Project-JK Death Valley run - dialup warning!
11-12-2007, 01:45 PM
#1
JK Super Freak
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,492
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Project-JK Death Valley run - dialup warning!
I had a moment of panic this morning when I realized that I had mistakenly formatted one of my CF cards and lost 1MB of photos, but I can wholeheartedly recommend the CardRecovery program at http://www.cardrecovery.com/ to anyone who has a blonde or senior moment and does the same thing. 
Anyhoo, here are some of the photos I've processed so far and some of the things I remember about the weekend. Please feel free to jump in and make corrections and add to anything I've missed. I don't know the names of some of the roads we took, and after my panic attack this morning I'm sure I'm going to forget stuff anyway.
The TrailBitch and I (thank you jkjeep, for some bizarre reason he's actually enjoying his new name) hooked up with WoL/WoL-ette, their son and Tessa the trailpup and FunN4Lo and his younger brother Bobby here in the O.C. for the ride up to meet with the rest of the gang. We met up with jkjeep, Trailbud and his son Ryan, JKTyrant and his friend (whose name I didn't catch
), and driley, who has recently moved into the area and is a newcomer to our group, at the trailhead in Keeler, known as the ghost town that refuses to die.
We started up Cerro Gordo (a.k.a. Yellow Grade) Road
This well graded road was deceptive and played a mean trick on everyone driving an automatic. It climbs over 5500 feet in 7.5 miles. I think there were three of us driving an automatic, and as we attempted to climb this road our transmissions were not happy.
We would ease on the gas and our jeeps wouldn't move, so we would give it more gas and they still wouldn't move. So we gave them more gas and all of a sudden the tach would jump to 4000 and we would inch up. We tried every gear combination possible with the same results. Then there was the mysterious chime...no lights on the dash, but all of us were getting a chime. Then we could smell something burning. Not realizing that the others were having the same problem, we were each mentally computing the cost of a blown transmission in the middle of nowhere. When we finally made it to the top WoL got out of his jeep and said if we smelled something burning it was him because something (transmission fluid?) was overfilled...Phew! Big sigh of relief, especially once we realized that we all had the same problems getting to the top. Strange because we've all climbed steeper hills and never had that problem before...
We made it to the ghost town of Cerro Gordo mine. WoL warned us that it is privately owned, but we stopped to take some photos from the road (and let our jeeps cool down).
CGM - Cerro Gordo Mine
Part of the mine structure that could be seen from the road
This is the photo that caused all of the trouble
As soon as I took a photo of the fence I was approached by a charming elderly gentleman who asked if he could help me. I told him that we just stopped for a minute to stretch our legs and take a few photos. He informed me that he owns the land and is restoring the town, and that we were welcome to look around as much as we wanted, that there is a guest register he would like us to sign, and that there is a fee schedule!
I politely told him that we had just stopped for a minute and would be on our way and I started heading back toward the rest of the group to let them know the proprietor wanted money . Everyone went back to the jeeps, and I'm not really sure what happened after that, but apparently the guy decided to hunt us down. He raced over to us in his truck and started screaming at us to get off his land (what happened to the charm he was pouring on to me a few minutes ago?). The guys thought he was about to take a shotgun out of his truck, and there was some debate about having a standoff or getting out of dodge . Someone else is going to have to fill in the blanks on this story because I missed the entire second half somehow. All I know is that the Wild West is alive and well. 
Our next stop was at a spot overlooking the dunes down below in Death Valley
And then we headed for Lippincott Mine Road
I didn't get any photos on that trail because I was too busy keeping my eyes on what was left of the trail.
Actually, it was much better than I thought it was going to be with only two spots that made me a little nervous...one where I thought I was heading down into the abyss but my jeep didn't even notice that there was no road beneath it, and the spot where I tried to climb up the wall.
To be continued...
Anyhoo, here are some of the photos I've processed so far and some of the things I remember about the weekend. Please feel free to jump in and make corrections and add to anything I've missed. I don't know the names of some of the roads we took, and after my panic attack this morning I'm sure I'm going to forget stuff anyway.
