Friday, March 25, 2011

Panamint Patty's Death Valley Adventures, Part II

Lots gets written about the Goler Wash but not much about the eastern approach from Death Valley. On Panamint Patty's recent adventure, she and Mr. Patty decided to see some of the places mentioned in Bob Murphy's book, Desert Shadows. Below is a snapshot of Murphy's map. You can see the little town of Trona at bottom left. Just southeast of there are the Trona Pinnacles, which we discussed recently in our roast of Bill Nelson. The photo above should be familiar to you from his footage of his wife and Cappy strolling casually among the tufas:Here's a look from West Road in Death Valley towards the southwest. Beyond this range is China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station (home to some of the most extraordinary petroglyphs in the world: Google "Little Petroglyph Canyon" for more details but don't use Wikipedia or Evil Liz might find out. She's evil that way). Barker Ranch is maybe 40 miles from this point to the right of Owlshead mountain, visible at the very far right.Below: a panoramic view of Butte Valley toward Anvil Spring and Mengel Pass. The large, black butte in the foreground is Striped Butte. It looks stripier in the summer when it's not sporting a fuzzy beard. If you Google-Earth the area, you can totally make out Striped Butte because it's a darkly shaped trapezoid in a sea of beige. You can also make out this trail diagonally on its right.Photo taken towards where we want to go, from the Willow Spring road. Can you spot a wee little cairn up there in the distance?Dune buggies found at the Willow Springs area in October, 1969. According to Bob Murphy in Desert Shadows, "In this vehicle were found a pair of bolt cutters and a spotting scope. They would later learn the bolt cutters had been used to cut telephone wires at the Sharon Tate house. The spotting scope was probably the one Charlie took from Dennis Wilson's house." Damn. Panamint Patty wonders who plundered those little goodies from an evidence locker? The Anvil Springs area where Stephanie Schram and Kitty Lutesinger surrendered to CHP officers who were in the area preparing to move the stolen dune buggies. Murphy writes: "As they approached Anvil Springs just after dark (on October 10), Hainey and Officer Ben Anderson observed two hippies running up the road toward them. Both said that they were fleeing from Charlie, the leader of The Family, and that they were afraid for their lives. They had left...the day before and...were relieved to learn that Clem and Randy had been arrested."Turning the very last corner out of Butte Valley; Mengel Pass is visible. Carl Mengel is buried under that cairn along with his prosthetic leg. Carl died in the 40's, but is responsible for giving Sourdough Springs (on the Goler Wash side of the pass) its name because fried liver and sourdough pancakes were his favorite breakfast.Liz, Grump, et. al. were talking earlier this week about the blue and white bus. The route detailed above is said to be the route that was used to get the bus to Barker Ranch. In the photo below, the bus is sitting just outside the fence line at the northwestern corner of the ranch:Which, coincidentally, is where the crapper now sits, right about where the driver's seat used to be (note tall and short post in each photo to orient yourself):The above photo was taken very near the entrance to the Barker Garbage dump and Helter Skelter truck, in a little draw just to the north, right where Grump says the bus sat until the early 1980's. Makes sense to Panamint Patty. Look at the undercarriage on the darned thing...wow! It sure wasn't going to go much further in one piece!





23 comments:

GrumpFromPahrump said...

Patty - did you get to The Devil's Hole? If not, I'll get out there next week.

rfoster1 said...

Wonderful post and pictures, Patty!

Ken619 said...

Great pictures Patty! I've never seen pictures of the road in from the other side.

Ken619 said...

Once again, love the way they expand!

Matt said...

So good to have visual reference for those places. Thanks Patty!

St. Circumstance said...

Awesome pictures!!

Saint Circumstance

Panamint Patty said...

Nope, we did not make it down to Devil's Hole. The weather was so crappy we spent a lot of time just getting from here to there. I wish we had two weeks instead of just one.

orwhut said...

Fantiastic pix, Patty.
I remember when the Sears catalog used to have bodies for dune buggies similar to the ones shown. The bodies looked really neat but weren't necessary for a dune buggy. I've often wondered whether Charlie's buggy builders ever used bodies like that or just chopped down the original VW bodies.

eviliz said...

awesome patty!

hippichick40 said...

These are very cool. Thanks for sharing!

MrPoirot said...

orwhut said...
Fantiastic pix, Patty.
I remember when the Sears catalog used to have bodies for dune buggies similar to the ones shown. The bodies looked really neat but weren't necessary for a dune buggy. I've often wondered whether Charlie's buggy builders ever used bodies like that or just chopped down the original VW bodies[end quote]


I've seen pics of Charlie's fav dune buggy. It looked like metal from the origonal VW. The buggies they paid to have buggied up looked like kit jobs in Patty's pic above. Charlie's(with his scabbard and sword) looked like a Spahn Ranch chop job.

