Reason for the trip: (If I do not have a reason to go the Death Valley I can easily make up one.)

For this trip there were four hikes and two four-wheeling trips I wanted to make.  

To get to one of the hiking spots I wanted to visit required going on a jeep trail where I wanted companions to spot me through some tight and rough sections, and to be available in case of a breakdown or  other emergency situation.  That was a hike to a canyon north of Steele Pass that is reputed to have some tinajas in it.  These tinajas might possibly represent a natural "Marble Bath" in the region of the Marble Bath water feature marked on some older topographic maps and carried over into certain other mapping products.  In addition, tinajas are likely spots  to find prehistoric petroglyphs.  I was able to get two people from Big Pine (Dave and Graham) interested in this drive and a drive down Lippincott Mine Road.  As it turned out, we got to the hiking area too late in the day, and I did not get to make this hike.

Lippincott Mine Road.  This was once one of the most difficult jeep roads in the park, but recent comments on Death Valley bulletin boards had led me to believe that it had been much improved of late, and was likely to be in good shape until the next major storm hits the area.  None the less, since I did not know just how "good" the road really was, its previous reputation led me to want companions on this trip.  David has already posted information on this trip, so I will just link to his report here.

Day by day account:
   Starting on a Tuesday,  I drove from Scottsdale, AZ via I-10-Salome Rd,-Parker-Lake Havasu City-Needles, CA-Searchlight, NV, Baker, CA-Highway 127-Saratoga Springs Rd.- Harry Wade Rd, and camped on the Harry Wade Rd. about 7.4 miles south of the intersection with Highway 178 (Ashford Junction).  The next day as I drove north I realized that I had picked a good place to camp, as camping by the road became more difficult for tent camping as the road moved hight on the alluvial fan.

The  camp by the side of Harry Wade Road

    The next day I drove to the visitor center to make use of one of the government's examples of age discrimination and buy a Senior Pass.  $10 gives you and anyone in your car free admission of to various federally run facilities like parks, monuments, forests and a discount on camping fees in some of these.  The catch is you must be over 62 to get one.
    The first objective on this trip was to hike Corridor Canyon near the Racetrack Valley.  Because of camping restriction in the immediate vicinity of the start of the hike at the Ubehebe Mine, I camped off the Racetrack  Rd. a few miles north of Teakettle Junction.  I got there about 1:30, much earlier than I like to camp, but I did not want to start hiking to Corridor Cyn. at 2 PM because I did not want to be rushed during the hike or be caught out after sunset.  This night it was too windy to set up a tent by myself, so I elected to sleep in the Land Rover.  The LR3 is fairly convenient for cooking in windy weather without having to actually put the stove inside the vehicle (I worry about fire).  I parked the truck heading into the wind and cooked on the extended lower half of the tailgate.

Camp along the Racetrack Road

   
    Hike toward Corridor Canyon. After reading Digonnet's book and seeing Kathy Wing's pictures of Corridor Canyon, I decided that I wanted to go there for my next hike in DVNP. Reading many parts of Digonnet's book had led me to believe that he is an accomplished climber, or at least has significant rock climbing skills and little or no fear of heights. He mentioned dry waterfalls in Corridor Canyon that were easy for him.  I had been to a place in Marble Canyon where Digonnet describes a chockstone as easily climbed and to me it was impossible.  A couple of Kathy's photos showed falls that also looked iffy to me.  So, at the outset of this hike I knew that there were places that might stop me.
    The hike down the canyon leading toward the Corridor was easy going, and I enjoyed the scenery and taking photos.  Getting closer to the Corridor I began to notice places where there were long  linear features in the bed of the wash.  The same geologic setting and forces that had formed the linear Corridor were at work here, but to a lesser degree.  My pictures of this hike can be seen here.  As I entered the narrows just before Corridor, there it was, the first dry fall.  The fall appeared to have two stages with a total of height of 14-18 feet.  The top part of the fall went down maybe 8 feet at a very steep incline until there  was a sort of shelf that appeared to have  only about a 10° slope.  That shelf seemed  project out about 12-16 inches.  Below that shelf, the face of the fall was hidden from view, so it must have been pretty steep or perhaps even undercut.  I could see no good hand or footholds that would make the climb down to the shelf secure.  It looked like there was a crack in the rock on the left hand side that opened up such that a person standing on the shelf might be able to  investigate to see if that crack contained holds that would allow a safe descent to the bottom of the fall.  The problem for me was how to get to the shelf.  The rock was quite smooth from water abrasion, so descending to the shelf would be a slippery affair.  I tested my boots on nearby smooth rocks that seemed to be at the same slope as the upper part of the fall. My boots slid!  I looked more around the upper part of the fall-- no holds.  I looked at the topo map to see if there were a way around this obstacle -- did not look like it.  I figured I could probably slide down the upper part of the falls using my feet, butt and hands for friction and stop at the shelf, but how would I get back up again?  It might be too slippery to ascend.  I was alone, so there was no one else there who could give me a boost up or go for help if I fell and injured myself.  Reluctantly I decided to turn around, the risks of continuing on were just too great for me.

