A Tsunami at Devil's Hole in Death Valley!

 

Mexican Earthquake Triggers 4-Foot Waves in Death Valley National Park

A magnitude 7.6 earthquake rattled Mexico's Pacific coast on Monday and left at least two people dead in its wake. Repercussions of the tremor extended as far as 1,500 miles north, where four-foot-tall waves began churning inside a Death Valley cave called Devils Hole, in what the National Park Service called a "surprising quirk of geology."

Video footage of the phenomenon — which is technically known as a seiche, when sudden changes are observed in a lake or partially enclosed body of water — shows a birds-eye view of the cave as its initially still water erupts into a series of waves that roil and crash intermittently over the course of several minutes.

Devils Hole is a geothermal pool within a limestone cave, located in a section of Death Valley near the border of Nevada and California. The cave itself is hundreds of feet deep, as the park service noted in a news release explaining the "desert tsunami" recorded late Monday morning, but its relatively shallow water level is crucial for the endangered marine species, called pupfish, that live there.

The fish, whose naturally-occurring population totaled just 175 earlier this year, feed on algae "that grows on a shallow, sunlit shelf" in Devils Hole, according to the park service. 

Because Monday's seiche removed algae that had been growing in the cave, it will reduce the pupfish's food supply in the short term. But Kevin Wilson, an aquatic ecologist with the federal agency, suggested that the creatures may be resilient enough to withstand the temporary shift in their environment.

"The pupfish have survived several of these events in recent years," Wilson said in a statement. "We didn't find any dead fish after the waves stopped." An annual count to tally the pupfish inside Devils Hole is set to take place this upcoming weekend, the park service said.

Monday's earthquake was the first of two powerful tremors that shook Mexico this week. A second happened further inland near the country's capital, Mexico City, early on Thursday. It was given a preliminary magnitude of 6.8, and killed at least one person while causing buildings to sway.

Link to footage of the action in Devil's Hole from the National Park Service.

Thanks to Panamint Patty for sending this!

Original Article

Death Valley, The Racetrack Playa and The Michigan Loader Site

For the fifth year I asked the group if we could go to The Racetrack Playa in Death Valley to see the spot of the burning of the Michigan Loader. I have been consistently outvoted because the spot is very hard to get to. This year I got my wish!

The Racetrack Playa, or The Racetrack, is a scenic dry lake feature with "sailing stones" that inscribe linear "racetrack" imprints.

From Lone Pine where we bunked for the night after checking out Independence it is about a 60 mile trek from the turnoff on CA 198. All of those miles on dirt roads. Not just dirt roads but really windy, mountainous mining roads. None of these dirt mining roads are closer than 40 miles to anything that can be called a town.

Luckily George has lots of backcountry driving experience, topo maps and ice in his veins. The ride was very very bumpy, and we got temporarily lost at least twice. The views were spectacular. Death Valley is a breathtakingly beautiful place.

The view from Hunter Mountain overlooking Hidden Valley:

Tea Kettle Junction - about 6 miles from the Racetrack. Yes, we left a tea kettle:

Racetrack Playa from about 3 miles away:

Racetrack Playa:

The rock formation near the center is known as "The Grandstand".

Sailing Stones at The Racetrack:

Below is the set of the burning of the Michigan Loader, the incident that spurred the Inyo County Sheriff's Department to start the investigation that led to the Barker Ranch Raids and the final arrest of Charles Manson. The spot is the turnoff onto Lippincott Lead Mine Road.

As intense and unforgiving as Death Valley is, it is full of natural beauty.:

On the way back to LA we hit the Trona Pinnacles. Many of you will remember the backdrop from the YouTube video of Bill Nelson filming Cappy as she protested that he had promised not to film her:

The Bottomless Pit

Perhaps one of the most fantastic stories connected with Charles Manson and his "Family" is that of their attempts to locate a "bottomless pit" in Death Valley where they would ride out the Helter Skelter race war brought on by their lethal Cielo/Waverly jumpstarts.

Leslie Van Houten recalled the "Family's" attempts to locate the bottomless pit in her interview with her attorney Marvin Part on December 29, 1969 (Transcript courtesy of Cielodrive.com): 

MISS VAN HOUTEN: "But we — after that, we started decide — seeing where we were in this position, because we knew that we were part of this Revolutions — of the Revelations in the Bible. We knew that we had a part in it.

"And so we read, and it talked about a hole in the desert or going to the Kingdom. We found out — we started looking into the Death Valley, what’s underneath Death Valley, and we found out there was the Armagosa River and blind fish and all kinds of things that just made us believe that there was a whole world underneath. And that some of the Montezuma’s people are already under there waiting for us.

"And that what would happen is that about a couple thousand of the chosen people — white people — would go down into the center of the earth and stay there for about fifty years. And then there would Athens or — I can’t remember all the names, but something was going to happen. And then we were going to come back up.