Ken619 said...

The style of dune buggy in the picture is called a Bath Tub Buggy. These were and still are street legal as are Baja Bugs. The chopped up type that you see in other pictures were not street legal. The Bath Tub type offered the necessary fenders, lights, bumpers, mirrors, windshield, muffler, etc. to make a buggy street legal. If CM was having these type of buggies made, that probably would be the reason why. My dad had one and it was fun to drive around.

Suze said...

WOW! Awesome, Patty! I want to see it for myself so bad. Some day...

St. Circumstance said...

It will be really awesome to see these places in person... Spring 2012....

Panamint Patty said...

Hi again Saint, looks like you and Lynyrd got that new blog going. Interested to see what y'all come up with. Cheers!

St. Circumstance said...

Its nice to see you as well Patty :) your pics are incredible...

Actually- I had nothing to do with L/S new site- but I always did like him... so I thought I would come back and give him best wishes.... It is great when anyone goes out to do there own thing, and he seems to be on the right track...

Great sites- with open dialog- are always a great thing!!

Which is why I also wanted to stop in here to see how well you guys are doing!!

and I am happy to see what has become of this blog... Couldn't wish it on better people!!

bobot420 said...

The old VW bodies that were stripped off were thrown down the canyon a half mile north of Spahns Ranch. I got pics of them of vourse, and also there are videos ton Backporch tapes as well. Im the one giggling non-stop. We ate Pot brownies and could stop laughing at times.

bobot420 said...

Last year Michael from Backporch and I attempted to get to Barker Ranch. The people that were going to meet us up there had a 4x4 but they didnt show up. We camped at the base of Goler Wash. That same day they had a dirtbike race going through to vegas. A ton of bikes failed getting past the same spot Manson couldnt get the bus through, therefore had to go around.
I really want to get to the barker ranch spot so if anyone here is going, let me know and ill pitch in gas money and good times. :)

email me: ghoulie420@hotmail.com

fiona1933 said...

This is nothing to do with this topic, I just want to post it for discussion.
Remember when Linda came out of the woodwork and was interviewed with Bug? She said that when Tex shot Parent, he told her to get the boy's wallet, and I think to remove the money? or was it to take the whole wallet? whatever, she did, far cry from what she had told Bug originally, that she had gone into a state of emotional shock and walked up the drive. Bug quickly shut her up. But it gave a very different view of Linda, made her seem a much more involved player. At the time I thought: HMMMM.
But today, looking thru Helter Skelter, I saw a list of the personal effects of the victims, made as the cops removed them, inc Sharon's wedding ring, Sebring's watch, and "John Doe's wallet" containing 9 dollars and various papers but no ID.
So what's that all about? Did she take it, and take the money and miss some? or not take it at all? Did she misremember after all these years? But it's a serious thing to get wrong, it totally gives the lie to her claim of terrified follower.

Screwbop said...

I'd love to know whatever happened to the dune buggies after the arrests? I heard that Manson's original command dune buggy was a regular at some auto shows shortly after. Anyone have any more info on this?

Ken619 said...

bobot420 said...

The old VW bodies that were stripped off were thrown down the canyon a half mile north of Spahns Ranch. I got pics of them of vourse, and also there are videos ton Backporch tapes as well. Im the one giggling non-stop. We ate Pot brownies and could stop laughing at times.


Is this on the other side of the 118, or is it farther up Susana Pass Rd? I'd be interested to see it.

LynyrdSkynyrdBand said...

Hello Liz, Matt… Everyone:

As Patty mentioned earlier, and as most of you probably know, I’ve opened a new blog.
I’m not viewing this as a competition of any sort, and my sincere hope, is that we can co-exist peacefully.

My blog is essentially a discussion group.
There’s nothing “official” or “exclusive” about it… and neither is the intent.
My goal is to post topics, which will hopefully inspire good conversation.

Everyone is welcome.
I say that, not to steal members, but to be polite.
My blog is “members only”, just to afford me recourse, in case someone gets outrageous on a continuous basis.

Liz and Matt… you have my e-mail.
If there’s ever an issue or problem, please contact me directly, so we can handle it quickly.
There’s nothing worse than letting a problem fester.
We all have busy lives and none of us need unnecessary stress, over a blog issue.
At the end of the day, this is just a hobby for most of us.

Peace and Love to All! Lynyrd

BTW…
Patty your photos are great!
I really didn’t realize how spectacular they are, until I clicked on them.
When they’re blown-up full size, the detail is gorgeous.

Stacey…
I liked your caption the best! “Laxative”… LOL : )

Matt said...

That sounds great, Lynyrd. Glad to hear it.