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Turkey Trot 2005

Turkey Trot 2005, set up camp in Panamint Valley for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Three days of wheeling and exploring were planned. First day would take up to Darwin Falls then the busting metropolis of Darwin, CA. and ending with a wonderful turkey dinner at Panamint Springs Resort. The second day saw a visit to the Panamint Crater then a long drive along the west side of Panamint Valley down to Goler Wash to check out the "impassable" road. The third day saw a trip up to explore the Defense Mine in Stone Canyon followed by a trip to visit Lookout City.

On to the pix...

 
  A waterfall in the desert? You bet! Lower Darwin Falls. More waterfalls in the desert? You bet!! Upper 3 cascades at Darwin Falls. Goldfish in the desert? You bet!!! The Koi Pond at China Springs above Darwin Falls. Our camp, appropriately dubbed Area 52. The Panamint Crater, formed by a collapsed underground lime deposit.  
 

 
  Heading south on old Nadeu road, we came to a deep washout that required some tight manuevering to cross. Here's Don making the tight turn. Trevor climbs the steep bank to climb out of the wash. Eric climbs out of the wash, kicking up some of the loose dirt. Goler Wash was the in the Here's Andrew climbing the ledge.  
 

 
  Took a fair bit of time to get our group up as we waited for numerous groups to come down. We made a quick trip up to the Newman Cabin to score a Geocache then turned around and headed back to camp in the dark. In Stone Canyon, Trevor takes a shot at waterfall After a bit of work, he made it up. Joe was having some clutch problems, but eventually made it up as well. Don takes a shot at the waterfall as well.  
 

 
  And makes it up after a few tries. Nice sunny day at the Defense Mine, an old tungsten mine that operated through WWII. A view back down towards Stone Canyon from the mine. The road to the mine is pretty rough. A view back out to the entrance of the main tunnel from inside. There are 3-4 levels of tunnels with ladders interconnecting them. Some of the ruins at upper Lookout City.  
 

 
  Some more ruins at the upper city site. Part of the group climbed the hill to find the GeoCache above Lookout City and were treated with a great view of out rigs. Several of us decided to head around the corner from Lookout City and down a narrow ledge road. Nearing the end, we found a huge crater across the road, the result of a collapsed mine shaft beneath. You can just see the mine shaft debris a few hundred feet in front of the lead rigs and beyond that is the old turn-around area. Luckily, there was a road-level mine shaft that gave just barely enough room to turn one rig at a time around then we all backed up to the crater to make room for the rest to turn around. Sure was much better than reversing all the way back up that skinny road! A view from the Slate Range Crossing bearing pole north into Panamint Valley. A view from the same place to the east with Telescope Peak on the horizon.  
 

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