Organized Event: Panamint Valley Days 11/11/11

[igofshn]

http://www.ca4wdc.com/events/panamint-valley-days.html

11-13 N0vember 2011

[alittleoff]

We'll be there.

Steve

[Red rubicon]

I will be there for my fifth year now. I love this event.
Kevin

[DzrtRat]

Im in, Definately!!

[MyBrokenJeep]

We are definitely going this year! Last year was a great time!

[Jason]

Last year was my first time out there. I'm going again. I need to go find the Barker Ranch this time.

[DaK]

Just head up Coyote canyon. One little water fall to crest and the rest is cake. You will pass a cabin where the stream meanders, if there are people there stop and talk with the dude in the lifted chevy P/U. Its his claim and he has some great history on the place and all the mines you will see along the way. There is a split in the road that goes to the right that has a stand of trees, take that way. Barker Ranch will be on your left as you come through the grove. How a freakin school bus ever made it up there is beyond me but it did. Then on your way out, take the way to striped butte. Worth the drive.

[MyBrokenJeep]

Last year was my first time out there. I'm going again. I need to go find the Barker Ranch this time.

Jason going over Chicken Rock last year... Unfortunately I hear that this has been closed...

[Jason]

My registration has been completed.

[Russ Chung]

....How a freakin school bus ever made it up there is beyond me but it did...

The Manson family's school bus didn't go up Goler Wash; they came up through the Owlshead Mountains from the southeast. That road is now closed because it crosses a wilderness area. The road still shows up on some GPS maps, and from time to time, tourists will follow their GPS, break down and get stranded in the desert. Here's part of a newspaper article about visitors who became stuck in that area:
[COLOR="blue"]
Six-year-old Carlos Sanchez was not so lucky. He died in the 115-degree heat after a Jeep his mother, Alicia, was driving became stuck on an isolated road in the southwest corner of the park in 2009. And according to Amber Nattrass – the ranger who found them – GPS played a role in leading the mother astray.

"She was following a GPS unit," Natrass said.

Sanchez was trying to drive into Death Valley from the south via an unpaved route along the valley floor called the Harry Wade Road. Instead, she ended up on a dead-end backcountry road, which she followed for more than 20 miles along the south side of the Owlshead Mountains.

"The road is very rough. It's a hard drive," said Nattrass. "There was probably a point where she said, 'Oh my God, I don't know where I am. I'm going to keep going because I think I'm going the right direction.'

"A lot of people don't realize you should just turn around and go back the way you came," she said. "We see that a lot here."

Near where the road ends, Nattrass followed the tire tracks that turned onto "a closed road in the wilderness area … going over several small bushes and rocks lined along the road to designate closure," her report says.

And it was down that road – on Aug. 6, 2009 – that Nattrass spotted the Jeep stuck up to its axles in the sand with SOS spelled in medical tape on the windshield. Alicia, then 28, a nurse from Las Vegas, was lying next to it in the shade, distraught over the death of her son and so dehydrated she had been drinking her own urine.[/COLOR]

[igofshn]

I'm registered. Leaving Thursday the 10th. Plan on being in Mojave for lunch around 1100.

[Jason]

Same place as last year?

[igofshn]

Yep. Same place

[JeepGal]

FYI to all who are coming to Panamint Valley Days

from: Ray Leuschner


Hello my name is Carol Wade. My husband Sonny Wade runs the quarry right above where you will be staying and tries to get your roads watered.

I am writing to let you know so you can convey to your 4-wheelers that there is NO GAS in Trona. We have been without gas for about a month and Sonny wanted you to know so your 4-wheelers will not come thinking that they can get gas here. The nearest gas is in Ridgecrest 30 miles from us.


Happy Jeeping


Carol Wade

(just thought Id forward it on...)

[alittleoff]

Thanks for the heads up.