Nice pictures BBM.

The Racetrack is one of my favorite places in the valley. Although I made it within a problem several times, always alone, the last two visits ended up with some adventure.

On the first of the two I was with a friend shooting at sundown at the top of the White Mountains at the Bristlecone Pine forest. Once we were done we decided to use the dirt road from Big Pine to Ubehebe crater and then hit the dirt road to the Racetrack instead on driving around on the regular roads. It was late, I was having too much fun driving fast on the washboards. When we arrived at the Racetrack around 2am to spend the rest of the night the Tahoe was like a boat on a rough sea; blown shocks. We made some good shots in the morning though but the drive back to the Bay Area was kind of interesting.

On my last visit in July 2006 I was with my 13 year old Son. We arrived late in the afternoon for a sunset shoot. We had a great time on the playa. Back at the car the Grand Cherokee battery was dead. Ooops! In July there's not many people there. Luckily a couple of Japanese visitors were doing some 4x4 driving in the area. I instructed them to alert the rangers once they hit a road and find a phone. We planted the tent next to the playa and spent a very windy night, a bit nervous too. We had sufficient water for the next day and an eventual hike back to Ubehebe in case nobody came to rescue us (26 miles, would have been a long one). The morning was long, very long. Finally a bit after 10am we saw sunlight reflected off a car coming down to the track so we started hiking toward the north parking in case the occupants decided to turn around there. It was a ranger coming for us. My Son enjoyed the short ride in the ranger's truck, big gun, radio... A jumper cable helped restart the Jeep and we were on our way back with a nice story to tell.

Anyway I now really recommend you check tires, brakes, coolant level, and battery before going to this place. Better yet is going with two vehicles. If we had to have the Jeep towed it would have cost us $1800. That can make for an expensive weekend.