We got up today and had breakfast at the Furnace Creek buffet before packing out and getting on the road. We wanted to drive to the Hole in the Wall rock formation and then take Dead Man’s Pass out of the park headed to Vegas.
We followed the dirt road out toward Hole in the Wall not really knowing what we were looking for, just that the road ends when you’re there. So we drove out until we found a clearing and then followed the road off to the left. That immediately turned into a rather intimidatingly sideways uphill path that was clearly going the wrong way, and upon which we then had to make a three point turn that involved negotiating a way for Evan not to roll down a cliff and then for me not to roll down and crash on the Rover. But it worked!
This doesn’t exactly show what we were trying to do, but I’m sure Evan got some video that my mother won’t want to see.
So, a little confused, we headed back to that clearing and, on finding nothing else, we turned around and headed back down. As we passed by a giant cliff, I noticed that my GPS atlas app marked the passage as “The Hole In The Wall.” Guess we found what we were looking for; it was more impressive from the far side, so I can understand how we missed it at first.
After we took a few family portraits, we set up a little lunch spread in the shade of the Jeep’s lift gate.
From there, we headed out of Death Valley, but we used a dirt path called “Dead Man’s Pass” to give us one last explore into the vast emptiness of this park. As we climed up and out, the rocky ground gave way to increasingly more plants which became increasingly green and the dirt road shifted from rocks and dust to sand.
At the top of Dead Man’s Pass, the Jeep broke down. I found amusing irony in that and demanded a picture before George could resume his repairs. Thankfully it was minor: the negative battery terminal had jostled its way free, which explains some of the electrical weirdness he’d experienced on the way up. He also discovered that the positive terminal was in poor shape also, but not in a show-stopping way.
We worked our way back down and took Stateline Road from Death Valley Junction, California into Pahrump, Nevada. Naturally, our first stop back in civilization was the O’Reilly for new battery terminals and connectors for George.
From there, it was a short drive over another pass into Vegas. Evan split off to go pick up a surprise guest at the airport and the three of us headed over to the Plaza Hotel in Downtown.
Dirtiest cars in the garage, but proud. And now here we are. Six hours ago we were the only people around for miles. Now we’re in the circus that is Las Vegas. How did we get here? How long until we can go back?
P.S. I went back and added a couple dashcam videos from the Titus Canyon drive on Wednesday: the entrance and the canyon finish.