I stole this off "that other site" since all my friends are here now. Since we deviated from the trip itinerary a fair amount, here is DV07 as we experienced it.

Scottiac, Audrey, Julie and I drove into the park early Friday morning to visit Eureka Dunes. Hiked to the top and waited for an F-16 to buzz us, only to have one shoot into the canyon on our way out.


Left Eureka enroute to Panamint Springs Resort via Steel Pass. The beginning of Steel Pass has some narrows that are fun and later the road turns into a sandy wash with plenty of "whoopty doos" (however you spell that)...I hit the first couple at a lower speed and liked the way they felt so I buried the throttle for the third and fourth ones only to find the fifth one out of phase. I suppose the new suspension should be settled-in now. Scottiac did something similar--my peripheral vision caught "something significant" happening behind me; I look and see the front end of a 4Runner in the air with dirt trailing off the A-arms. A few seconds later I hear an "ouch" broadcast over the CB.
[img width=696 height=800]http://home.off-road.com/~kemanuel/4Runner/DV2007/Steel-Pass.jpg[/img]

Camped at Panamint Springs with the group that Friday evening.

Saturday morning we hiked to Lower and Upper Darwin Falls:


Following the hike we headed out to Ballarat to visit Potlicker the dog and the "interesting" guy running the place. He pointed to a truck and told us to go check it out, "it belongs to Mansen," he says. Sure it does...

Had issues with my friend's alternator on his Pathfinder in Goler Wash. We had to switch batteries back-and-forth using Lance's dual battery setup. It's amazing how long a truck can run with no battery. I ended up driving to Pharump to get a replacement alt later in the trip. Stopped at Mansen's cabin and had a seat in his favorite chair.


Continued on over Mengel's Pass to Warm Springs where we would spend the night.


On Sunday our group headed out to visit Badwater, Devil's Golfcourse, Artist's Pallete, up to Rhyolite (in Nevada) and drove down Titus Canyon, which is now completely graded. On our way to Devil's Golfcourse we came across a vehicle versus motorcycle accident. It wasn't pretty, luckily the paramedics arrived within a minute's time and we got out of the way.

Devil's Golfcourse. (Golf would be a serious nightmare here.) Seriously though, Scottiac found a Titleist while hiking around out there. Or wait, it might have been a TopFlite, can't remember.




Found a nice shady place to stop to figure out what piece(s) had been rattling for the past 100 miles and were ready to fall off while Audrey made us wraps for lunch. The windshield washer reservoir was the culprit. Those bolts are now marinating in Lock-Tite.
[img width=599 height=800]http://home.off-road.com/~kemanuel/4Runner/DV2007/Titus%20Canyon2.jpg[/img]

Titus Canyon:


Monday we got up early with the plan to Hike Red Wall Canyon, near the end of the Titus Canyon trail. We weren't smart enough to take the GPS with us, so we ended up hiking a canyon we will now call "Not Red Wall Canyon." Following the hike we visited the charcoal kilns and had plans to hike Mosaic and Grotto Canyons. We ended up stopping along the way and helping an older couple change the tire on their Chevy Trailblazer rental car. They couldn't figure out how to get the spare out from under the truck, blah blah blah, so we remedied the situation and hit Grotto Canyon to do some bouldering. Grotto is awesome. Scottiac showed us how it's done and kept us alive. This hike would be the only time our tow strap was used on this trip.


While hiking in Grotto I heard someone walk up and ask Audrey "is that your 4Runner down there?" My first thought was someone had smashed the windows and taken everything inside. It ended up being Brian (photog) who hiked up to meet us. I would have liked to chat with him more, but he was there with others and just stopped in to say 'hi.' Glad he did!

Headed home on Tuesday after hiking the lower portion of Mosaic Canyon.


Note the elevation:


We went from -282 ft in elevation to 8372 ft (and snowing) in a few hour's time:


Here is the link to our photoalbum.

We had a great time as always; this group is soooooo much fun!