And this was when we — the earth would be all black.

"Because to go into the hole, you would have to be perfect in your mind and in your body."

MR. PART:  "Now, how were you supposed to get down to the center of the earth?"

MISS VAN HOUTEN:  "Well, we hadn’t quite figured it out yet. We were looking for the hole.

"That’s what we were doing in the desert with the dune buggies. And that’s why we needed more dune buggies.

"And we were — we had a good idea that it was in the Death Valley area, but we weren’t sure just where.

"And we weren’t quite — we weren’t quite sure of how it was going to work, where we’re going to get in there.

"But maybe it was going to be rigged up from someone who’d gone down before, that it would have water on the top and then like the water would like move away — go away somehow by some kind of mechanism.

"And if we played around the hole enough that went down there, we’d find it out.

And then we could just walk down it and then we’d have to float down a river, one of the rivers, and then it would take us down and take about — I think about two weeks, we figured it out, to get down to the center.

"And then once we got to the center we’d be tiny, and everything would be great big, magnified, like the pearls.

"It talks about the pearls. There’d be giant pearls, and we’d be just little tiny, about maybe five inches compared to everything else."

MR. PART:  "You say it talks about the pearls. Who talks about the pearls?"

MISS VAN HOUTEN:  "At the end of Revelations, in the very last book, almost to the last page, it says that the kingdom will have giant pearls.

"I don’t know who said it — I don’t know who wrote it — but it talks about that, and gold everywhere."

(Van Houten also discusses the Hole briefly in this interview from 1975.)

Recalling Charles Manson's alleged obsession with the pit, sometime Manson associate  Brooks Poston told Inyo County deputy sheriff Don Ward during an October 3, 1969 interrogation at Barker Ranch that the pit was "a cave that he [Manson] says is underneath Death Valley and leads down to a sea of gold that the Indians know about…. [Manson said] every tuned-in tribe of people that's ever lived have escaped the destruction of their race by going underground, literally, and they're all living in a golden city where there's a river that runs through it of milk and honey, and a tree that bears twelve kinds of fruit, a different fruit each month…. and you don't need to bring candles nor any flashlights down there. [Manson] says it will be all lit up because…. the walls will glow and it won't be cold and it won't be too hot. There will be warm springs and fresh water, and people are already down there waiting for him." (Helter Skelter, page 313)

Whence sprang this weird story of paradise in an infinite hole in Death Valley? 

With regard to the "Manson Family" there are several supposed sources for the belief that Manson and his associates could disappear into a bottomless pit to wait out Helter Skelter. One of these sources, as mentioned by Van Houten in her Part interview, was from Chapter Nine from the Book of Revelations in the Bible, specifically,  "And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth; and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit…. and there came out of the pit locusts upon the earth; and unto them was given power, as scorpions of the earth have power…." 

Another supposed reference to the pit and "the Family's" equally supposed obsession with it comes from the Beatles' song "Helter Skelter," the alleged anthem behind the Tate-LaBianca murders, wherein Paul McCartney sings, "When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide," a lyric which, according to the prosecution at Manson's murder trial, referred to "the Family" going into the bottomless pit and then returning to the Earth's surface post-Helter Skelter. 

Although Charles Manson very possibly made some note of the bottomless pit mentioned in Revelation 9, he likely did so because he had already heard of another bottomless pit, namely the one mentioned in Indian and mining lore in the area around Death Valley. 

In his 1930 classic book Death Valley author Bourke Lee explained. "The Great Basin Paiute lived surrounded by weird, unearthly beings. They lived in the air above him and in the ground beneath him. They were in the trees, below the surface of the water, in caves and niches in the rock, on the plain and high in the mountains. The U-nu-pits were the commonest of this host of evil spirits. Most evils and mishaps were attributed to the activity of the U-nu-pits. They made their homes in the high cliffs and searched the desert for foolish and unwary people, whom they carried of to toss of the brink of some high canyon wall. No Paiute ever slipped off a high trail to his death solely as a result of his own carelessness or because a rotten path had crumbled beneath him. To the Paiute mind it was clear that the man who fell had been tripped by a U-nu-pits, or that a U-nu-pits had prepared the trail to trap him.

"The Yan-tups were the evil spirits of the springs. They lived in the ground around the subterranean sources of the mountain waterholes. They came out of their deep hiding places at night and say on the surface of the water singing in low, doleful voices. The often seized little children who went to the springs for water and carried them off to hidden caverns."

Besides these examples from Native American lore there are also fairly modern day stories about seemingly bottomless pits and the people who supposedly dwell therein. Here are two of them, as recounted in Mysterious California, by Mike Marinacci (and previously presented here on the MF Blog): 

"Tom Wilson [was] a Charoc Indian who was a Death Valley guide in the 1920s. Wilson said that when he was a boy, his grandfather told him he had found a tunnel that extended for miles beneath the valley. Walking its length, the man ended up at an underground chamber where a race of fair-skinned people dwelt.

