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Comment by jiscariot | Hacker News Reader

It really is an amazing national park. The vastness of it all is stunning--you have Batwater Basin at -282' elevation and Telescope peak at 11k. My partner and I hiked Wildrose Peak 9k (+2200) because Telescope had too much snow on it. The size of the park really hits home when you see that 2-inches on the NPS map takes you 1.5hrs by car.

Our rental car was punished pretty hard by the roads, but held up like a champ. There was no way we were getting to the roads that DVG were lost on. The morbid streak in me wanted to find the bush described in [1], but we had to give up after an hour or so. There is something about tying a place to a story. Will definitely be back to explore the park more.

If you are tenting, reserve your site early, because there are only a couple camp areas that aren't engulfed by pull-behinds and their generators running 24/7.

[1] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/search...

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Consider going in the winter. At least, don't go in the summer. Although we did get snowed on in March one year.

I took a motorcycle trip with a friend once, and daytime temps were in the low 70s around sea level in January. Of course, it got very very cold at night, so if you get stuck/lost, that's a whole other set of problems to deal with. We didn't take any risks on our trip, but after seeing how badly my skidplate and oil filter got damaged on some 4wd trails, I'm glad I didn't have to get it hauled out by a specialty towing business to the tune of.. thousands? of dollars.

I suppose it depends on what you're looking to do, but from a "general tourist" standpoint, the few major roads are paved and in excellent condition (or, at least, before the flooding). Across the valley from the Mono Lake area where you enter the area from the west, through Panamint, into the park proper, and all the way out to Nevada.. And from Ubehebe Crater in the north, way down to Zabriske point and out to Las Vegas to the south.

The large tourist attractions are on these paved roads, and even a lot of the hiking is just a short 2 mile drive down a well-graded gravel road. Though I understand the road to Scotty's Castle, if it's open yet, is somewhat rougher.

On the flip side, the remote areas are truly remote. Racetrack Playa is 20 miles down a horrible washboard road from Ubehebe Crater (which itself is about as remote as you can get on a paved road in the park) and I only recommend you drive it in a vehicle owned by someone you truly hate, as it won't be the same again. You won't get stuck or lost, though. Unless you try the "shortcut" across Lippincott pass that looks so much easier on a map than driving back the way you came.

>Racetrack Playa is 20 miles down a horrible washboard road from Ubehebe Crater (which itself is about as remote as you can get on a paved road in the park) and I only recommend you drive it in a vehicle owned by someone you truly hate, as it won't be the same again.

Finally got there on my last trip a couple years ago. My friend and I decided to splurge and go with a guide from Farabee Jeep rentals. It turned out the road itself isn't as scary as the routes with sharp dropoffs. Neither I nor my fairly conservative friend would especially hesitate to drive it ourselves on a future occasion but we'd definitely take a properly equipped rental jeep rather than use a standard rental car. If nothing else, the route must be killer on tires and who knows what the spare and jack situation is with a standard rental. (To say nothing of the fact you're violating your contract.)

Oh, there's nothing remotely bad about the road other than the washboards. There's nothing scary about it.

We were able to cruise at ~40mph and generally passing 4 wheel vehicles, but by the end of the trip my shocks were totally blown.

This was the experience of Edmunds with most of the pickup trucks, even with "offroad package" that they took there. Basically, passenger cars and pickup trucks just aren't built for the abuse.

https://www.edmunds.com/car-buying/death-valley-torture-test...

Telescope Peak hike one summer by myself is a fond memory. Super cool that there is an 11k ft+ delta from too to DV low point.

Thanks. Convinced me to really try and go

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