Death Valley: Now It's an Adventure

“It’s not an adventure until something goes wrong.” – Yvon Chouinard

We woke up at Wildrose campground and had coffee (hot chocolate for Allison) and our traditional family camping breakfast, warm Mountain House granola with blueberries and milk. It was our last day in Death Valley and it was nice to not have as many pans and dishes to clean up before we hit the road again. We packed up and got going.

We backtracked up Wildrose Road then were back on 190 heading east, passing Stovepipe Wells yet again, along with the nearby sand dunes and The Devil’s Cornfield. This time we stayed on 190 as it curved to the southeast, passing Furnace Creek for the first time. Eventually we stopped at Badwater, where the parking lot was full of other tourist cars.

We found a place to park on our second pass and walked out onto the salt flat. My GPS was reading about 270 feet below sea level here, at the lowest point in North America. We marveled at the vast salt flat and were glad to have moderate weather. I bet it’s a very different experience on the salt flat when it’s 125F in the summer…

We enjoyed casually walking around on the salt flats for a while before heading back to the parking area. It was then that I noticed a sign far up on the cliff there that read “SEA LEVEL”.

Back on the road we continued south, enjoying the terrain as usual, until we reached the intersection with the southern terminus of West Side Road. I was happy to have reached dirt again, although with a little trepidation as we quickly encountered our old friends The Washboards again. Happily, the washboard here was quite mild compared to Racetrack Road and before long it vanished entirely.

We sped along West Side Road, encountering a few other oncoming vehicles here and there. The road seemed to have been recently graded in places and it was a joy to drive. I had to pay attention, watch for potholes, stretches of soft sand, and corners, but overall this was a road where you can “stretch your legs” within reason. If the speed limit and conditions ( a closed course) permitted, this would be a fantastic rally race stage. This road was a ton of fun!

After several miles I was happy to see a few old Series Land Rovers parked on a wide spot in the road, apparently having a lunch break there. I slowed down so as not to blast them with our dust trail – which up until now had probably been visible from the International Space Station – and exchanged waves with them. We drove past beckoning side roads heading off into the mountains to the west, with enticing signs like “QUEEN OF SHEBA MINE”.

Eventually we reached my lunch goal which was Shorty’s Grave. An interesting burial site with historic markers, it also marked the location of the lowest benchmark in the United States that is listed in the NGS database. I’d previously been to the southernmost benchmark (on the Big Island of Hawaii) so it was fun to be at another extreme location.

People had left coins at Shorty’s Grave – I’m not entirely sure why – and Carrie somehow conjured up a Mexican coin which we left as a token of respect for Shorty. As we ate lunch by the Land Cruiser, the Rovers passed us with more waves, and then Carrie and Allison were chased by a lone red ant. We figured it had a tough time as it was living in Death Valley so we didn’t have the heart to just squash the little guy. It was pretty funny how much of a sensation a single ant can cause with my family.

As we finished lunch, I was taking some photos when a white van approached from the north, driven by a German (I think) guy and his American girlfriend. They stopped and she rolled down her window and said – and I swear I am not making this up – “Excuse me, is there like a place where people go?”

I honestly wasn’t sure how to answer that, and I politely told her as much. I offered that there were many interesting places in Death Valley, and that the nearby Badwater Flats was a popular tourist spot. It didn’t seem that they had heard of it, or any other place in Death Valley, apparently. Astonished to encounter two utterly oblivious people far out on a dirt road in Death Valley, it suddenly became clear why the ranger had treated me like she had. There really were people out driving around in the middle of nowhere with not one clue as to where they were, or where they were going. Wow.

We drove the rest of the way north on West Side Road, and I still revelled in the drive. This was perhaps the most fun dirt road I’d ever driven. All good things must end though, and we eventually reached the pavement of 190 once more. We turned north again and drove to Furnace Creek, where we stopped for a rest break and checked out the enormous gift shop. I picked up a surprise gift (an anklet) for Carrie and some cold Gatorade. This was tourist central though and apparently there was cell reception here as well, and before long I couldn’t wait to get away from Civilization again!

We took the road up to another tourist-packed location, Zabriskie Point. The crowds got on my nerves and I wondered how some of them had survived to reach adulthood. 🙂 Despite that, the overlook was very impressive with the views of a lot of truly spectacular scenery. Mother Nature was certainly not subtle about showing off here!

Heading west, I pulled over at a dirt side road I’d spotted on the way to the point, marked with a small sign for Echo Canyon. Still having some time to explore, I turned off the highway and once more we were driving on dirt, weaving through the desert gravel road and enjoying ourselves. We passed some vehicles that were remote camping out there, before we reached the mouth of Echo Canyon and I stopped to take some photos.

As I finished up, I thought I smelled something like exhaust or gas, which isn’t something I liked to smell. I was about 40 yards from the Land Cruiser and wondered if maybe someone had a gas camp stove or something back among those campers. I checked the wind and it seemed to be coming from that direction, which was a relief. I strolled back to Toyotie and when I did I was immediately aware of another strong whiff of gasoline. Concerned, I bent over and peeked underneath, which was when I noticed what appeared to be a waterfall of gasoline gushing out from the back.

Sh*t.

………..

My mind kicked into that unique temporal distortion when things seem to spontaneously speed up and slow down at the same time. I opened the driver door, dropped my camera on the seat and while retrieving the keys announced “There’s a problem and you both need to get out of the vehicle right now.” Carrie understood the tone in my voice and immediately got going, helping Allison out and away from the Land Cruiser. I handed her the keys as they went and quickly told her  we had a gas leak and I was going to look at it.

