Anniversary Trip: Day of Ooops

Sometimes one accidentally turns down the incorrect unmarked dirt road.  Sometimes one doesn't immediately turn around upon figuring that out 1/4 mile in.  Sometimes the road then turns to sand.

This probably isn't a problem if only two of three of those conditions hold in any given incident.

Here is the offending dirt road.  It took off from the main road probably only a couple hundred yards before the road we really wanted, and all of these desert tracks look similar.  When we turned off, I asked what the mileage on the van was, indicated that we should take the left at the fork in 1/4 mile, and then promptly stopped paying attention.  After all, there was nothing to choose until after that fork.

Then it got sandy.  "How far in are we?"  "About a mile and a half."  Argh!!!  If it was the correct road, we would have had a turn by then.  And by this point, I can tell that while it is going towards intriguing pointy mountains, they are the incorrect intriguing pointy mountains.  We don't want to take the van into that sand, plus I'm now 110% sure it is the wrong road, so time to turn around.

The spot we chose to turn around in looked solid.  That was a lie.  A nasty evil plot by the sand, as it desperately wanted to eat unsuspecting travellers.  Anything off the main doubletrack immediately turned into soft sand down an invisible lip.  One can't actually turn around here anywhere.  Uh oh.

But wait!  We brought the sand plates.  Surely that will help?

Why no, of course not.  The astute among you will have noticed that the sand plates in the pictures above are positioned all goofy-like by the time these pictures were taken.  There is a reason.  Let me lay it out for you:

Van is rear wheel drive, so those wheels are the ones that need traction.

So, what does one do?  One puts the sand plates behind the rear wheels, digs some sand out of the way of the front wheels and tries to back up.

Yay, it looks like it is working, as the right rear wheel (the one I am watching while Chad backs up) is able to move off of the soft sand and back up sort of onto the roadbed.

Then -- zZzzzzip!  The sand plates are sucked under the rear tires and spat out in front of them.  The one under the right rear wheel is now in front of the wheel, but still weighted under the van enough to be stuck there.  The one under the left rear wheel has been sucked all the way through and shot to the front of the van at high speed, and the left rear wheel has now dug itself a new hole into the formerly firm road bed.  Hmmm.  Not the intended effect.

Roadbed is hard on the top surface, covered by thin layer of somewhat slippery sand pellets.

Rear wheels are up on the roadbed, quite a bit higher than the front wheels.

Most of the weight is on the front wheels.

Slippery sand pellets act as little ball bearings to allow the sand plates to slide right under the wheels when the wheels are powered, and there is not enough weight on those wheels to hold the plates in place.  The wheels just grab the plates and shoot 'em on through.

Sort of looked like a cartoon to watch.  Except that one can't just change the channel.

What to do, what to do?  We tried using some vegetation for traction (not enough of it to help, plus it was creosote, so merely started smoking as the wheels spun over it).  We tried using the jack to lift up the front right tire so there would be more weight on the back (not successful, as we didn't have the big jack with us and the angle we were dealing with was larger than it seems in the photos).  We tried rocking the van back and forth while I shoved rocks into the hole under the left rear tire (partially successful, as I eventually figured out how to place the rocks get that hole filled without having all the rocks just spit through to the front.)  We had high hopes for that latter strategy, and did eventually get the hole filled and the back wheel moved a couple feet back off of it.  You'd think that would be a cause for celebration, but it immediately became apparent that now the angle of the van was that little bit more extreme and that back wheel, while it had moved three feet back, was now no longer touching the road surface at all.

Incidentally, I must have collected all the fist-size rocks within a 500-foot radius.  There were no rocks larger than this.  Now they are in a tightly packed deposit under where the left rear wheel had been.  Future geologists will be puzzled.

By this point, it had been a couple of hours.  I was in a state of absolute flow, placing rocks, problem solving, unaware of time passing.  Fortunately Chad noticed that it was getting to be mid-afternoon --the light was starting to change -- and that it would be a good idea to figure out how to get help before it got dark.  (While we *could* have just slept there for the night, the van was tipped at an angle that would have made it a bit uncomfortable.)  We really only needed to be pulled back about 3 feet more back onto the road and then all would be well.

A tow truck would probably be about a two hour wait.  Our friends also lived about two hours away.  Call the friends?  Tempting, but that would have had a high likelihood of getting friends stuck too.  We called for the tow truck, and after some discussion they decided to send their 4WD from Barstow, two hours away.

