We had spent a lot of time, and money, on a 4-Wheel Drive vehicle specifically for this park. Last year we learned that there were back country camping spots on roads that required 4-wheel drive. So, we bit the bullet and changed pickups, even though our F-250 was practically new. You only live once, and we know that life at our age can change on a dime. Do it now or regret it later.
It was the right decision.
But, oddly enough, not for Death Valley.
A bit disappointing, but only a bit because it had served us extremely well in other places.
What was the problem?
Well, first, just before we arrived, it rained. Hard. And a lot of those back country sites are on unmaintained dirt roads. We were going to go 8 miles up one of them our first night there, and only made it 50 feet before we came to a small lake. It's 4-wheel drive, not a boat.
So we spent the night in one of the two large campgrounds/parking lots there.
Not much fun. But because of the storm, the machine that processes payments wasn't working (no power), so it was free. It's an ill wind....so to speak.
Instead of going to back country camping sites, we went to one of our favorite campgrounds in the U.S.--Mesquite Springs.
We dropped the camper, and spent a great week there. We hiked from the campground itself, drove to other places in the park to hike, and drove around in the pickup (sans camper) to explore roads to back country camping spots.
What we found is that most of the roads to the back country sites are not even suitable for our 4-wheel drive, heavy duty pickup. The reason? They are too narrow for the dually. And the problem with that is that Death Valley is really nothing but rocks, and along the sides of these narrow roads huge, sharp rocks are imbedded.
Although we thought ahead to get skid plates and off-road tires, the problem is that these rocks imbedded in the sides of the narrow roads could cut into the side walls. A ranger told us that was the main problem on these back roads--flat tires, and mostly from people getting their side walls cut.
So what would we do if we got a flat? We have AAA, but no cell signal to reach them. We have a spare, and a jack, but replacing a tire under those conditions would be almost impossible, not to mention that it could tie up traffic on the road for several hours. And in the interest of full disclosure here about my ignorance, how do you replace a rear tire on a dually?
(Note to myself the next time we take the truck in for servicing: Find out how to replace tires on a dually.)
We did find one road where we could go and do back country camping, which is for a later blog post. And next year, we will drop the camper in the south part of the park and drive up other roads to find more where we can go to camp and be in more isolated spots.
We had some very memorable hikes that week from this campground.
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