We had a wonderful time in Death Valley with the truck. We got back last week on Sunday and I still need to get the mud and dirt off the truck. We had the following weather on the trip:
- Rain at Badwater (lowest point in North America)
- Snow at the Chloride Cliffs and Greenwater
- Sand storm at Salt Creek
- 1.5 ft of snow and 6 inches of hoarfrost on South Pass (road to Saline Valley from Highway 190 goes over it)
- Sun and clouds the rest of the time
- And it was cold!
We rescued a stranded Brazilian couple at night on the West Side Road. They had driven their rental Ford Mustang down the road which is a 2WD high clearance road. They hit a rock near where Johnson Canyon Road intersects it and tore open the transmission pan like someone had taken a can opener to it. They didn't stop right away so we followed an oil streak for a half mile before we found them. And of course this was at night and on the first day the road had reopened so we were the last vehicle that was going that way until the next morning. They didn't have any food or water and there wasn't any cell reception of course. We used our DeLorme/Garmin InReach to contact Inyo County Dispatch who then got the park service to dispatch a ranger to come and pick them up. We also gave them food and water. At least it was in the mid 60s so they weren't going to freeze in their shorts and flipflops. The ranger came about an hour later to pick them up and take them back to their hotel at Furnace Creek and Miller Towing out of Lone Pine recovered the Mustang and took it to Las Vegas for the rental company to deal with.
We found an abandoned BMW SUV on Lippincott Pass Road about a mile from the intersection with Saline Valley Road. Luckily it was in a dry wash so we were able to crawl over some boulders and winch over some other boulders to get around the BMW. It had two shredded tires and destroyed rims and it looked like an A arm in the rear was destroyed. Oh and the suspension appeared destroyed. It had been abandoned a day or two before we found it. There was one other set of vehicle tracks going around it.
We also found an abandoned 3rd gen 4runner at South Pass on the Saline Valley Road. It was built and sitting on maybe 35" or 37" tires and had chains on the rear wheels to deal with the snow. It looked like it had only been abandoned a few hours and there were some other vehicle tracks so we think they had been in a group and were taken out by some of their friends to go get parts or whatever.
Once we got to Lone Pine and cell reception, we called in both the BMW and the 4runner. This time we talked with the California Highway Patrol dispatch in Bridgeport. Neither the BMW or 4runner had been reported before. I also talked with a friend in the SAR community out in Ventura County who talked with someone in DVNP who said they were dispatching a ranger to investigate the BMW.
A couple days later I heard from a friend of a friend in Lone Pine who talked with the tow truck company that deals with all the back country recoveries in Death Valley. Evidently the owner of the BMW had called the tow truck operator a day or so before we found the BMW and asked about getting it towed but didn't have the money to get it done. But then they evidently had died in a hotel in Lone Pine which got the coroner involved. It sounds like early next week they'll go out and recover the BWM and it'll go into the impound lot while they try to find next of kin and whatnot.
I haven't heard anymore about the 4runner so my assumption is whoever it belonged to came back and got it.
I did take some damage to the truck on this trip. The low clearance and bad approach angle really are not my friends. The engine skid plate looks like I've been bashing on it with a hammer and I caved in the steel winch bumper a little bit, and will need to pull it back out. But otherwise mechanically and from a comfort perspective the truck performed great. My
wants me to upgrade the truck though so we aren't bouncing off of every rock and smashing the nose into every waterfall
Photos are below of the trip. They go to various albums on insta with lots more photos.
The truck was clean when we started
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGuODVFLYg/?img_index=1
We went down Greenwater Road and up to the former site of Greenwater one day.
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGu01lFP3l/?img_index=12
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGu01lFP3l/?img_index=15
We went out on Hole in the Wall Road and to the Keane Wonder Mine
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGvJCBFPU9/?img_index=1
We had some fun in a sandstorm on the way to see some pupfish
View: https://www.instagram.com/p/DVGv0MIlFNZ/?img_index=1
Badwater Basin has Lake Manley in it again with a bunch of water in the salt flat.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHp4hjAQ6z/?img_index=1
We got up on the Chloride Cliffs one day and it snowed on us
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHqcuogTUG/?img_index=11
We assed Teakettle Junction on our way to Devil's Racetrack. Evidently influencers are hiding sticker drops in some of the teakettles now but we didn't hear about that until after we had been through the area.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHqruiAURL/?img_index=5
Lippincott Pass Road has to be one of the most beautiful roads in the park. It's mostly one lane and reminds me a bit in sections of Scholfield Pass Road except the ravine you'll fall into if you roll off doesn't have any water in it normally.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHrG1vgaZa/?img_index=3
Here's that abandoned BMW. It's been a big discussion point on a few different FB groups and other social media sites.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHsP0NAcQB/?img_index=1
I had to winch myself around the back end of the BMW because I'm on stock suspension and tires, and got a little high centered on some boulders getting back onto the trail. If I wasn't worried about bashing into the back end of the BMW, I could have throttled out of the situation but the winch line helped jerk my front end around enough to make it comfortable and low risk. I've got the equipment so why not use it, right?
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVH19KGiUy3/?img_index=1
Snow in the Joshua tree forest coming off of South Pass and into Lee Flats was spectacular. For a couple of miles we had to keep moving because we were the lowest ground clearance vehicle to come through since the snow so we were sliding on our belly pan.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHs3-HgdGs/?img_index=1
I am now unimpressed by OvErLaNdEr InFlUeNcErS who post photos in the Alabama Hills. Sure there are some harder roads there but 99% of what I've seen posted is on this smooth dirt road that we saw some sedans driving on.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHuGEGgXQ2/?img_index=6
Trona Pinnacles is a bunch of tufa that formed under the old Searles Lake near Trona. It's really cool! Easy 2wd access although if you want to go between a few of the different areas, you'll need 4WD and high clearance.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DVHuuIWAWKX/?img_index=6
We went over the Fish Pass Escape Trail between Searles Valley and Panamint Valley. This is the route that the Bennett-Arcane party took to escape Death Valley when their group of
49ers went the wrong way and got stuck in Death Valley for a month while a few of their party went for help.