The TrailBitch and I (thank you jkjeep, for some bizarre reason he's actually enjoying his new name) hooked up with WoL/WoL-ette, their son and Tessa the trailpup and FunN4Lo and his younger brother Bobby here in the O.C. for the ride up to meet with the rest of the gang. We met up with jkjeep, Trailbud and his son Ryan, JKTyrant and his friend (whose name I didn't catch
), and driley, who has recently moved into the area and is a newcomer to our group, at the trailhead in Keeler, known as the ghost town that refuses to die.We started up Cerro Gordo (a.k.a. Yellow Grade) Road
This well graded road was deceptive and played a mean trick on everyone driving an automatic. It climbs over 5500 feet in 7.5 miles. I think there were three of us driving an automatic, and as we attempted to climb this road our transmissions were not happy.
We would ease on the gas and our jeeps wouldn't move, so we would give it more gas and they still wouldn't move. So we gave them more gas and all of a sudden the tach would jump to 4000 and we would inch up. We tried every gear combination possible with the same results. Then there was the mysterious chime...no lights on the dash, but all of us were getting a chime. Then we could smell something burning. Not realizing that the others were having the same problem, we were each mentally computing the cost of a blown transmission in the middle of nowhere. When we finally made it to the top WoL got out of his jeep and said if we smelled something burning it was him because something (transmission fluid?) was overfilled...Phew! Big sigh of relief, especially once we realized that we all had the same problems getting to the top. Strange because we've all climbed steeper hills and never had that problem before...We made it to the ghost town of Cerro Gordo mine. WoL warned us that it is privately owned, but we stopped to take some photos from the road (and let our jeeps cool down).
CGM - Cerro Gordo Mine
Part of the mine structure that could be seen from the road
This is the photo that caused all of the trouble
As soon as I took a photo of the fence I was approached by a charming elderly gentleman who asked if he could help me. I told him that we just stopped for a minute to stretch our legs and take a few photos. He informed me that he owns the land and is restoring the town, and that we were welcome to look around as much as we wanted, that there is a guest register he would like us to sign, and that there is a fee schedule!
I politely told him that we had just stopped for a minute and would be on our way and I started heading back toward the rest of the group to let them know the proprietor wanted money . Everyone went back to the jeeps, and I'm not really sure what happened after that, but apparently the guy decided to hunt us down. He raced over to us in his truck and started screaming at us to get off his land (what happened to the charm he was pouring on to me a few minutes ago?). The guys thought he was about to take a shotgun out of his truck, and there was some debate about having a standoff or getting out of dodge . Someone else is going to have to fill in the blanks on this story because I missed the entire second half somehow. All I know is that the Wild West is alive and well. Our next stop was at a spot overlooking the dunes down below in Death Valley
And then we headed for Lippincott Mine Road
I didn't get any photos on that trail because I was too busy keeping my eyes on what was left of the trail.
Actually, it was much better than I thought it was going to be with only two spots that made me a little nervous...one where I thought I was heading down into the abyss but my jeep didn't even notice that there was no road beneath it, and the spot where I tried to climb up the wall. To be continued...
Last edited by OffTopic; 11-13-2007 at 10:07 PM.
11-12-2007, 02:01 PM
#2
JK Super Freak
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,492
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
We quickly set up camp and drove down to the RaceTrack playa to grab some photos before sunset
One of the mysterious moving rocks:
We were lucky enough to get a campsite with a firepit, but other than one Duraflame log someone fortunately brought, no one brought any wood because we didn't think we'd be able to have a fire. It got dark (and cold!) around 5:30...we huddled around the lanterns to keep warm for a while, but we finally had to light the log, and then we spent the next several hours trying to find dead twigs to keep the fire going. We managed to keep it going until around 9:00, and with a little help from Trailbud's Jameson's and JKTyrant's Bushmills, everyone was ready to call it a night.
At sunrise a few of us rushed back down to the RaceTrack to grab some more photos. This time we went to the opposite end near the Grandstand.
Back to camp for breakfast, the people who didn't go to the Racetrack headed out to explore an old mine.
FunN4Lo making me proud by cooking an omelette in a bag for brother
Me and my Trailbitch (that's him on the right)
After breaking camp we drove down to the Racetrack for our group photo, but had to stop along the way to let this guy cross the road
After the group photo we took Racetrack Road down to Teakettle Junction
Now where do you suppose the nearest gas station is??
To be continued...
