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I have always wanted to camp for a weekend in the Death Valley area. See the Race Track. Explore the desert mountains... Ya know, the kinda stuff that I grew up watching on "The Wonderful World of Disney" in Georgia and thinking that I would never get the chance to do. Well, I finally conned...er..talked some friends into going!
Jake and Mandy (Cherokee People) seem to not mind my half-baked plans. They even went up a day early to see some of the places that Sharon and I have already been. We came up on Friday to meet them in the evening.
DAY ONE
Big Four Mine
It is already warm on the valley floors (mid 90's) so we started up the Big Four Mine trail early on Saturday. The Trail past the Lake hill is easy running except for a few ruts and some wash-board spots. Once the trail turned and headed up into the canyon, the trail became very faint:
We scouted the trail and after deciding that it was getting hot really fast, we turned back and headed for higher ground.
Pleasant Canyon / South Park Trail
Higher ground meant a very popular trail: Pleasant Canyon/South Park Trail.
Pleasant Canyon is the canyon on the left and South Park Trail is the scar that comes down the face of the mountain to the right:
This trail is so popular that two large groups from 4x4HIM.org were staging to go up the trail. The first group was going up South Park and the second group was going up Pleasant. We were leaving as the first group left, so we chose to climb the Pleasant Canyon side to avoid the crowd.
If you have never run this trail, you really should! The Pleasant Canyon trail is a creek bed in many places:
With mine camps and cool canyon scenery along the way and especially at the top:
We went to Rogers Pass and then down into Middle park. We took a wrong turn and ended up at a canyon without a drivable trail, but the view was awesome:
After returning to the main trail, we entered South Park, where we saw Kenny!:
Unforunately, he was killed by the feral Burros:
Leaving South Park, the down hill run starts with a cave of trees at Colter Spring:
The trail leads down at this point and winds along a shelf road. There is one scary spot from the driver's seat, but the pics didn't do it justice. There is a cool bridge built by the miners:
And a sparce amount of mildly technical stuff:
But all-in-all, my Moderate rating is fairly generous if you consider the whole trail.
After getting down off the mountain, it was still hot on the valley floor, so we headed up hill to the Charcoal Kilns:
These were used during the early mining days to make charcoal to help in the mining process.
Jake and Mandy (Cherokee People) seem to not mind my half-baked plans. They even went up a day early to see some of the places that Sharon and I have already been. We came up on Friday to meet them in the evening.
DAY ONE
Big Four Mine
It is already warm on the valley floors (mid 90's) so we started up the Big Four Mine trail early on Saturday. The Trail past the Lake hill is easy running except for a few ruts and some wash-board spots. Once the trail turned and headed up into the canyon, the trail became very faint:
We scouted the trail and after deciding that it was getting hot really fast, we turned back and headed for higher ground.
Pleasant Canyon / South Park Trail
Higher ground meant a very popular trail: Pleasant Canyon/South Park Trail.
Pleasant Canyon is the canyon on the left and South Park Trail is the scar that comes down the face of the mountain to the right:
This trail is so popular that two large groups from 4x4HIM.org were staging to go up the trail. The first group was going up South Park and the second group was going up Pleasant. We were leaving as the first group left, so we chose to climb the Pleasant Canyon side to avoid the crowd.
If you have never run this trail, you really should! The Pleasant Canyon trail is a creek bed in many places:
With mine camps and cool canyon scenery along the way and especially at the top:
We went to Rogers Pass and then down into Middle park. We took a wrong turn and ended up at a canyon without a drivable trail, but the view was awesome:
After returning to the main trail, we entered South Park, where we saw Kenny!:
Unforunately, he was killed by the feral Burros:
Leaving South Park, the down hill run starts with a cave of trees at Colter Spring:
The trail leads down at this point and winds along a shelf road. There is one scary spot from the driver's seat, but the pics didn't do it justice. There is a cool bridge built by the miners:
And a sparce amount of mildly technical stuff:
But all-in-all, my Moderate rating is fairly generous if you consider the whole trail.
After getting down off the mountain, it was still hot on the valley floor, so we headed up hill to the Charcoal Kilns:
These were used during the early mining days to make charcoal to help in the mining process.
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