What a Trip 2024 V2R. Pit 5 in Goldfield, Nv. 200+ dirt miles after back home

WW_RANGER_X

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Visalia, Ca.
It all started a few months ago when a couple of my Raptor buddies asked if I wanted to volunteer with them for BITD to work this year’s Vegas to Reno race, then hit 200+ dirt miles on our way back home after the race. I tried as hard as I could financially to make this happen and I’m so glad I did. Bucket list trip for me!

Let’s start with getting to the race and the race itself.

Us 3 gen1 raptor guys met up in Bakersfield on Thursday morning. The plan started with heading to Ridgecrest for some tacos at a really good taco trailer where another friend was going to meet and tag along with us in his Jeep JK.

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After some great tacos we pressed on to the Trona Pinnacles. End goal for this day was arriving in Goldfield NV by the end of the night, with a few cool desert stops along the way.


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After the Pinnacles we passed through the town of Trona and made our way to Ballarat ghost town.

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From there we hit dirt for about 10 miles where we met back up with Trona road again heading to the 190 towards Death Valley.

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Check that temp.

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I’ll continue to update this. I’m doing this from my phone and I don’t want to lose what I’ve already started for any reason.
 
Heck yeah! I was going to ask if it was hot as balls....then I saw your rearview mirror 115 LOL
 
From the car forest we hit highway 95 south and jumped on dirt shortly after that to cut out a chuck of pavement that led us to the 266 west bound. Super fun and fast road. Long rollers, big sweeping turns. Average speed was 70-80 mph.

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After some road miles we finally made it to highway 168 and crossed back into California. We hit dirt south which dropped us deep into Death Valley. We found a sulfur mine along the way.

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Next stop was Crankshaft Crossing. Not much to see here to be honest lol.


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Headed south down Death Valley road and stopped at Ubehebe Crater. It was so fucking windy everyone was getting sand blasted so that stop was short lived.

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Tourists doing tourists things

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We pressed on to Teakettle Junction. The road was a fast but rough road. I was glad to see the teakettle sign in the distance because I was rattled to death lol.

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This next section was the funnest (for me). We headed south east up and over Hunter Mountain. Smooth road yet tight and a little technical. Got us up into the trees at I believe 7000 feet in elevation. Dropped back down to Saline Valley Rd.

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Next stop was Box Car Cabin. It’s funny, I felt a little at home here knowing we were just here a few months ago on our Lonely Pinos trip. Was cool to see my son’s art he left.

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After Box Car Cabin we hit highway 190 then climbed our way up to Cerro Gordo. When we passed through in April “tours” were closed. I was glad to see it open this time. I believe we went up the wrong direction (same as we did in April). Tons of on coming traffic and people giving us dirty looks. I do know there is another route up there. There are spots where it would be impossible to pass. I’m so glad we had all our oncoming traffic towards the bottom of the hill. It’s really steep and narrow towards the top.

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We were all getting a pretty hungry so we B lined down the hill and into Lone Pine where we had Pizza. After dinner a couple of the guys split which left us with 4 trucks total. Last spot of the trip before camp was Reward Mine. This place was insane. It was such a long day I chickened out on driving through the whole thing. So I backed in to get some pics like a poser lol. Still cool. If someone doesn’t know about this place, it’s an old mine that you can drive about a quarter of a mile into the mountain. There is room to turn around at the very end. Looking back, I kick my self in the ass for not going all the way down but I promise I’ll do it next time. I know my son would get a kick out of it. The climb up was a little tough. 4wd would be recommended if you ask me. You may be able to do it in 2wd with a locker.

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At this point in the day we were at 260 miles. I would say 60 of those miles were highway. I was beat. Last stop was camp in Alabama hills. I’ll say I was glad to be there lol. Total round trip for me was 966 miles and 78 gallons of fuel. I know other guys were way over 1k depending on where they lived. It was a very eventful 4 days. Now it’s time to clean, fix and prep for the next one!

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🤘🏻Good times!
 
I’ve done it in an open diff 2wd Ranger a few times but to be fair it was NEVER as bad as it is now. I think the rains have really washed out that road. There are a lot of big rocks to navigate now. Still something I’m sure a 2wd can get done, but it’s definitely not as easy as it used to be.
 
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