One of the mysterious moving rocks:
We were lucky enough to get a campsite with a firepit, but other than one Duraflame log someone fortunately brought, no one brought any wood because we didn't think we'd be able to have a fire. It got dark (and cold!) around 5:30...we huddled around the lanterns to keep warm for a while, but we finally had to light the log, and then we spent the next several hours trying to find dead twigs to keep the fire going.
We managed to keep it going until around 9:00, and with a little help from Trailbud's Jameson's and JKTyrant's Bushmills, everyone was ready to call it a night.At sunrise a few of us rushed back down to the RaceTrack to grab some more photos. This time we went to the opposite end near the Grandstand.
Back to camp for breakfast, the people who didn't go to the Racetrack headed out to explore an old mine.
FunN4Lo making me proud by cooking an omelette in a bag for brother
Me and my Trailbitch (that's him on the right
)After breaking camp we drove down to the Racetrack for our group photo, but had to stop along the way to let this guy cross the road
After the group photo we took Racetrack Road down to Teakettle Junction
Now where do you suppose the nearest gas station is??
To be continued...
11-12-2007, 02:20 PM
#3
JK Super Freak
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,492
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
At Teakettle Junction we turned on Hunter Mountain Road. We started with some high speed racing through powder so fine it was like talc. We had to spread far apart because the dust was so bad it was like being in a white out!
The view from the jeep:
WoL racing off in the distance to drop off Wol-ette so she could film us racing past. I don't know how she could breathe!
Getting into position for the video
We stopped at the top to let the dust settle. Here's a view of the road down below
Taking a break:
Here's the back of jkjeep's jeep - that bag is dark green!
But do you know how hard it is to make a silver jeep look dirty?
From here the road continued climbing to 7200 feet. We had stripped down to t-shirts on the valley floor below, but up on Hunter Mountain it was time to break out the fleece as we reported the temperature drops over the CB.
This was a gorgeous road, but for some reason I didn't take any photos along this stretch.
To be continued....
The view from the jeep:
WoL racing off in the distance to drop off Wol-ette so she could film us racing past. I don't know how she could breathe!
Getting into position for the video
We stopped at the top to let the dust settle. Here's a view of the road down below
Taking a break:
Here's the back of jkjeep's jeep - that bag is dark green!
But do you know how hard it is to make a silver jeep look dirty?
From here the road continued climbing to 7200 feet. We had stripped down to t-shirts on the valley floor below, but up on Hunter Mountain it was time to break out the fleece as we reported the temperature drops over the CB.
This was a gorgeous road, but for some reason I didn't take any photos along this stretch.
To be continued....
11-12-2007, 02:29 PM
#4
JK Super Freak
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,492
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Back on pavement and airing up. By now the storm started coming in. It was overcast and cold.
He not only keeps camp, he airs my tires up for me, too!
We decided we had enough time to make a quick run over to the Trona Pinnacles, but first we made a quick stop here. I don't know what this is.
But it was another opportunity for pics of dirty jeeps all lined up
He not only keeps camp, he airs my tires up for me, too!
We decided we had enough time to make a quick run over to the Trona Pinnacles, but first we made a quick stop here. I don't know what this is.
But it was another opportunity for pics of dirty jeeps all lined up
11-12-2007, 02:35 PM
#5
JK Super Freak
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SoCal
Posts: 1,492
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
And the final stop of the weekend was Trona Pinnacles
After outrunning it all day long, the storm finally caught up to us right after we left the pinnacles, so we did have to drive part of the way home in the rain.
That's all the photos I'm going to process today. If I do more tomorrow I'll add them to this thread.
Thanks WoL and WoL-ette for another fun-filled weekend. Great sightseeing and great company. Can't wait for the next run!
After outrunning it all day long, the storm finally caught up to us right after we left the pinnacles, so we did have to drive part of the way home in the rain.
That's all the photos I'm going to process today. If I do more tomorrow I'll add them to this thread.
Thanks WoL and WoL-ette for another fun-filled weekend. Great sightseeing and great company. Can't wait for the next run!
Trending Topics
11-12-2007, 04:36 PM
#8
JK Super Freak
Join Date: Sep 2007
Location: Oxnard, CA
Posts: 1,533
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Looking forward to the balance of the pics and the remaining stories. Enjoyed what was posted very much. Could you include the time needed to get there from wherever? I'd like some reference.
I'm just a bit jealous.
I'm just a bit jealous.
