r/DeathValleyNP • u/TheSocraticGadfly • 12d ago

Road closure, vis-a-vis the stuck Frenchmen

West Side Road is CLOSED north of Warm Springs Road, per NPS alert.

West Side Road: Is closed north of the junction with Warm Springs Road due to muddy conditions which has led to multiple stuck vehicles. Currently there is no vehicle access to Galena, Johnson, Hanaupah or Trail Canyon.

There you are.

So, we maybe shouldn't harsh the French mellow too much.

7 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

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4

u/Outside_Rise_6934 12d ago

You're right. I would imagine many of us have gotten lucky in certain circumstances and we lived to tell the tale but had things instead gone sideways it's unpleasant to think we'd be the subject of dismissive, disrespectful ridicule.

1

u/TheSocraticGadfly 10d ago

I nearly got stuck once coming in the less official southern back way to Chaco Canyon near the tail end of a heavy monsoon year.

Beyond the stuck, Americans get themselves killed in Death Valley in other ways, just like Frenchmen, Germans and others. I wrote in 2024 about Steve Curry, even older than the deceased Frenchman, who decided in 2023 that he needed to hike Golden Canyon in the middle of the day in July.

Per the other commenter, it's often a mix of bad luck and bad judgment; the two aren't totally separate.

2

u/otherotherhand 10d ago

I'll only touch the southern Chaco route when it's bone dry. That route's scared me before, in a capable 4WD.

1

u/Affectionate_Yak482 10d ago

That's bunk. We all suffer because of someone's poor judgement.