Chad stayed with the van, while I walked down to the point where the dirt road met the main paved road to meet the driver.  Didn't want him to go down the wrong little desert dirt road, and it wasn't like we could just say "We need a tow at 123 Main St"...  In this modern era, I also shared cell phone location with the driver so he could see where I was and I could see when he was getting close.  So I sat on the side of the road and caught up on old issues of the Economist, all the while tracking his little blue dot on the phone map.

Tony the tow truck driver from Barstow was wonderful.  He showed up about a half hour faster than projected, with his 4WD pickup on the back of a flatbed truck.

Isn't it a cute little truck?  The photos in the late afternoon light definitely show its best face.  The thing must have been more than 50 years old, and definitely had character that can only be described as "classic", by which I mean "can drive anywhere, but cantankerous as all get-out, and must have been old when your grandpa was a kid"   It only died once on the way up the dirt road (engine flooded?); after Tony got it going again he couldn't go slowly lest it die again, so the ride up to the van was a bit of a Mr.-Toad's-Wild-Ride up the bumpy desert road, amidst the cloud of automotive fumes emanating from the vehicle.  Sort of fun.

If we had these tires on the van, we wouldn't have gotten stuck.

The light was waning by the time we got to Chad and the van, but it didn't take Tony long at all to turn his truck around, hook up the strap, and pull us out of the sand.  He was nice enough to drive slowly on the way out to give Chad a light to follow, as we had to back down the mile and a half to the main road.  That's a quite a bit of backing up in the dark after a fairly long day!

Sunset on the way out.

We were lucky that I had enough cell signal earlier in the day to identify a place to park the van and camp just across the main highway and down a dirt road that was labelled as 2WD friendly, so we headed over, set up in the dark, and went to sleep.  It was pretty quiet there for all that it was close to the road, and we woke up to more gorgeous desert.

What I hadn't told Chad the night before was that the little short piece of dirt access road was another pipeline road....I had good info that the piece we would be on was short and in good condition, and just wanted to stop for the night.  Fortunately, the only side effect was a little bit of truck traffic in the morning from the training and work they were doing that day (yes, upon seeing this sign all I could picture was tortoises fleeing from the rumble of noisy trucks).  The previous 24 hours had not been the planned vacation day, but were certainly memorable!

New (to me) levee trail

 Here's a small break from the vacation posts, as I took a bike ride yesterday that turned out to be more interesting than I expected.

It was gorgeous out, but I was feeling lazy — so no hills. Let’s head out to the edge of the Bay. Out near the Dumbarton bridge there were people walking along a levee that I didn't know about. It didn't look to terribly muddy, despite the previous day's rain, so naturally the levee needed to be explored.

Gorgeous! It's always fun to look at familiar surroundings from a new vantage point.

The levee eventually dumped me out on 84, which looked a little dicey traffic-wise, until I realized I could follow some bike tracks about 200 yards through the mud and end up on the shoreline trail that goes behind Facebook. It was oddly empty back there, as everyone is working from home, so I had that trail to myself.  Exploring new-to-me connections is always fun!

Anniversary Trip: the Vulcan Mine

Given that we had a good camping spot by the dunes with the only tree for miles, we figured we might as well stay another night, and spend the day riding our bikes on nearby dirt roads.  This way we could leave the van behind to hold our spot.

It also gave us an opportunity to leave out the scavenged solar panels we had gotten from a friend to charge up our fridge battery while we rode.

I noticed while perusing the map over breakfast that there was a nearby mine we could ride to.  While the guidebook suggested a specific driving route, I saw that there was another road on my map that looked like it essentially made a beeline from the main road up to the mine rather than backtracking a couple of miles to the suggested road.  The shortcut looked to be a very straight road, going right where we wanted.

Beware of very straight roads.  Especially ones labelled "Pipeline Road".  Even if you think you can see that it goes gently up the alluvial fan to the mine in the base of a nearby mountain. 

Logic to support the above assertion:

(1) Pipeline roads are straight, and rarely make any concession to underlying topography.

(2)  Alluvial fans often have washes coming down them.

(3) You will inevitably find yourself crossing washes, even if you think you are going directly up the fan and therefore shouldn't need to cross any washes.  In reality, you will be going up the fan at a slight angle to the ubiquitous washes and will need to cross all of them.

