Ghost Towns and Badlands of Death Valley

White Jeep Wrangler and Toyota Tundra parked beside a crumbling stone-and-wood mining cabin at the base of desert mountains.
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Overlanding

Ghost Towns and Badlands of Death Valley

Location
Death Valley National Park, CA
Date
April 2021
Difficulty
Multi-Day 4x4 Trip · Moderate

Death Valley rewards patience and a good set of tires. Over a few days we worked through washboard roads and rock-strewn trails to reach an abandoned mining cabin, its stone walls and collapsing roof still standing after decades against the desert. Nearby, boulder fields big enough to scramble over gave a different kind of challenge, this one on foot.

Between the ghost towns, the badlands, and the wide-open salt flats, Death Valley never runs out of things worth detouring for. Every turn off the main road seemed to lead to something we hadn't expected.

Trip Photos

White Jeep Wrangler parked near rock spires at Trona Pinnacles, with desert mountains stretching to the horizon.
White Jeep Wrangler with a rooftop tent parked on a dirt road, with the Trona Pinnacles rock spires and mountains behind it.
White Jeep Wrangler and Toyota Tundra parked beside a crumbling stone-and-wood mining cabin at the base of desert mountains.
White Jeep Wrangler and Toyota Tundra parked beside an abandoned stone cabin, tucked against steep desert mountains.
Sun setting between two rock formations in Death Valley, with distant mountains silhouetted against a cloud-streaked sky.
Aerial view of a rooftop-tent campsite tucked among boulders overlooking a vast, empty desert valley ringed by mountains.
Two men looking out through the glassless window frames of an abandoned wooden mining cabin.
White Jeep Wrangler Rubicon crawling over a boulder field on a rocky desert trail.
Group camped among boulders at dusk with rooftop tents open, a drone resting nearby ready for a flight.
Hiker standing atop a massive boulder pile, scouting a path through the rock formations below.

Trip Video

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