jeffcasey

As promised, a few photos. First - assembling the boats at the put in. We are 3 miles south of the official "badwater parking lot" which is where the crowds were. Here, it is just a pull off from the road, and only a few feet from the car to the water. Next, we are paddling out. Water only about a foot deep here. The road runs along the east perimeter of the valley (death valley is huge and long and thin, running predominantly north-south). Here are Eric and Stacey in their tandem. Jay is scraping along in his tandem. Then we keep heading out - looking west across the valley, the slope rises steeply up to Telescope Peak (a bit over 11,000'). A nice climb by the usual trail, an epic one going straight up from the valley. The lake bed is almost always bone dry with massive deposits of salt, salt towers, salt crystals, nasty stuff. Not a place for bare feet. Now, with all the water, the bottom seems to be slimy slick mud, and the water is saturated salt water. Salt crystals are floating and reforming on the water, and everything (you, boat, camera) quickly become totally encrusted. (it wasn't as skanky as it looks, but it was a bit skanky.) From further out, looking back to the east shows the cliff face up towards Dante's View (there is a road to an overlook there - a classic place for photos at sunset, and it was used in the very first Star Wars movie where Luke and Obiwan are supposedly looking down at a town in the desert (painted in). I think the ridgeline up there is around 6,000' elevation. It is a technical canyoneering decent (i.e. lots of tricky rappels) down from the ridge to the valley floor. Looking north along the length of the valley --- it goes a looooong way..... you burn a lot of gas on a vacation in death valley. And, of course, looking west is up to Telescope Peak. South, the way we drove in, is again along the length of the valley, but we are close to the south end, so it rises fairly quickly up that way. Jay finally gave up trying to dig in with his paddles, and resorted to poling for propulsion - perhaps he thought he was a gondalier. (I guess limeys like Sir Christopher call this "punting".) And here is a photo that Stacey took, showing yours truly in my trusty old Big Kahuna (which I really should get rid of, as i'm too old and inflexible to get in and out of it with suitable agility -- see the for sale thread.)

sir christopher - still can't spell "favor" you colonial? we do sneak back from time to time, but laurel to visit our son and myself for work mostly, and we tend to the quick attack and fast getaway....we can't take the humidity anymore. someday...someday.

Feathercraft made great folding boats long before the inflatables such as Sea Eagle figured out how to make balloons seaworthy. The Feathercrafts were like "bird cages" of aluminum poles held together by shock cord, that you poke into bow and stern of a neoprene skin, and then expand with clever hardware. They can be a challenge to put together, but are generally excellent boats. Folded up, they fit into a canvas bag that becomes a backpack, or can be checked on a plane. The Kahuna and Big Kahuna are for intermediate paddling, and a bit easier to assemble/disassemble than the others. The Big Kahuna has a slightly larger cockpit for larger paddlers. These boats do need care to keep watertight and to keep the aluminum tubes clean and easy to slide on and off each other. I bought this Big Kahuna used (from the famous north shore paddling shop which name I forgot) around 2002 or 2003. I don't know what usage it got before me, but I have only lightly used it over the years -- it was my travel boat (rarely) or my third boat when more than one visitor needed a loaner. I have paddled it in moderate chop and currents around Cape Ann several times, and found it agile and fun. It is kind of cool to be able to feel the restless water against your skin through the neoprene. I moved west in 2010, have rarely paddled since, and just today took the Big Kahuna out......discovering that I am just too old and inflexible to get in and out of the cockpit with agility. I think this boat wants a good new home. We'd have to work out shipping, and a fair price -- I have no idea what that is. Let me know if you are interested. Feathercraft no longer makes these, but their website still exists, they claim to still sell accessories, and they still have full documentation on their old line. Rather than me re-iterate it all here, I suggest you go to their page to look at photos and download all the assembly instructions and specifications. This model is dark green, no hatches, and came with a rudder (which I have never used) and a sea sock & spray skirt (which I have). https://www.feathercraft.com/kahuna-big-kahuna Email me: jeff@jeffcasey.net or call 781-454-7648