(4)  Above is true even if you think you can see the entire road all the way up from the bottom.  The landscape is big and the sneaky washes hide from your view.

(5)  Alluvial fans increase in gradient as you go up them.  This increase is more pronounced the further you go up.  Think exponential increase of hill gradient.

(6) Washes are deeper on steeper slopes.  Combined with (5), this means the drops into the washes and the climbs out of the washes get harder the further up the alluvial fan you go (and the more tired you are).

And just for good measure,

(7)  The increasingly evil washes become more frequent the further up you go, so not only is it harder to go across them, but there are also more of them lying in wait to eat you up.

The end result was that our climb started benign, then got gradually steeper with a few washes to cross. The wash crossings continued to escalate in size and frequency until we were stuck on a never-ending series of steep drops followed by steeper climbs back out the other side, all overlaid on top of the general climb.  And when I say steep, I mean in excess of 20% grade on loose sandy dirt by the end of it.  Steep enough that I doesn't want to ride either up or down those bits.  I did a bit of walking, hoping that each section would be the last.  I mean, I could *see* where I was going just up ahead, and any given stretch would look like smooth sailing until right on top of the next wash to cross.  Over and over again.  Sigh.   The top that was "just ahead" was misleadingly far away.  

The climb topped out only about 1000 feet higher than where we started, but it was the toughest 1000 feet ever.

Eventually, we did make it up to the top, went around the corner, and popped out at the Vulcan Mine site.  I was finally allowed to eat lunch :)

After a snack, we poked around a bit on foot.  The Vulcan Mine was one of the richer mines in the area, and unlike many others, was an iron mine with a big pit.

They clearly didn't want people poking around in the pit, so one had to poke one's camera through the fence to get a good picture.

Interesting dense chunks of iron minerals dotted the ground, and numerous concrete foundations of old structures from the mining era peeked out from behind clumps of bushes.  It would actually make an interesting spot to camp.  And people do camp here; we found the usual detritus of broken bottles, as well as a neatly stacked cache of firewood.

We chose to go back down the "long way" -- the suggested route in the book -- and it turned out to actually follow the fall line down the fan, avoiding the worst of the sawtooth wash topography we encountered on the way up.  Perhaps there was a reason it was recommended...

Chad, posing with my bike, just because he could.

There were some bumps and soft spots in the road going down.  Chad rides downhill faster than me, but every now and again I'd catch up to him.  He kept stopping to pick up "treasures" -- lights that clearly had fallen off of people's trucks as they drove up this way previously.  So now we have treasures.

At one point, Chad found a nice full-sized shovel next to a sandy spot in the road.  Someone must have gotten stuck there, and then forgotten to grab their shovel after getting unstuck.  Sadly, that treasure would have been hard to carry on the bike given that we still had about 8 miles back to camp, so we left it to help the next person who might get stuck there. 

As we came down the hill, there was a nice view of the Kelso Dunes.

Looking back up the road from its terminus at the main road.  Despite the "not maintained" sign, this is clearly the way to go if you want to get up to the mine.  Next time I will not be fooled by the pipeline road shortcut.

Back at camp, we found restorative beverages in the cooler, made some dinner, and settled in to watch the sunset over the dunes.

The blurry flying critter is a bat.  You'll have to take my word for it, as he wouldn't sit still for the camera.  He visited us both nights, and was one more fine feature of this area.

 

Anniversary Trip: Mojave Ho!

Time to go back to the desert -- this time to the Mojave National Preserve.  Our previous visit here was in the summer, so we naturally spent move time at higher elevations and in shady caves, leaving me feeling like I had unfinished business with the desert floor. I had especially wanted to poke around the Kelso Dunes, which we seemed to catch glimpses of from different angles wherever we went.  This trip, it wasn't so hot, so I directed Chad to head for the dunes.

Camping is allowed near the dunes, and we got lucky enough to score a spot under the only big tree for miles.  We had first set up somewhere else, but by the time we were ready to go on our hike, the people previously parked under the tree were gone, so I ran over and guarded it menacingly until Chad moved the van.

After securing our spot for the right, we headed out on foot to see how far up the nearest dune we could get before the light started running out.  Hiking in sand is slow going and hard work!

As usual, we liked the big views.  But what is this?  Something small to look at too?

Footprints!  The late afternoon light revealed the marks of many, many small feeties in the sand.

