In early December 2025 Fernando, Jim & Danny went to Panamint Valley.
Much of western Death Valley was closed due to recent storm damage, but the Pleasant Canyon-South Park Canyon loop was open. Since the trail had been snowed-in the past few February club trips this was a great opportunity.
Danny, who was towing Annabelle with the Sprinter, left SB super early, and Jim and Fernando caught up just before Trona, where we refueled and got our traditional fried chicken from Chesters for lunch. Passing Ballarate we set up camp in our usual spot near the Surprise Canyon wilderness. The weather was perfect, low 70s on the valley floor, clear blue skies and absolutely no wind!
We set up camp with some daylight to spare and decided to check the condition of Surprise Canyon and Chris Wicht Camp, the trailhead to Panamint City, which we had not seen for a couple years. We discovered the road was blown out and impassable (at least for our vehicles) prior to Chris Wicht Camp.
Next we checked out the condition of Jail Canyon,
stopping at the Corona mine and checking out the infrastructure artifacts.
We headed back to camp and relaxed by a fire on a beautiful and starry (until the full moon came up) night.
We woke early the next day and headed up beautiful Pleasant Canyon, stopping to check out various mining operations artifacts.
World Beater cabin was occupied, the current tenants enjoying a fire in the crisp Fall morning. They were the only people we saw all day.
On the way up we checked out a couple lightly used side roads to old mines, seeing how far we could make it. Some were still snowy, and we were the first tracks since the recent storm.
We tried to make it to World Beater Mine, but the road was blown out requiring a careful reverse down a steep rocky shelf road. The road to Radcliff, an active mining operation, was closed.
The road to Cooper Mine (or Copper Mine, depending upon which book you are reading) ended with a snowed-in dead end, requiring careful retreat in reverse to get to a turnaround spot.
The group stopped for lunch near Rita’s Cabin and then continued on through Middle Park Canyon, looking down towards Death Valley and Striped Butte, which we saw in February from Geologists’ Cabin. We took the lower and more direct south-facing routes to stay out of the snow and get to South Park Canyon, wanting to be sure we had enough daylight to get past Chicken Rock and a recent landslide over the trail before dark.
Chicken Rock is scary, as advertised. Members check out the photo album for some videos, including Danny’s from inside the vehicle.
Briggs Camp was unoccupied, and it is in amazing condition, the Friends of Briggs do a great job.
We made it to the landslide, which had been cleared enough to get through with some spotting. Which was a good thing as the sun was getting low and it had taken us all day to get there.
We returned to camp and had another great night sitting by the fire with no wind.
The next day we spent hiking, exploring nearby canyons. We refueled in Panamint Springs, and treated ourselves to some delicious burgers at Panamint Springs Resort.
We drove back to camp in the dark, and enjoyed our third and final gorgeous windless night by the fire.
The next day we had a leisurely morning packing up and headed home, stopping at the Pinnacles for lunch.
