The 2/3 of Death Valley's roads that are unpaved are still in sad shape following heavy rains back in August.
The Emigrant Canyon Road towards Wildrose and Agueberry Point? Closed.
The road through Panamint Valley? Not only closed, but a large section of the road was undermined and got carried away in the flood. They don't even know where it went.
The road up Wildrose Canyon towards Mahogany Flat and the trail head to Telescope Peak? Closed.
West Side Road leading to the other side of Badwater Basin? Closed.
The Cottonwood Canyon road from the Stovepipe Wells airport? Open to the mouth of the canyon, but washed out and closed after that.
The road to The Racetrack? Rutted with heavy washboard, with some decent-sized rocks in the road. Definitely not in any shape for low clearance vehicles, or any vehicle with anything less than all terrain tires (reinforced off road tires), and even then you could get one or two flats. Nearly everyone I saw up there in November was using the rental Jeeps you can get at Furnace Creek for about $200/day.
I'll upload a copy of the road condition report to my Death Valley album of photos from my most recent workshops:
https://plus.google.com/photos/+JeffreySullivan/albums/5856858371249732481
My larger albums of photos from past trips include these:
300+ Death Valley images 2005 – 2012: https://plus.google.com/photos/+JeffreySullivan/albums/5671946216767538513
Roughly 100 images from one brief visit:
#DeathValley #photographyworkshops #landscapephotography
+Death Valley Workshops +Landscape Photography
Evening at The Racetrack, November 19, 2013
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stark but lovely photo...THE Stumbling Block...;-) can always be Sidestepped...:-)
Fantastic sky and foreground! I could not go there beacuse the roads were closed because of floods :(
Race Track in Death Valley?
Adjusting to the road closures is definitely an adventure at the moment +Dominique Dubied. I'm considering putting off this month's trips to next year to have more of the park accessible.
sensacional
muy hermoso!
Are these the mysterious iron core rocks that slide on their own? Awesome!
HD!
Bravo!
+MayanResearcher No, I'm not aware of any such rocks in the world. These are the so-called "sailing stones" which have been studied for years by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, and were determined to move in high winds, sometimes possibly lodged in ice as well (which may have melted back from the shore and can move multiple rocks in unison).
The rocks apparently weigh up to 700 pounds, so it's an awe-inspiring sight to behold (even with the evidence pointing to the rocks being nothing special except for being on a sometimes-slick clay surface in an often-windy place).
Unfortunately, people who are determined to believe that these rocks must have "magical powers" have been stealing the rocks, and other careless visitors have been moving them around at random, so the site has been highly vandalized and it can be difficult to find a rock that actually moved to the site that it's currently resting in. There are also footprints form people who walk on the lake bed without waiting for it to fully dry. It's sad that people can have so little respect for such a unique place.