I took another look and knew I was going to have to get underneath to deal with it in one way or another. Was I really going to slide on the gas-soaked gravel underneath a 4×4 at the mouth of a remote canyon in Death Valley, with more gasoline cascading down on me? Yeah, that pretty much summed it up. Underneath I went.

I determined that the gas was running out of a hose that was hanging down, with a grey cap on the end of it. It was located just in front of the auxiliary gas tank. Getting my hands on it, I quickly determined that it had come off of the side of what appeared to be the fuel pump. There were no screw threads or other obvious mechanism to quickly reattach it. Every moment, more gas poured relentlessly out of the hose. I took a quick breath, shoved my hand into the stream of fuel, and plugged the leak with a finger. Gas trickled down my arm as I tried to figure out what to do next.

I called Carrie over to assist me. I walked her through the process of opening the rear carrier and liftgate, something she’d not yet done on our “new” vehicle. Creating a plan of action, while trying to describe to her what to do, and while plugging the proverbial gasoline dike was not a simple mental task. But she got the back open and retrieved the Pelican case with my tools as I asked, and opened it up on the ground near me. I couldn’t use my left arm with my right arm plugging the gas at an awkward angle, so I had to shift position. I knew a little gas would escape again, but grimaced as a spray of gasoline hit me in the face. Luckily, I shut my eyes in time. I assume that I cursed.

Carrie fished out the vice grips that I  requested (“They look like this one but with a longer front, like an alligator.”), and setting the adjustment with my free hand, I carefully-but-awkwardly clamped it onto the fuel hose on the other side of the fuel pump. Temporarily blocked in this manner, the waterfall ceased and I was able to free my other hand and take a deep breath.

My mind was now racing for a fix to this situation. The grey piece wouldn’t easily go back onto the pump, nor was I sure that it ever would at this point. I could potentially travel with the vice grip in place like that, but it could come off at any point and that would be a Very Bad Thing. Using my Leatherman tool, I loosened the hose clamp and took the grey plastic bit off, and tossed it into my tool box so it wouldn’t get lost. I didn’t think that just tightening the hose clamp down on the hose would result in a gas-tight seal, so I had to come up with another solution..

As I lay on the large gravel rocks underneath the Land Cruiser, I was grateful that I’d been in situations before that demanded an improvised solution, and fast. Mentally speeding through options and available resources, brain set to Maximum Efficiency (for what that was worth!), a simple but strong plan soon presented itself. I retrieved my screwdriver bit set. Selecting a bit I was unlikely to need, I verified that it was the right diameter to fit inside the end of the fuel line. It was solid, wouldn’t be crushed by pressure, nor melted by the gas. It should work. I inserted it into the open end of the line and tightened the hose clamp down around it. Tentatively releasing the vice grips, the improvised plug held. The emergency had passed.

I crawled out and again took another deep breath, but not too deep as my clothes, arms, face, and hair reeked of gasoline. At this point a couple was hiking out of the canyon and asked if we were OK, and I was relieved to be able to honestly say that were were good now. I used a couple of zip ties to secure the hanging fuel line, and I was done.

I reassured the family and explained that the crisis had passed, and that I had managed to fix the problem for now. I’d want to stop a few times to verify that the improvised repair remained viable, but otherwise we seemed to be out of the woods.

I started up the Land Cruiser and verified that there was no more leak. With the fuel pump kaput, the formerly-full auxiliary tank was now useless unless I made a manual transfer via my siphon hose. We now had no reserve except in an emergency, but we had plenty of gas in the main tank to get by on.

It was now about 4pm, a half hour or so before sunset. Besides smelling like a walking Shell station (“No smoking, please.”), my arms were smeared with black grease in a dozen places, and I was struck by that twitchy weariness that comes after a right proper adrenaline dump. I drove carefully, with one eye often in the rear mirrors, and we stopped a couple of times to make sure that the leak hadn’t returned to haunt us. It was still OK.

We turned onto paved 190 heading east for the last time. When we reached Stovepipe Wells I topped off the main tank (after checking for leaks yet again) before finally being able to give my hands and arms a bit of a scrubbing in a restroom, which helped a little. There was another wonderful Death Valley sunset in progress, a fitting end to our adventures in the park. We climbed aboard Toyotie and topped the eastern rim of the valley as the last red rays of sunlight gave way to darkness, and our two hour drive to the hotel in Ridgecrest.

….

Safely at the hotel (and another check for leaks), I wondered what the nice young lady behind the counter thought of this disheveled desert freakazoid who reeked of gasoline. And did he really have a suite reserved?

No matter, because I did. I’d paid in advance and had gotten a great rate, and we gratefully dropped our bags in the large, comfortable room. Due to my inhuman state, I was granted first use of the shower so that we could go out to eat after. It was one of those most-welcome showers, with very hot water, when you really really need one. On the downside, washing my forehead and hair drained the leftover gasoline into my now painfully-burning eyes, and I could do nothing but keep flushing them with shower water until the pain became bearable.

After I cleaned up (Allison pointing out “Daddy, your eyes are really red!”), we went out for dinner and were grateful to be able to eat and relax. Only my hands still vaguely smelled of gas now, so I felt a lot more human. I mentioned how if things had been different, and Carrie had been lying under a 4×4 at the mouth of a desert canyon, with gasoline spraying in her face, I would have had the good decency to at least take some pictures of the comedy.

We happily ate, drank, and ordered a round of desserts before returning to the hotel. The girls cleaned up and we crashed on the comfortable beds, and snored away the night before our long drive home. It had been an adventure.

Death Valley Part Four Gallery