Winter Break

Since most of our Christmas break so far got taken up by our obsession with the XJ and trying to get drivable, we didn't have much time left for our vacation. We were originally planning to go to Utah/Arizona. It had also began snowing once again in the areas we were planning to be in. It was supposed to be super cold and I was not feeling very well.

However, we did not want to waste the rest of our vacation time sitting around at home, so we decided on a shorter trip back to Death Valley. We decided to take two cars. We took Christian's truck and the XJ.

We headed into Trona on the morning of the New Year. We found some beautiful places we could camp just a little past town, but there were too many people and it was still a little early to stop for the day.

Because we had a few hours of daylight left, we went down some more trails further along. Some didn't go anywhere. One went up to this neat mine, but the trail was narrow and we didn't want to really camp with the mine gaping out behind us. It was a bit spooky as the sun was starting to set.

We headed back down the trail looking for a good place to stop for the night. At one point, we got a misfire from the XJ and it was running a bit rough. We figured that the place we found was as good as it was going to get a stopped for the evening to make camp and get some dinner.
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On day two, we continued on our way into Death Valley. It was pretty much just a full day of driving.   We just took it easy and explored a bit. The XJ seemed to run better this morning and we didn't have any further problems with it.

We found the beginning of our trail but as we did not know the condition of the trail, we decided to start it the next morning. The opening of the canyon was narrow and curved so we didn't know if we could turn around or if there was a place to stop part way through.

We found a place to camp a little way from the opening. Christian took off in the XJ for a while to explore an alternative route.
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In the morning, we went further down the alternative route Christian scouted out, but it ended a little farther down at the edge of the military testing area. We turned around to head back to the trail into Goler Canyon.

The canyon itself was just beautiful. I rode up with Christian and the girls followed in the XJ. We stopped by to take pictures at some of the more prominent mines. We went up and down some crazy stuff trying to find the path to Mengel Pass. We lost at least a couple of hours going round and round some of the trails. We knew it was nearby, but the actual route eluded us. 

We even took the little side trail to the infamous Barker Ranch where the Manson family hid from authorities. 

It was a bit exasperating, not being able to find our route. We decided to go back to the first trail we went up to look to see if we missed something. Apparently, we had gotten side tracked on this fun super steep and beautiful obstacle and had totally missed where the trail broke off to the right. I'd guess a lot of people did the same thing as it seemed like a more prominent trail. 

After what seemed like forever, we were back on track. The trail also got a bit rougher here and there along this trail but it was nothing that we couldn't handle. At long last, we made it up to the top of Mengel Pass.

We thought that we were home free from here, but the way down on the other side was even more rough than what we had already been through. The girls headed down the pass ahead of us and when we came up behind them, the back wheels were up in the air. Christian jumped on to the back of it to way it down at the point where it kicked up the most and got it to the point where they could drive off. That was a bit much. We had several other problems getting over some of the boulders ahead. It was getting a bit tiresome. We had to move a lot of rocks and build a bunch of mini bridges.

At some point, it just wasn't fun any more. It was a long day and we were getting tired. While the XJ was super nimble and capable, the suspension is totally shot so it didn't have very good clearance. The truck has a little better clearance but is so large that it doesn't maneuver quite as well over some of this rough terrain.

At one point, the jeep bottomed out on a boulder and we had to jack it up to fill the space with rocks and dirt to get the body of the vehicle up and another vehicle came up on the other side trying to get by. They were able to find a spot to pull out of the way of the road. They were very nice and patient, but it was a pain in the butt to get our vehicles out and back on our way. Once we got the Jeep out, we still had to get the truck through the same spot. Because, the truck is wider, it didn't use the exact same route through and we had to move rocks again.

We were finally out of the rough obstacles and back on our way into Butte Valley.

We considered camping in this area but there looked to be quite a few people already in the area. We talked it over and decided to continue on our way instead of settling down here.

The sun started to set again and we pulled over for a break to have some dinner and got a beautiful sunset. We discussed again where we might want to camp and how far we were willing to go that night. We drove quite a ways away. We kept eyeing the temperature gauge in the truck and most of the places were super cold.  We ended up camping in a wash near Olancha. It was getting pretty late and a bit warmer than the places we passed through.

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It was a little closer to civilization than we would like, but we were mostly hidden away and we were on the move again before most people started milling about.

We got into Big Pine to top off our gas and get some hot cocoa and then headed up to the snow. Christian had gotten snow chains for our Utah trip and didn't get to try them out, so we went in search of a patch of snow to try them out in. There was not as much snow up there as we had hoped but we found a bit to play in.

Caitlyn played in the snow while Christian and Emily played in the truck.

We had our lunch here before heading back down towards home. Unfortunately, we left our 4x4 recovery shovel out here in the snow. We actually found the shovel somewhere in the wilderness in the first place so, I guess easy come, easy go.

We did end up with a bit of a problem though. On the way home that evening, the XJ experienced some problems with death wobble. It was a bit scary and it would come and go so we were able to limp home with it okay. It only happened twice and we were not so far off when it first started. We don't know if it is because of the suspension that needs to be replaced or all the off-road obstacles that we went over maybe through something out of balance or if the idiots who owned the vehicle before just didn't tighten more bolts like what happened when the track bar basically fell off when we were in Joshua Tree.