"Welcomed by these subterraneans, Wilson's grandfather lived with the for a while. The people spoke a strange foreign language, wore clothes made of a leatherlike substance and illuminated their home with a pale greenish-yellow light of unknown origin.

"The Indian eventually resurface and returned to his people, who were understandably skeptical about his adventure. But Tom Wilson believed that the old man hadn't lied, and he spent the rest of his life searching for the entry of this underground world, convinced until his death in 1968 that it actually existed somewhere beneath Death Valley."

[1968! - GS]

"At one point, Wilson teamed up with a prospector named White, who claimed that he too had found strange underground dwellings in Death Valley. White had been exploring an abandoned mine in Wingate Pass when he fell into a hidden tunnel that led to a series of rooms.

"The rooms were filled with leather-clad human mummies. Gold bars and other fabulous treasures were stacked in piles around them. There was a passageway leading beyond the rooms as well, lit by an eerie greenish-yellow light. But White dared not explore any further, fearful of what might lie beyond.

"White visited the rooms three more times, once with his wife and once with another miner. But he was unable to locate the cavern later when accompanied by Tom Wilson and a group of archeologists, although they did find a curious dead-end tunnel into the solid rock. The area around Wingate Pass was eventually absorbed into the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, and is now closed to the public." 

If there is a bottomless pit in the Death Valley area, where might its entrance be?

One likely candidate is the Devils Hole, a water-filled opening in the earth located about a dozen miles northeast of the town of Death Valley Junction. Although explored extensively, the depth of the water in Devils Hole has never been determined, thus making it an excellent candidate as an entrance into the pit. 

The entrance to the Devils Hole

In June of 1965, just a little over three years before Manson et al.'s initial arrival in the desert,  three amateur scuba divers from Las Vegas ventured into the Hole for some surreptitious recreational diving. Two of them never returned to the surface, and despite a days-long search by scores of would-be rescuers from all over the western U.S., no trace of them was ever found. Manson and his companions absolutely knew about this tragedy, as Catherine "Gypsy" Share referred to it when she was interviewed for the June 25, 1970 Rolling Stone magazine article on "Charles Manson, The Most Dangerous Man Alive."

Headline From the Santa Cruz Sentinel, June 23, 1965

A scuba diver in the Devils Hole during the search for two divers who vanished there in 1965

Just a few hundred yards away from the Devils Hole to the north is another mysterious entryway into Death Valley's subterranean world, the Devils Hole Cave. The Devils Hole Cave also has no known bottom. In fact, it is not even known whether the Cave and the Hole are even connected, despite their close proximity to each other.  

The entrance to the Devils Hole Cave is secured by a welded steel cover to 

prevent unauthorized persons from entering. 

Also in the area are several spring fed pools that likewise have no known depth or origin.

One of the pools in the Devils Hole area. Nobody knows anything about them either. 

There are hundreds of vertical mine shafts in the Death Valley area that could also lead to an underground paradise. And still another entry candidate is the "blow hole" located in the southwestern side of  the Striped Butte in Butte Valley, just a half dozen or so miles from the Myers and Barker ranches.

And another mysterious natural phenomenon of the Death Valley area that might figure into the story is the Amargosa River, which flows in a generally southeasterly direction in the Amargosa Valley east of Death Valley proper adjacent to California Highway 127. Certainly it is one of the strangest rivers in the world. There are portions of the Amargosa that only exist as dry river beds. In other places it flows over the desert floor just like any other substantial stream. No one knows the origins or the source of water for the Amargosa River. Its beginnings and ends are mysteries, as is what happens to it between its wet and dry segments. Still, despite all of the unknowns, it is still regarded as "the longest underground river in the world." (Death Valley and the Amargosa, by Richard E. Lingenfelter)

*      *      *

So, how would all of these legends from Indian lore and miners' stories wind up connected with Charles Manson and his "Family?"

Because of his background of being raised in institutions Charles Manson is an extremely paranoid-type person, and his resulting proclivity for awareness means that he has an intense interest in anything that is going on around him. He likes to talk with people and find out what they know. And there can be no doubt that during his time in the desert Manson spoke with as many of the local residents as he could and that he absorbed everything they told him. Thus there can also be no doubt that Manson was aware of every Indian legend, every miner's tall tale or hallucination, and every legitimate news story about anything that occurred in Death Valley before he got there. Further, Manson's interests can be infectious, especially since another of his characteristics is that he likes to point out the interests of the life experience to those around him and, if possible, channel those interests into positive energy. Therefore, I find it completely believable that Manson, upon learning of various stories about a bottomless pit in the Death Valley area, would not only communicate those stories to the persons around him but that he would also even channel them into some kind of activity for his friends to engage in, as in, "Hey, I heard that there's a bottomless pit somewhere around here. Let's try to find it!" 