Hoofed prints, many-toed prints, squiggly prints, little stick prints. Imagining who made the many prints, and wondering where they were all hiking, kept us amused as we slogged up the dune.

We made people prints,

and admired shadows in the sand.

The nearby mountains weren't bad either.

On the way back down. Chad noticed that his shoes seemed oddly full.  His boots, while highly breathable, also let in a lot of sand.  The amount of sand he poured out when we were done was seemingly more than the volume of his foot.  After dumping them out, he tucked the boots carefully under the van.

Back at camp, we noticed a beetle investigating a broccoli stem left behind by a previous camper, and after watching it walk across the sand, decided that the some of the small linear footprints we saw earlier must have been beetle tracks. I would not have guessed that had we not had a handy beetle to observe..

Cooking dinner in the waning light once again.   This happens often when the sun sets at 4:30.

The sunset was gentle, and the color palette of the dunes constantly shifted until the light disappeared entirely and the thinnest of crescent moons came up.

Back to Chad's boots.   When we got up the next morning, there was only one boot sitting under the van, where there had been a pair when we had gone to bed.  Hmmm... Did it walk off?  What do we do?  After looking around, we we spotted it sitting in the dirt about 30 feet away. Missing most of its shoelace. Apparently one of the footprint-making critters thought the boot smelled yummy, dragged it off, and chawed off the lace! The broccoli stem was still there, so we added it to our collection of trash.

Anniversary Trip: Visiting Friends

After Death Valley, we popped over to see some good friends who just moved out of the Bay Area.  I know, it is not really the time to visit friends, but we had been isolated in the desert for a week (and have been careful at home), they have been careful and were in our pod before moving recently, and at that point the local covid case rates weren't nearly as horrible as now. So, hello R & K!

We spent the weekend catching up, cleaning up, and admiring their new digs.  They have a lovely view of Lake Mead off the back patio.

Eat, drink, and be merry!  Hospitality is always good with R & K.

Being us, we egged them into exploring a nearby canyon.  Since it is a more populated area than where we were the previous week, there were a lot more people here, and some sketchy ropes in the trickier spots.  (I avoided the ropes where possible, as I don't trust ropes of uncertain age and provenance...)  This canyon was jolly as it had some hot springs down near the bottom.  I would have preferred there be fewer people (some of whom clearly didn't know what they were getting themselves into), but it was still fun.

Our wee dirtbag Sprinter parked next to their larger, more lux-o Sprinter.  Same platform, different priorities.  We're going to have to meet out in Death Valley or the Eastern Sierra at some point in the future for further mutual adventures.

Many thanks to R&K for a lovely weekend!

Anniversary Trip: Twenty Mule Team Canyon

Our last day in Death Valley, before heading off to other desert destinations:  What else to do but another canyon scramble?

This day's destination was the short drainage of Twenty Mule Team Canyon.  Why the funny name?  Historically, large teams of twenty mules were used to haul each wagon full of borax from the mines in Death Valley.  The rocks in this canyon are chock full of borate minerals, so they named it for the mule teams, even though said mule teams were never used in this particular canyon.  By the time it was prospected, most of the borax mining activity had moved to deposits to the southwest of Death Valley, near the town of Boron.  

Incidentally, I just found out that one of Chad's grandfathers had apparently been a mule skinner, back in the day.  Interesting bit of old family trivia.

We parked in the widest spot we could find in the narrow one-way road near the drainage, after passing some confused people going the wrong way down the road because they got freaked out by one short steep pitch up ahead.  (It wasn't that bad, but some drivers are skittish...)  The flat spot on the left side of the road where we parked was apparently the site of the Monte Blanco assay office during the mining days.  That building has since been moved down to Furnace Creek and now houses the Borax Museum, which we did not visit due to wanting to avoid interior spaces at this particular point in time.

Monte Blanco = white mountain, from all the borate minerals.  The camera had a hard time for the first few pictures because it was in the wrong setting, and the rocks were just so white.  It does give a sense of how bright it seemed that morning, however.

We headed up the wide wash, as our book instructed.  No one else was stopping here, so we had it to ourselves :)

Soon, we started to find old prospects, the canyon narrowed,

and became quite fun to clamber in.  I love this kind of hike!

The views of the badlands below were particularly good further up the canyon,

and we enjoyed our last day in the park before heading off to the next part of the trip.