Death Valley NP

[MaxAB]

Originally Posted by SteSpot

Try 760 area code. paula

Its 760 area code ... sorry!

[Lumatic]

Originally Posted by SteSpot

That said, be careful about parking just anyplace. Flash flooding can and does happen. One year the road from Las Vegas that goes close to the Furnace Creek Inn washed out and several people were killed....a concrete bathroom was washed away. That road was closed for months.

Last time in DV there were a couple of vehicles that got caught in that flood that also washed away and closed roads for months. They were packed inside floor to ceiling with boulders and debris.

[Lumatic]

760 786 2441 worked for me. Here's the answers I got:
-at Furnace Creek Campground you can have one or more tents on the site with your Stream if it is a RV designated site.
-8 campers overnight per site but up to 15 can hang until 10 pm
-Texas Springs is the nearest first come first serve site. When Texas Springs fills they open up Sunset which is a huge gravel field.
-No news about a federal shut down. The guy I was talking to said he worked there 20 years and saw 2 times it was close to a shut down, but in both cases Congress came up with some last minute money.

[Lumatic]

Here's a link to a facebook post on The Ractrack in Death Valley by Tom Stallings

Timeline Photos | Facebook

My favorite theory for the racing rocks is when it does rain the surface of the Playa becomes slipperyer than snot and then good wind comes up and Voila!

[Gene]

Since no one has ever seen the "rocks" move, they must be sentient. Thus, they are space aliens disguised as rocks. Though they have warp drive, they appear not smart enough to understand Death Valley is not the place to take over the planet. Be careful when near the "rocks".

Gene

[Lumatic]

Maybe if I try serenading them with Hawaiian music on my autoharp I can make their brains blow up

[Gene]

Originally Posted by Lumatic

Maybe if I try serenading them with Hawaiian music on my autoharp I can make their brains blow up

A good plan. It would make my brain explode.

Gene

[Len n Jeanne]

We are off to Death Valley on Feb. 3, via several stops en route. We have revs for Furnace Creek CG and the RV park in Shoshone, CA. Any late-breaking tips for some first-timers welcomed.

[MaxAB]

Originally Posted by Len n Jeanne

We are off to Death Valley on Feb. 3, via several stops en route. We have revs for Furnace Creek CG and the RV park in Shoshone, CA. Any late-breaking tips for some first-timers welcomed.

We got back from DV 3 weeks ago - great trip!

Tips:
1. If you like a cold one (or two) after a day of hiking around the valley - bring your own beer. A six-pack at the Furnace Creek store was $18.

2. Fuel up before you enter the NP - gas was north of $5/gal.

3. Take in both tours at Scotty's Castle (basement and main house) - very good.

4. If you like golfing - there was no one at the "lowest course in the US" - we had a blast playing 18 there.

5. The Titus Canyon ride was well worth the drive - plan on 4 hours to include stumping around Ryolite (Ghost town near the road to Titus Canyon).

Have fun!

[Len n Jeanne]

Thanks, Max-- We don't golf, but your advice on beer prices will be taken to heart.

[Lumatic]

Just talked to a ranger at Death Valley. He said a decision to close the park would not be made until at least May.

[MaxAB]

Originally Posted by Lumatic

Just talked to a ranger at Death Valley. He said a decision to close the park would not be made until at least May.

Lumatic:

I believe we met about 3 years ago as Margaret and I were going through Estancia from White Sands... Didn't you buy some Ceramicoat from us? Just wondering if you ever got a chance to use it and how it was performing...

...by the way, "Who is that man behind the curtain?"

Cheers,

Art
Placitas, NM

[Len n Jeanne]

We spent a week at Furnace Creek in February. Very windy! Also this cg was full over President's Day weekend, but there was space in the big gravel parking lot accross the road (Sunset CG.) Since then we've also camped in the Lake Mead NRA and Mohave National Preserve. None of the contact staff seemed to know what was going to happen w/ sequestration. Most thought there would be a 2-week furlough in March, as they got paid every 2 weeks and March would be a month with three paychecks. If the NPS director in Washington had a plan for sequestration, it didn't seem to trickle down to the park ranger level.

[Gene]

I think federal employees get a 30 day notice of furloughs, so they won't start until April 1 (appropriate date). An extension of the budget (continuing resolution) has to be passed by March 27 to keep the government (and parks) open. The House passed one that the Senate probably won't pass—it restores some of the sequestration cuts for the military, but not for everything else.

I'm not surprised the ranger Lumatic talked to didn't know what to expect—no one does. And it gets confusing between sequestration, continuing resolution and debt ceiling. If you are there March 26 you may hear it will be closed in 2 days, it won't, or no one knows until midnight on the next day.

After that, sequestration, if not changed, will start hurting the economy, then the debt ceiling will be reached in several months and in September, talk about the federal budget and a possible shut down of the gov't—the federal budget year starts on Oct. 1. This lurching from crisis to crisis, all man made, may continue for the next 2 years or more.

Gene

[gatorboy]

According to the info that I received, NPS told the parks that they are free to hire summer staff from their own budgets. That means that the wealthier parks, ie. those with large private endowments, will be pretty much business as usual. The smaller, newer parks that have smaller or no endowments... who knows. The summer staff at Mesa Verde has been rehired.