Titus Canyon is a deep slot canyon in Death Valley National Park with just enough room in the bottom to enable you to drive through the narrows. The 26 mile dirt road through it typically takes about 2 hours to drive, plus any time you take at various viewpoints and the old mining camp of Leadfield along the way. The road can wash out and get closed after a heavy rain. The park's Death Valley Backcountry Roads map notes that you need "High clearance due to steep grades, deep gravel and ruts." The main Death Valley map marks it as an unpaved road, but unless you read the legend and see the notation "High clearance recommended", you might think it's in good condition like some of the other, similarly-marked roads in the park. The road currently has a few rough spots with loose dirt and gravel around rocks sticking up, on steep slopes, which you only find about an hour into the drive.
The real problem and danger comes as you're approaching that section on the better, more level surfaces, confident that no one is coming around the blind curves. Then you encounter someone in a low clearance rental car coming the other way, hurrying to get off the road which they're driving the wrong way on! _If_ you narrowly miss having avoid a head-on collision and inform the driver that they must drive the other way, the driver might say something like "We be careful." At least that's what the wrong-way driver told us on Thursday of last week! If I'm going to have a head-on collision at a combined 50MPH, it's reassuring to know that we'll do it carefully. This was not the only rental car we saw on an unpaved, high clearance road. I had taken a picture of a bright red one way up a high clearance road the day before (I'll put a copy in this album). The road was about to get much tougher just ahead, so we turned him around. I suspect that the rental car agencies in Las Vegas get a fair number of cars back with flat tires, missing mufflers and detached bumpers.
Titus Canyon Narrows
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Comments
Linda Foto…
Rugged beauty of Death Valley! Thanks for capturing and sharing the essence.
Amazing scenery! Great story and photo.
i love the different colored layers of rock- great pic. 🙂
nice
beautiful..
nc place…
That is so neat.
Shot!
Beautiful!
gorgeous, scary too, do not like the of some less than bright person doing a head-on collision with me.
Slot Canyon means there may be no way to dodge
I would like to go there one day.
Lol , Yep the car rental agencies in Vegas that is the first question they ask ! Me and my Daughter went there on the way back to Vegas the tire was going flat so I took the donut spare tire out they are marked in red if you drive on them. I found a place that put a plug in the tire not over yet 🙂 We rented a white car when we got back to our hotel the whole front hood had paint chips all over it , first I tried white out lol then my Daughter told me to use white nail polish ? It looked good at night but the next day it looked like_______! We turned the car in thankfully the underground garage was not bright so we passed inspection! But breathtaking scenery I was in total awe of the canyons ! GREAT picture !
Awesome, but a bit claustrophobic for me!!
Beautiful!
Seen some pretty good gully washers in that part of the country
Nice ! The one lovely feature is the bedrock exposure clear structures right the way through the region, there are some great photographs and more angles yet to come, I always think of the occasional water wash down those slopes.
+Mike Elgan You do not want to be in a canyon or gully in a rainstorm in the western part of the US . Have seen the water rise four to five feet in less than 60 seconds
非常棒
watch out for Jawas.
Very impressive!
+William Johnston Have you seen the videos online from the guy who chases rain storms in the Southwest, then positions himself down dry washes to catch the flash floods coming through? I don't recall his name at the moment.
The water usually doesn't get you… it's the pile of big pile of debris being pushed out front! Sometimes the make a lot of noise coming down the stream bed. It's pretty dramatic; I can see why the guy wanted to see more once he saw it the first time.
Awesome scene Jeff! Thanks for sharing.
~❤❤❤~
I had to laugh at your story because we were on the one-way Fossil Canyon loop in Rainbow Basin the other day (which is NOT recommended for passenger cars) and a guy driving a rental car flagged us down to ask how long the trail was because he was having big problems and didn't know what to do. I convinced him to continue in the proper direction after reassuring that I'd be behind him and would tow him out if he got stuck. The road got even worse after that point but I guess he made it out because I didn't see him again.
A natural strata,wow great!
Interesting post and wonderful photo.
Cant wait to see rest including the rental car shots lol…
wawww veryy good…
Sounds like a great adventure, but I wonder if my claustrophobia would get the better of me?
So geautiful
I would love to go through there