Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Death Valley Flood

This may have already been mentioned, but anyone planning to drive from Vegas to Lone Pine, there was a devestating Flood at Death Valley National Park on August 14 and 15. Two died and the Park was closed. Some roads are re-opening but many are still closed. You can find more information on the National Park Web site.

Very ironic. We traveled through Death Valley to Lone Pine a week before the flood and stayed at the Frunace Creek Ranch. We were worried about the climbing Mt Whitney (we summited on August 12) but it never occurred to us to be worried about flash floods in Death Valley.

See the following link from the Natl Park Svc site for Death Valley for photos of the flood damage near Furnace Creek Resort (we stayed there in 1999):

http://www.nps.gov/deva/Photos.htm

CaT

Interesting. I had no idea it was that bad. My brother and I were trying to drive to Vegas after finishing Whitney so we could fly home. We got stopped by a ranger about half way through the desert and were told to turn back. The massive detour down 395 and the across on 15 caused us to miss our flights... Thanks for the information.

-end

Here is a link to a much better, more thorough and very interesting report (with a detailed map, pictures and narrative of the entire event) from the Natl. Weather Service's Las Vegas site:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/Lasvegas/DeathValleyFloodSurvey.shtml

CaT

Death Valley is a basin, right? Where did all this water end up?

It all ran down to what we can now call
lake badwater or badwater lake.
we'll no death valley trip this winter. bummer

Thanks for the info. I hadn't realized the flooding had caused such extensive road damage in Death Valley. It didn't get much press back east. We'll be driving from Vegas to Lone Pine and spending one night in Stovepipe Wells. The motel manager told us to take the route from Vegas to Beatty on I95 and then NV374 to NV190 to Stovepipe. From Stovepipe on NV190 to Lone Pine is open. This forum just saved me a big suprise.

We aim to please!