torrent as we explored the dunes. Nearly every low lying place in the dunes showed clear signs of fast moving & deep standing water in the recent past. While the dunes themselves weren't all that tall (maybe 12ft, tops) and therefore weren't much of an attraction, the dried sand & mud from the storms were rather impressive. Some places had ornate patterns from the flowing water. Other places had alot of cracked dried sand in geometric patterns, while others had to have had several inches of standing water, as the dried sand was pulling away from the underlying never wet sand in 2 inch thick chunks. David was rather intrigued, and walked over and casually picked up a large block of sand and tossed it, just to watch it shatter into many small pieces. It was rather cool to watch. While we were hiking around on the sand a group of dirt bikers (at least 6) came down the road from the north. Denise said that two of them even stopped to ask if she needed assistance. So here we are in what many keep claiming is one of the most remote places in California, and we've already seen more people in the past 3 hours than we've seen in the past 2 days combined. We hiked back to the car, and continued our drive southward. A mile or so later, another, different group of dirt bikers came by in the opposite direction.
After a few more miles, we came upon this older lady, walking along the side of the road. Since seeing anyone walking along the road usually means that their car is broken, we stopped to ask if she was ok. She claimed that she owned some land in the valley, and was just going for a walk. She then proceeded to warn us that the road ahead was in very bad condition. We knew that the road had been blocked by a large boulder up until a few days earlier, and had alot of washouts, so we weren't too concerned. Up ahead we did cross a few washouts, but nothing too bad. Then as we approached Beveridge Canyon, the road got very bad. It was basically a quarter mile long stretch that was nothing but medium to large sized rocks washed across it. We also saw the infamous boulder that had been moved out of the road earlier. I took the section very slowly, as we bumped & lurched along over the mess, and made it across safely. Thankfully, that was the worst stretch of road that we encountered all day. Yet again, we were so focused on driving the road that we neglected to get any pictures.
A bit further down the road, we finally came to the turn off for the salt trams, and the edge of the salt flats. The salt trams were built back in 1911, and were used, sporadically up until 1936, to haul salt harvested from the valley floor up over the Inyo mountains, and back down into Owens Valley for transport & sale. Sadly today, there's not much left on the valley floor except 3 of the towers that supported the tram. Even so, it was an interesting relic of another time. What we didn't expect is that the entire area near the edge of the salt flats (and the lake) is a ridiculously slick mudflat. Every step caused us to sink an inch or more into the mud, and when we didn't sink down, we almost slipped and fell. We made it back to the car with rather muddy shoes, and then continued further down the road.
After a bit more, we started the slow, and gradual climb out of the valley. The road quality also degraded noticeably from mostly flat, moderately graded sandy gravel to larger rocks. We made a brief stop at the point where the notorious Lipincott Road road intersects the Saline Valley Road. The junction is notable for a huge (about 4ft tall) rock pile, which was likely a well crafted cairn long ago. Once past this point, the road became alot more steep and narrow, as we made the ascent up to the South Pass. Along the way, we encountered two shallow stream crossings (each about the length of a car), but no other cars.
The remainder of the drive was completely uneventful, although rather scenic, up until we were 0.4 miles from CA-190, the paved road at the end of the day's drive. Inyo County had started to grade the Saline Valley road, working their way up from the south. It was freshly graded all the way up the turn off for the Boxcar Cabin. I was so happy & eager to reach a relatively smooth chunk of road after about 6.5 hours of off road driving that I increased my speed significantly. For much of the past week, I rarely drove any faster than 25MPH on unpaved roads, but this graded portion was so smooth that I was going nearly 45MPH without a care in the world. Until I was 0.4 miles from CA-190. Suddenly the low tire pressure dashboard light came on, and my luck had run out. I was determined to limp along the remaining 0.4 miles, and as soon as I got to the intersection, I got out to inspect the damage. Immediately I heard a loud hissing sound originating from the front driver's side tire, and it was very flat. We had brought along a can of 'fix-a-flat' and I gave that a shot first, hoping that I could avoid having to change the tire. Initially, it looked very promising, as the tire began to inflate, however within a minute of emptying out the can into the tire, it started to lose all the pressure, and was completely flat again. I was hoping that perhaps if I drove, slowly, on the tire for a short distance, perhaps the chemicals would work their magic and seal the puncture, but even after driving a short distance eastbound on CA-190, there was no improvement, and it became apparent that I've have to change the tire. With Denise's assistance, we got the tire changed in just under an hour. What we didn't realize until that time was that the spare tire was not a full size tire, nor was it a doughnut, but some weird passenger car sized tire. Denise noted that had we gotten a flat anywhere away from the paved road, we might have been thoroughly screwed, as this spare was definitely not rated for off-road use, much less 4 wheel drive usage. While I did check the tire before picking up the vehicle at Avis, I only looked quickly to make sure it wasn't some tiny doughnut, as it never occurred to me that a light truck spare might be something altogether different. Anyway, we were very fortunate that we traversed a few hundred miles of unpaved roads over the past week with no problems. In retrospect, it was almost certainly the fact that I was driving way too fast on the road that caused the flat. Most flat tired on unpaved roads are due to driving too fast, which effectively pins sharp rocks under the tire, rather than allowing them to shift around.
We got some gas at PSR, and then spent the final night back at Wildrose campground. The weather that night was quite nice, and I had the best night of sleep of the entire trip. Our drive home the following day was uneventful.
This post is part 7 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