By Denis & Sandi Inman
October and November are some of the best months to visit Death Valley National Park. After our trip through some of the trails in the park and on the West side of the Panamint range last week, we decided it would be a good time to check out several of the trails on the East side of the Panamints. With the Sun coming up an hour earlier due to the time change, Jeremy and I met in the Zabriskie Point parking lot at 6 AM to air down.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Tuesday evening, the expedition leader neglected to get a consensus on our departure time so we didn’t leave Ridgecrest until almost 6:30. We don’t know where the winds blew the California Wildfire Smoke, but we enjoyed almost entirely clear blue skies for the last couple of days. For our first trail on Wednesday, we drove up Quarry Road out of Trona to see if we could possibly find the trail across Manley Pass. It was a nice ride with awesome panoramas from the top, but it became clear that the trail we were looking for was in “wilderness” so closed off to motorized vehicles.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Now that the temperatures are more moderate, we decided it would be a good time to take a trip through Death Valley. After meeting at Ashford Mill a little before 7:00 on Tuesday morning and airing down, we got off the highway onto West Side Road, heading North until we reached Warm Springs Road where our group turned left. The Adventurers on this leg of the journey were me, Jeremy & Deanna, Vic & Janice, and Brian & Mike rode in the dustiest position.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Once again, we were shooting for a 6 AM start, but since Jeremy and Deanna showed up at 5:45, just as I completed topping off my tank, we left a little early. After a quick stop in Beatty, we had a 20-minute wait at the road construction site on highway 95. When we reached Cat Road, North of Scotty’s Castle Road, we aired down and headed West in the direction of Tokop. Once we had thoroughly investigated the various towers, the group headed West to Oriental Wash.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Isolating at home was getting excruciatingly boring, so we decided to go on a trail ride. It would be a long one and the logistics would necessitate that the little Esmeralda Market in Dyer would have gas when we arrived there, late in the afternoon. I called ahead and they were confident that we would not get stranded in Fish Lake Valley. Riding with Jeremy were Deanna, Vic, and Janice. I drove solo.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Since several others were invited, we waited until 0700 to leave Maverick’s and hit the trail. Jeremy, Brian, and I drove East on Winery until we reached Parson’s Road that we drove North to the Wheeler Wash and took the riverbed Northeast to the quarry road. Continuing on the road from the Wulfenstein gravel pit to Wheeler Pass Road, we only followed Wheeler for about 1000′ before dropping down into Wheeler Wash again on the Wheeler Wallace Connector Road.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Vic had never been to the spot our club calls the Plateau, neither had his friend Chris, so Jeremy set up a trail run and I was invited. At 0700, we left the Nugget, started up Wheeler Pass Trail then turned off into a dry wash Jeremy found that was both interesting and a little challenging. When we reached the trail to Buck Spring, we continued on up to the Plateau. Normally the view from that spot is breathtaking. Today, due to the pollution, it was not so nice. We could still see the awesome rock formations above us through a light haze of smoke, but it was difficult to make out much below us.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Jeremy found an interesting trail online, so he invited several of us to explore it with him. Along with Vic, riding shotgun with Jeremy, there were Don & Linda, Mike & Patti, and me. There are a couple of ways to approach Tierod Canyon trail and we chose the Sloan area to gain access to the top or East end. Meeting at Speed Vegas at 7:00 AM to air down put us into the canyon within about a half hour. Going in that direction gave us the opportunity to find an offroad route back to Pahrump. The first trail we ran into was a powerline road going South, away from Enterprise. After a few miles, there was a track heading West between Gary Allen and Nevada Royale Quarries.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Starting at 0900 MDST from the Camperland RV park in Beaver Utah, Paul and I drove North into town on Main Street then West on Highway 21 to Adamsville. From there, we headed North on 300W to Pass Road. After investigating numerous trails that piqued our interest, we found a shady spot at a campground on Upper Ranch Canyon Road for our mid-day meal. On a side trip up Kirk Canyon, we came across a hill full of obsidian that had several mine pits on it.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
The plan was to leave the house between 4:00 and 4:30 in order to catch some of the Perseid Meteor Shower as we drove North. That didn’t happen. When Mother Nature’s fireworks display had been over for at least an hour, we were finally on the road. Oh well, maybe we can leave on time Wednesday morning(?).
By Denis & Sandi Inman
On our final day of rides, we were down to Sandi & me, Gary & Nancy, Paul & Doris and Clark as the others had gone on to their next Summer destination. For our first run of the day, we headed South on Highway 93/50 to highway 486, turned East and aired down at the turnout for the dam just inside Cave Lake State Park. We drove past the ranger station and continued on National Forest Road 574 along Cave Creek.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
At the 9:00 AM Wednesday driver’s meeting, we were down one Jeep from the previous 2 days roll calls. Mike & Patti had to return to Pahrump, so 6 vehicles headed North on highway 93, through McGill to White Pine County Road 29. From the intersection, we drove East about 3 miles to National Forestry Road 427 where we stopped to air down before heading up the hill towards Kalamazoo Pass. When we had completed a short break at the summit, we began the descent to the South Fork Campground area for another stop.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
There was a good mixture of vehicles at the 9:00 AM Monday driver’s meeting. We had 4 Jeep Wranglers carrying Sandi & I, Gary & Nancy, Ed & Janet and Clark. Mike & Patti have a Jeep Gladiator, Paul & Doris were in their Jeep Grand Cherokee and expertly leading the group today were James & Helen in their Toyota 4Runner. Many thanks to them. Sandi was our guest photographer and I think she did a wonderful job giving us a different perspective.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
My friends Mike & Patti texted me (yes, I can text) that they were interested in going on a trail ride. I hadn’t been on a run for over a week, so I was up for one too. We met at the Maverick at 0600 and proceeded up the Wheeler Wash to near the junction of the gravel pit road and Wheeler Pass Road. After just barely climbing out of the wash, we dropped back in to take Wheeler-Wallace Connector Road up towards Wallace Canyon.
By Denis & Sandi Inman
Several of us wanted to get out of the house to take a break from the news about the COVID-19 virus and the violent race riots protests. Originally we weren’t going to leave Pahrump until 6 AM, but since Jeremy, Vic and I were all coffeed up and ready to go at 5:30, we headed out.