Hidden Valley Camp at sunrise

    Loop Hike from Hidden Valley to the Racetrack.   George Huxtable's book "Hiking the Desert Trail" describes a cross-country hiking route through the park going  from  Greenwater Valley in the south to Cucomungo Canyon at the Nevada border on the north.  Part of that route passes through the mountains east of the Racetrack.  Since this was near my primary hiking goal of Corridor Canyon, it caught my eye as another hike for my trip.  I prefer loop hikes so that I can see more areas in the same distance.  Looking at the topo map of the area it looked like there were several possible loops I might make using the Huxtable route as part of the loop.  My general philosophy on cross-country loop hikes is to try to hike the area that is likely to be most difficult early in the hike, so that if I have to turn around I don't have a huge distance to cover to return to my car.  Based on that philosophy, I planned to hike from Hidden Valley and take Huxtable's route only partway into the mountains, then follow a more northerly course than what the book describes and then come back following Huxtable's route in reverse. A map of my hike along with pictures taken along the way are posted.  The map shows my GPS track log as I traveled this route.  On the way to the Racetrack I deviated from the Desert Trail route by going down the main drainage all the way to the Racetrack.  This drainage was narrow at the top with a couple of places where the wash is choked with 5- 6 foot boulders, but it is easy to walk around these boulders, and they really present no obstacle whatsoever.  The wash broadens as one proceeds down the drainage. All in all, I consider this a very easy route down to the racetrack, and I was walking on the sand of the wash most of the time.  I then went out to the racetrack Playa and headed south to try to pick up the Desert Trail route for my eastbound leg.  As I began heading eastbound, I noticed  tracks of several people walking in that direction and I thought that perhaps they might be following the Desert Trail as well.  So I simply followed those footsteps for a way.  After a while, it became clear that this was not going to lead me on to what I considered to be Huxtable's route.  At that point, I headed north and picked up what I thought was the Huxtable route through the mountains.  Since I was going eastbound it was difficult for me to simply follow the route as described in the book.  In preparation for this hike I sat down with a topographic map and the book and laid out points that I thought would be on the route and then uploaded those points to my GPS and created a GPS route with them.  Then going from waypoint to waypoint, I figured I could follow the route in reverse.   I found the return journey, much more difficult than the path I had taken down the main drainage to get to the Racetrack.  At some points I was even wondering if I was really on the route that Huxtable had described; it was that much more difficult than my outbound leg. The westbound leg involved simply walking down the bed of the wash, whereas there was a lot of rock scrambling involved in my eastbound leg up to Huxtable's reference point called "overlook".  When I got to "overlook" I did not find any footprints, and as I descended the wash going northeasterly  I again failed to find any more footprints.  Therefore, I corroborated my original assumption that the tracks I saw down closer to the racetrack were really not following the  Desert Trail .  When I sent Huxtable a map of my route and some of my pictures, he told me that I had not actually followed his route.  I only returned to his route when I reached "overlook".  So, I have added two new ways to get from Hidden Valley to the Racetrack, one an easy walk, the other a rough scramble.  I may want to go back some day to see how Huxtable's route from "overlook" to the Racetrack compares to my path to "overlook".