Three Generations in Death Valley, Day 8

Due to the down time spent in Bishop fixing the Jeep, it was decided that we would extend the trip an extra day to explore the last three locations on our itinerary: The Race Track, Teakettle Junction, and Ubehebe Crater. Still needing to get back home by the end of tomorrow for work and school, we planned on getting an early start as we knew the Race Track and Ubehebe could take some time to explore. I also wanted to try and put some miles down towards home so that we would not have to do all 16 hours of them on Sunday.

I climbed out of my tent early in the morning to find the front tire of the Jeep flat. Inspecting the tire it appeared that the valve stem was leaking. Not knowing if this was the source or the only source of the slow leak and knowing that time was limited today, I opted to swap on the spare tire instead of replacing just the valve stem to see if that fixed it. With help from @Sicarii , it did not take long to get the tire swapped out and we set about getting camp stuck.

I had planned on exploring both the southern and middle sections of the Race Track as I did not know which area would be the best for seeing the mysterious moving rocks. Being even more short on time this morning, I had to make the decision to make only one stop. Not knowing which one would be better, I remembered seeing some photographers setting up around the middle of the Race Track the evening before for some astrophotography. Thinking they would have scouted out the best location for their isolated late night shoot, I opted to go where they had been.

I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting of the Race Track, but it was not quite what I thought it would be. It is very interesting and definitely a cool place to explore, but we saw more illegal tire tracks then we did rocks that had moved. In fact we only found 2 or 3 and they were smaller than what I thought they were going to be. This is one place I’d love to revisit to explore properly and do some real photography at.

Teakettle Junction might be half the size of Petty Coat Junction, but a stop is mandatory of course. It’s simply a sign post that people have been placing teakettles on for years. Unfortunately, we had forgot to bring one to add to the collection and had to settle for leaving only foot prints.

The final stop of our Death Valley adventure was the Ubehebe Crater (pronounced YOO-bee-HEE-bee). The crater is a half mile wide and 600 feet deep and is a great location to see the different geological layers in the surrounding rock. My little man said that he had started this trip climbing to the top of Eureka Dunes so he would like to finish it be hiking do the bottom of the Ubehebe Crater. How could I deny him this goal even with our current time crunch?

Even with the one major mechanical issue and the deviations it caused, this was a really great trip that I’m sure the three of us will remember for a very long time. As my first overland adventure, it not only taught me several things, it also gave me an idea of the direction I want to go with my vehicle based adventures. More epic trips like this are definitely in my future and I think my weekend rock crawling days are going to be winding down. While those are fun and I’m sure I’ll do them from time to time, they just don’t have the same sense of adventure as the overland style trip does.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the people that helped with this trip and made it possible. First and foremost, I need to thank my wife. Without her not only would this trip not be possible, but I would not have my wonderful little man to go exploring with me. A big thank you goes to my buddy Justin for doing all of the research and leg work on the steering issue we had. Finally, I’d like to thank Ken for “renting” me his offroad trailer. This trip would have been a logistical nightmare without the extra room his trailer provided.

And now for the rest of the story… in photos.