Thanks Guys.

I'll email my contact info.

Nah, no problem for Rhyolite. It's our first time in DV, so you guys know it better.

ragpaoa wrote:Thanks Guys.

I'll email my contact info.

Nah, no problem for Rhyolite. It's our first time in DV, so you guys know it better.

Nice. Sounds like we'll be fairly well equipped in case somebody gets stuck, although we won't be going on any roads that bad. Still, better safe than sorry. All I can add is to bring lots of water. I just looked at the 7 day & it looks like it will be in the 80's by Saturday, which will probably mean upper 70's where we'll be headed.

I might have another truck or 2 going with me, but I just don't know for sure at this point. See you guys down there next Saturday!

I just arrived in Pahrump NV in case any of you guys are online. Morning Report shows Titus Canyon and Hunter Mountain open, and the weather is good (though FYI %20 chance of showers on Sunday for those sticking around). Can't wait to see you all tomorrow morning!

I look forward to the trip report.

.

The meet went perfectly, and my kids and I made it home safe & sound just a few hours ago. I got a zillion pictures to sift through and travel report to write up, but here's a teaser pic for those dieing of news.

RacerZX wrote:The meet went perfectly, and my kids and I made it home safe & sound just a few hours ago. I got a zillion pictures to sift through and travel report to write up, but here's a teaser pic for those dieing of news.

It was a good time! Thanks to everyone who made it out. It'll probably take me a couple of days to get all of the photos sorted out, and it's a slow process with so many pictures.

Driving home yesterday was a bit of a shock to my baked body. I had over 400 miles of nothing but snow (and very few other vehicles).

yup....good time, tons of pics. i have to do some sifting/editing as well, but will also get some shots up soon.

nice pic, carl....can't wait to see more of them.

NVS: no snow here

good to meet you guys....hopefully we can have another gathering soon.

Yes indeed, we had a good time.

It was my first time in DV and the guys were great to show us around and enjoy a single day of some backcountry roads that DV had to offer. This was the best way to see DV!

We are definitely coming back again, and hopefully we can get the group together again. There's more to see.
Maybe we can tackle a litter bit more of the rough stuff.

I'll get some of my picts out as well.

seriously... i hate you guys... i get to live in the boring, flat, entirely paved, Chicago suburbs.

looks like you had fun!

~mike

I'll wait for Carl's writeup and photos before I post some of mine-I'm sure they will all be similar anyway. Here's another teaser shot of us waiting in Rhyolite for Jim, who was taking his sweet time getting there:



And one of the buildings in Rhyolite:

lol.

20 minutes late....considering i left LV 45 min later than i wanted to, not too bad.

*pathy w/ OME and bigger tires does well at high speeds

So the first ever meeting in the flesh and the metal of The Nissan Path forum happened in the ghost town of Rhyolite, just in between Beatty NV and the eastern border of Death Valley National Park.






There was Ragpaoa and his wife up from San Diego in their white V8 with roof rack and extra fuel on top. NVSteve in his blue pathie with his friend Paul riding shotgun drove all the way down from Salt Lake City. The local GuinnessJim from Las Vegas with blue truck stuffed to the roof with his friends, one human and 4 of the large canine variety. And my two kids and I, Sera 9 and Mischa 10, in our red '06 SE down from San Jose CA.

The first leg of our journey was Titus Canyon road, a well groomed one way dirt road that twists it's way through a minor mining district and down a very narrow and deep canyon wash into Death Valley.
















That's the best shots I've got of the canyon proper, I fubared the settings on my camera so lost a bunch. Anybody have some more better ones?

After exiting Titus Canyon I rotated out of the lead and convinced the others to join me in washing our rear windows so we could finally test and lay to rest the question of if the wing on my truck does anything more than decrease my gas mileage

We traversed the valley and headed back up into the mountains to the west of DV towards the ghost town of Skidoo, and as you can see from the next shot it sure was dusty when not leading the pack!





This is all that's left of Skidoo, once with a post office and supporting the local gold mines for 10 years it's now just the smallest pile of remenents.



It is however not entirely uninhabited...




We then proceeded to move up the mountain a little more to explore the mines around Skidoo.








After Skidoo we moved down the road a bit to Aguereberry Pt, a spectacular 6433 foot elevation overlook of Death Valley.



Also now having driven about 20 miles off road in the dust, the results were in for the wing, check it out!




As you can see, while both are certainly dusty and dirty, that funky clumping which was happening to one degree or another on all 3 of the other trucks wasn't appearing on my rear window. Success!

As the light was starting to get low in the sky we took a group shot and then headed off to our final destination.




Those are the "Charcoal Kilns" where they used to road charcoal from the scrub pine trees in the area for use in a near by smelter. They are hollow on the inside and perfectly shaped to make the coolest echo chamber =P.



At this point the sun was setting and unfortunately it was time we started going our seperate ways. While NVSteve had dinner waiting for him back at the Furnace Creek camp ground and GuinnessJim had 4 dogs which would devour his interior if left unattended, Ragpaoa and I, after a quick sprint up to the Telescope Peak Trail Head to throw some snowballs with the kids, headed out West to the Panamint Valley and up to the resturant at the Panamint Springs Resort.



Per usual the food was far above par for a little middle-of-nowhere resturant, and their endless beer list continues to be an amazing delight. Ragpaoa said he was heading south to Palm Springs the next day, so we went over cool places to see in the Mojave Desert along the way, hopefully he's got a story or two to share from there. Parting ways one last time Ragpaoa headed East towards his motel in Amargosa, and we headed south towards our beds for the night in Ridgecrest.

The next morning was cold and windy, and while driving back home west on 178 through the Lake Isabella area we had snow of all things and a good amount of rain. We made it home to SJ in record time though, only 6:45 including all our rest stops along the way.




Thanks for coming for all those that came, was great fun to meet everybody in person, check out the various trucks and exercise them a bit. And for all those of you who could have come but didn't, ha! Be jealous of all the cool pictures and come next time!

nice pics carl! but gray truck? i guess the pathy was pretty dusty and all , but it is blue.

i think i have some decent ones from the canyon...hard to get much w/ the walls so close, but i will get something up by the weekend.

Hahahahah, you know I considered that I was totally wrong, but was so sure...

So what's the name of the color? It's darker than Steve's....

looking on the nissan site, i think the color is "majestic blue"...but if that is the color of steve's then i don't really know what it is.

regardless, can you elaborate on that beer menu? might have to head back that way one of these weekends....