Hi folks - I haven't posted here in about 15 years. I miss you all! I have wanted to paddle Death Valley for decades, but the water only fills up the basin deep enough for paddling once a decade (or less), and I've missed a couple opportunities from other circumstances. The lowest point in the western hemisphere is here -- "badwater", usually a dry salt pan, at 282 feet below sea level. The west coast hurricane Hillary filled up the basin last august to a couple feet deep, but the roads were all washed out and nobody could get in. Two weeks ago, a couple of those "atmospheric rivers" took aim at california with death valley more or less in the bullseye (well, bullseye after being squeezed out by a few mountain ranges in the way). Now or never, right? I went out with 3 friends (these are mountaineering friends from Las Vegas, not paddling friends, as there is no paddling here to speak of). We drove out early today (sunday 2/25), expecting a bit of a zoo as the internet chatter on the paddling was getting loud and popular. We got to our put in about 9-9:30 am -- we didn't go to the official "badwater" turnout, as we expected most people to go there, and knowing the area, we knew that about 3 miles south of there is a nice spot where you can pull off the road with about a 3 foot approach to the water. I had my Feathercraft Big Kahuna (having long since sold the rest of my fleet after moving west), and Eric and Stacey were in a Sea Eagle inflatable tandem, Jay was solo in one of the same. I was ok drafting in less than a foot of water, they were ok if they removed their keel fins (although they lost most directional control). We never saw water over ~2.5 feet deep, and that was quite a ways out. Murky and salty -- there were even salt crystals floating and/or reforming on the surface of the water....it looked skanky, but actually wasn't bad other than the extreme salt crusting everything. So we notched this record, long awaited. The paddling? Calm, flat, no wildlife, no surf, no weather. 80F air in late morning, water probably 60-65 (cool but not cold). The scenery was fantastic -- we're clearly in barren desert, paddling on a salt lake, with 6000' of nearly-cliff like mountains rising on our near side, looking across at the continuous rise up to Telescope peak on the west at over 11000' and covered with a healthy dollop of snow. (If I can figure out my wife's little camera, I'll come back and post a few pictures). We basically floated around ooh-ing and aah-ing at the scenery for an hour, and headed back in. Eric and Stacey were doing fine in their tandem, but Jay found it difficult to paddle in the shallow draft -- he disassembled his paddle to make two poles ~3' long and moved along gondalier fashion by lying on his back and poling the bottom !! With less than 2' of draft, I clearly couldn't dig deep with my paddle, and just puttered along with lazy sweep strokes watching the scenery. Where there were 4-5 cars at the put in when we paddled out, there were now about a dozen. We drove back to Las Vegas the more usual route, through the "nexus" of death valley at furnace creek, which took us past the official badwater parking lot and park service signs. There were at least 50 if not 100 cars here, overfilling the lot and parked along the roadway for at least a half mile in both directions. People were everywhere, in every sort of garb, about a quarter of them with every sort of floating contrivance you can imagine. I have never seen this many people in death valley since the last "superbloom" (when the cars were parked everywhere, the barren rock fields were transformed into the poppy fields from the wizard of oz, and thousands of people were wandering through the flowers looking like migrant farm pickers). Some people were scrambling over a quarter mile of rocks to get from their car to the water. If you go, be sure to go a few miles further south of the badwater lot to the better put in, which is obvious when you see it. This year's puddle is predicted to remain only for a few weeks, but the rangers are notoriously bad at making such predictions....the water table for a hundred miles around got soaked and by all reports the Amaragosa river is still infilling it even though the storm was a couple weeks ago. Nevertheless, if you have any interest in notching this unusual below-sea-level paddling trip on your belt, best do it asap. Is it worth it? Depends on what you are looking for, but I'm glad I finally did it. Jeff Casey Las Vegas, NV / Cedar City, UT (formerly of MA and NSPN regular).

Stunned indeed. Jed was immortal.

bring your boats out here....we'll do a midnight cruise of Lake Mead. not much in the way of wave action, but the desert is lovely this time of year.

sorry, i've just been out of synch with the moon on my visits so far this year. soon, though....

where is the "LIKE" button on this website?

no, can't make it tonight. it is looking like i won't make it out this trip...heading back early tomorrow instead of friday. next month....

this evening won't work. tues? thurs?

I'm in town through thursday. Krunged boat is hastily patched, gotta try it out. Anybody up for something tues or thurs? Perhaps something moonlit?

correctomundo - you stir up colder stuff from deeper down. hurricanes can dampen themselves this way, by the way....once the winds and waves get big, they can stir up colder water from below, which shuts down the growth engine and moderates the size of the storm. if you follow the real weather technies, you see that there are a lot of factors that play into storm growth besides the obvious sea surface temp: 1) wind shear -- different wind speeds or directions at different altitudes -- really suppresses growth of hurricanes, or can shut down existing ones...they want still air to swirl around in 2) ocean temperature profile -- for the reasons above, an ocean temp profile that stays warm a long ways down can support growth of really big ones

are y'all still alive?

winds will be strong and out of the south. perhaps you can snag Smuttynose as you get blown by on your way to Nova Scotia... ...please be careful out there Sir Godfrey.

thank you all. i shoulda looked on the web before bothering you all...the old building just had much more of an "out of business" look than a "moved out" look. i know the area well, found the new site, and got stuff. already have most of the patching done...may not get the boat out paddling this trip, but for sure next trip (mid sept). the damage looks light enough that the patch should be sufficient -- at least no worse than a half dozen other kludges holding the boat together....