1 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 23, 2026: "Heading over Fish Pass Escape Trail from Searls Valley into Panamint Valley".
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We went up Goler Wash which is an incredible route through a slot canyon for the first mile and then opens up into a bigger canyon all the way to Barker Ranch where the Manson Family hid out and where they were captured. Goler Wash used to be an easy 2WD road. Now you need good approach and departure angles or some knowledge to get over the half dozen waterfall obstacles in the first mile of the trail. I'll post some dashcam video of that later. This is where I really banged up my engine skid plate and dented in my winch bumper. If I wasn't rocking stock suspension and tires and was on something reasonable like 33" tires with a small lift and had better approach and departure angles, it wouldn't have been an issue at all. But being on dinkey 31" tires and with the "stealth winch bumper" style of bumper... it was interesting. But we made it!
4 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 23, 2026: "Heading up Goller Wash to the Barker Ranch where the Manson Family hid out and was finally apprehended. This is no longer an easy trail. There are a half dozen waterfall obstacles in the first mile that you have to know what you're...
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Entrance to the Barker Ranch. People in Inyo County still talk about when they caught the Manson Family and Charles Manson's two or three month stay in the Inyo County Jail.
4 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 23, 2026: "Heading up Goller Wash to the Barker Ranch where the Manson Family hid out and was finally apprehended. This is no longer an easy trail. There are a half dozen waterfall obstacles in the first mile that you have to know what you're...
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On our way home to Monterey, we went through the Carizzo Plain National Monument which is absolutely glorious with flowers right now. If you're ever in this part of the country during wildflower season, it is well worth the detour to see the bloom.
8 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 23, 2026: "The flowers are beautiful in the Carizzo Plain right now".
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This is what the truck looked like when we got it home. Today's task is to wash all the mud and alkalai dust off of the truck.
2 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 25, 2026: "I need to put these pictures somewhere so I remember what the skid plates looked like after coming back from Death Valley. We picked up a few new dents 😅".
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You can see how the front winch bumper caved in a bit when we took the hit on one of the waterfalls in Goler Wash.
2 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 25, 2026: "I need to put these pictures somewhere so I remember what the skid plates looked like after coming back from Death Valley. We picked up a few new dents 😅".
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It's a bit hard to tell in the photo but I'm so glad that I went with steel rather than aluminum for all of my skid plates.
2 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 25, 2026: "I need to put these pictures somewhere so I remember what the skid plates looked like after coming back from Death Valley. We picked up a few new dents 😅".
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I need to readjust the drivers side fender liner. Somewhere along the way it got dislodged and now it rubs the tire when I turn the wheel hard to the right. I'll work on that AFTER the truck has a bath.
2 likes, 0 comments - albinorhino4x4 on February 25, 2026: "I need to put these pictures somewhere so I remember what the skid plates looked like after coming back from Death Valley. We picked up a few new dents 😅".
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And here's a couple of other fun non-truck photos/videos
36 likes, 5 comments - douglasvbphd on February 22, 2026: "The view from the Funeral Mountains into Badwater Basin.".
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20 likes, 0 comments - diveh2ocean on February 24, 2026: "The cutest Ash Meadows #pupfish. So pretty and blue!".
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There are a lot of other photos on my non-truck insta of all the cool stuff we saw out there. I used to go to the Death Valley region every winter as a kid for a few weeks around Christmas and it's been 15 years since the last time I drove through. This trip we went to some of the more remote parts of the park which was a ton of fun and I saw some places I had never been to before.
In terms of the truck, I have the following priorities:
- Flatbed and box on the back. The current truck bed doesn't have enough space for all of the recovery gear and our stuff. And it gets hella dirty in there (I use plastic garbage bags to keep stuff from getting filthy)
- Antenna mount points for the WeBoost I picked up a few months back and amateur radio antennas
- Place to mount a Starlink terminal (every single LEO vehicle we saw out in Death Valley had a Starlink dish in their front windshield)
- Better front bumper for better approach angles
- Better departure angle which means Archive Garage spring hangers, new springs, new shocks and shock towers, moving the spare tire somewhere else, doing something different with the hitch, etc etc etc
- Better front suspension. Maybe long travel or maybe the Marlin Crawler solution?
- Bigger tires which means regearing the differentials and while I'm at it adding a locker to the front.
- Some dual tcase solution (NW Fab? Marlin? Atlas?) for better crawl control
- ALL THE RADIOS
So pretty much the same priorities as I had before the trip.
If we had a more built truck, we would have continued on from the Barker Ranch back into the south end of Badwater Basin but after the beating we took in Goler Wash we didn't want to push our luck on the purportedly harder trails further to the east. But the important thing is that a stock truck plus some skid plates, sliders, and a winch (and a driver who is only partially an idiot) was able to do everything that we did with minimal issues and nothing broke.
Here's our route map:
And here is a closer view of the Death Valley portions:
Later when I get around to processing some videos, I'll put them in a separate post.
If any of you are heading towards Death Valley, I'm happy to provide more detailed info on the various trails we took, things to see, etc. It's really a gorgeous place and is well worth a week or two of your time at least once in your life.
I'm not planning to carry an elephant on my roof. But having actual welded tubes rather than the typical aluminum sheet metal and 80/20 extruded aluminum crossbars screwed together with some tiny bolts is pretty nice. 
www.dometicgroup.com
