Death Valley National Park Entrance Sign
Several off-road drivers stuck, then cited in Death Valley National Park
DEATH VALLEY, Calif. – Three vehicles illegally drove off road and got stuck in Death Valley National Park recently. The vehicles needed to be towed and the drivers were cited with mandatory court appearances.
“Vehicles driving off roads can damage fragile ecosystems and damage archeological sites,” said Superintendent Mike Reynolds. “They also impact the experience of other park visitors. People want to take photographs of the park’s beautiful landscapes without car tracks in the picture, which can last for many years.”
On December 22, two men drove a rented Porsche SUV off a road toward the salt flat about two miles south of Badwater Basin. The vehicle got stuck in mud about 200 yards away from the road.
Retrieving stuck vehicles can cause significant additional damage. Park rangers instructed that National Park Service staff would need to monitor the extraction. However, the men hired a man with a pickup truck to attempt to remove the Porsche when the NPS was not present. The pickup truck also got stuck in mud.
A tow truck winched the pickup truck out of the mud a couple days later. The Porsche drove out of the mud after digging holes and laying down traction.
On December 27, a man drove a BMW SUV over a parking lot curb and for about a half mile through Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes before getting stuck in sand. The vehicle was towed out the following night.
Park rangers are concerned that copycat behavior can be inspired when people see vehicle tracks leading out into the desert. While rangers were at the sand dunes parking lot waiting for the tow truck to arrive, more than one visitor came up to them and asked how they can drive out into the sand dunes as well.
Death Valley National Park is the homeland of the Timbisha Shoshone and preserves natural resources, cultural resources, exceptional wilderness, scenery, and learning experiences within the nation’s largest conserved desert landscape and some of the most extreme climate and topographic conditions on the planet. Learn more at www.nps.gov/deva.
Porsche and its attempted rescuer stuck south of Badwater Basin.
NPS photo by S. Solomon
Hole created while extracting the pickup truck stuck in the mud south of Badwater Basin.
NPS photo by S. Solomon
After two vehicles and a tow truck drove in the same location, the National Park Service installed signs to deter others from thinking that this is a road.
NPS photo by S. Solomon
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Thank you so much to our National Park Service! How can people be so ignorant? Please take care of our planet.
Typical OV, Death Valley and National Park tourists and tourism…
“I’m from out of the areal,I got money, and I can do as I please..I can drive my Porsche or BMW wherever I want to..and if I get stuck, I can do as I please to get myself out “..and followed by:
‘It’s only sand…it doesn’t do any damage to the landscape…besides, it’s MY land anyway, and MY right to do as I please on my land ”
I’m really hoping it was Miller’s Towing that came from Lone Pine to do the extraction, because if it was, believe me, it costed them a boat-load of money…
Now let’s hope the NPS and court system works and fines them all another boat-load of cash…
Idiots.
Just impound and sell off the vehicles.
No wait… this is the government… we can’t hurt their feelings…
Probably sensitivity training how they harmed “mother” earth.
That will do the trick.
NPS needs to rake out the tire tracks with farm rake behind a tractor.
They need to spend time in jail.
Maybe seizing vehicles should be considered as an alternative, if we want to take these crimes seriously.
It probably wouldn’t make a difference for this level of entitlement and/or stupidity but the current signage, in the photo anyway, is similar to what I’ve seen in the Inyo NF, they’re lame and inadequate.
Unless you’re driving at a snails pace, they’re difficult to even read, if you see them at all.
Most ORV can run them over with ease, and some drivers/riders do because they can.
Judging by the photo it appears one of the vehicles may have done that.
I hope the judge hits them where it hurts.
Not to be mean or ignorant, do these idiot flat lenders have more than a credit card and a bucket of stupidity?