The sky was getting grey as a storm seemed to be threatening, so we decided to get going again. It turned out that we had made a wrong turn (gotta luv those GPS units and the fools who try to use 'em!!) so we headed back towards the road. A map misread lead us off on the wrong turn (yes those latitude and longitude coordinates are valuable only if read correctly!!), but we had some fun checking out the old mine, so it was worth it in the end.

We came to the real turn off and as we headed thru Lee Flats the terrain took on a new characteristic as Joshua trees were now gracing the scene. It was very beautiful! Soon we started gaining altitude again and before we knew it we were in patches of snow!! Not only that, but it started to hail! Now it was really getting interesting. We hit the summit of South pass and the view was incredible!! We could see down to Panamint springs and the lower Eastern edge of the Park. Very scenic. We then proceeded to go down the grapevine canyon and encountered more areas of snow and even some pine trees. There seemed to be plenty of running water here.

We came across a Landcruiser with a flat, but they were AOK and sipping beer and going about their tire changing duty. We asked about the Lippincott and they gave us some good landmarks to go off of to find it a bit easier. As we passed down closer to the Saline Valley floor and returned to a true desert type terrain, the trail stood out like a sore thumb. It would have been hard to miss. There are not many roads so they are easy to spot. We turned up the trail and encountered the infamous sign.

If the Hanaupah trail was rough, this was like driving on the moon! Slow going as the rocks were larger here. Also it was almost all 1 lane- no room for passing or pulling off to the side. The first obstacle was a narrow washout. Not really deep, but deep enough, so I engaged 4x4 (high) for the first time of the trip. Didn't really need it, but I did scrap my trailer hitch. Later, I found out that that scrape had mangled my US Flag hitch insert. There were another 2 or so washes, but not as narrow as the first one. I kept in in 4x just to let her roll with it. We finally passed thru the Valley floor and started the climb up the mountain. Pretty easy going, but no room for error as on one side of the trail was mountain, and the other a sheer cliff. We came upon a widening in the trail and saw a Chevy Blazer (that was pulling a small trailer!!) pulled over on the side. We asked if they were OK and they said yes, but that a few trucks were coming down the trail so they pulled over. We did the same and asked them about the trail. They had been before, but the first wash that we had encountered actually gave them fits as they were stuck there for some time.

3 Jeeps were coming down the trail, so we started back up. The Chevy motioned us to take the lead, so off we went. More interesting things here as some of the hairpin turns were of such short diameter that a wrong angle would easily put a tire off of the edge. We eased up the trail and about 30 minutes later we were at the summit (approx 3400 feet)!! Time for a refreshment break!! More beautiful scenery of the Saline Valley below us. Daylight was burning, so we got on to our campsite. We weren't real sure where we were going to camp, so we kept tooling along until we saw a site. The first one we came across looked too civilized (there was a porta-potie). We went a bit further and encountered another obstacle- a couple of big rocks right in the sides of the path. At first I thought nope, lets find a way around, but there wasn't one. A quick survey of the situation and the nope turned into a why not!! To make things even more fun I put her into 2x just to see what we had and sure enough- we romped right over those lil' boulders!! We did bounce pretty good however, and that caused the tie straps for my jerry cans to break! Both of them! One of the cans went flying off of the roof rack while the other simply fell over. Thankfully the one that got air did not rupture. Oh well, it was time to fill up anyway. Gas was $2/gal and few and far between out here, so it was a good thing to have some extra!