And that's where we get reminiscences of people like Leslie Van Houten who recall "the Family's" earnest search for such a hole.

Death Valley’s ‘Sailing Stones’

By Carl Engelking | August 27, 2014

Photo credit: Anatoliy Lukich/Shutterstock

The Racetrack Playa - a barren lakebed in Death Valley National Park - is home to one of the world's natural wonders: "sailing stones" that mysteriously meander across the dried mud, leaving tracks in their wake. Since the 1940s, these rocks have fueled wonder and speculation because no one had seen them in action - until now.

A team of U.S. scientists recorded the first observation of these boulders in motion, using GPS monitors and time-lapse photography. By meticulously tracking weather data, scientists also explained how these rocks slog across the playa. What was one of the world's natural wonders now appears to be the perfect combination of rain, wind, ice and sun.

Unraveling a Mystery

Years ago, researchers traveled to the Racetrack Playa with plenty of instruments in tow. They first installed a weather station and several time-lapse cameras around the playa. They also placed 15 GPS-embedded limestone rocks of various sizes throughout the playa. Then, it was time to wait.

"As one of the other researchers on this project said, 'Probably the most boring experiment ever,'" study co-author Jim Norris said in a video about the experiment.

However, things got interesting in November 2013. In late November, significant amounts of rain and snow created a small pond in the south end of the playa. When December came, the GPS-embedded rocks started moving, with the heaviest weighing in at 35 pounds. The rocks reached blazing speeds of 9-16 feet per minute. Most importantly, the race was caught on camera.

So what caused the rocks to drag themselves across the playa?

Getting the Green Light

Past theories attributed the rocks' movements to high winds, liquid water, or ice. But scientists discovered it's a careful balance of all these factors.

When the small pond formed in the southern portion of the playa, it cyclically froze at night and thawed under the midday sun. When the sun warmed the pond, thin layers of surface ice started breaking apart into massive floating sheets tens of meters in size. Although the ice sheets were large, they were still just a few millimeters thick.

But the freezing and thawing wasn't enough on its own. A steady, light wind of about 7-10 miles per hour was also needed, but before the ice had completely melted. This wind, timed with the midday melt, pushed massive panes of ice into the stones. When the ice accumulated behind the stones, it generated enough force to set the stones into motion. And rather than floating or rolling, the rocks bulldozed their way across the mud, leaving behind their signature tracks. Researchers published their findings Tuesday in the journal PLoS ONE.

The rocks won't move if there's too much water or ice, too much sun, or not enough wind. Everything must act in perfect harmony for the races to ensue. So, in addition to their "sailing stones" moniker, we suggest a new name for these fascinating boulders: the Goldilocks Rocks.

Devil's Hole Pupfish: "Species in a bucket"

Patty is finishing up her BS this spring and will finally get to wear a black bathrobe and goofy hat on stage. WOOT!  Before that however, there is the matter of a term paper on the evolutionary topic of her choice. Of course, she has chosen the Devil's Hole pupfish.  Do you know much about them? The story goes like this:

The Death Valley pupfishes consist of two groups of 3 distinct species with a total of 7 subspecies, and are an example of "rapid post-Pleistocene allopatric divergence" that occurred between 10-20,000 years ago. It occurred because Lake Manly, which at one time covered most of Death Valley, receded and left just a few isolated patches of water in its wake. Below is a picture of the dry Lake Manly lake bed from Devil's Hole, today.

Intriguingly, it is thought that Owens Valley pupfish are related to those in today's Colorado River, while Death Valley pupfish are related to a species found in Chihuahua, Mexico. This data suggests that there were two separate invasions of pupfish into the Lake Manly area that hybridized with each other to form the different subspecies of Cyprinodon.

The Cyprinodon diabolis population in Devil's hole may have once been as large as 800 adults. Conservation efforts began in 1969 when the hole may have appeared much shallower to visitors, like Charlie et al. In recent years, the C. diabolis population has varied from 38-95 adults, representing an increase since they became protected in 1976. The last time water levels were as low as they were in 1976 was 6,000 years ago. 1969-76 were the years with the lowest recorded water levels in years, due to explosive anthropogenic growth in Las Vegas. This growth required that more water be withdrawn from the natural aquifer that runs from Salt Lake City to Death Valley.

Devil’s Hole is also inhabited by 80 species of algae that provide most of C. diabolis' food. Water in the hole has a consistent temperature of 89.6F, is supersaturated with calcium carbonate and is its own little semi-closed system: i.e., "net autotrophic."  Attempts to raise C. diabolis in captivity have had limited success, though those collected in the springtime seem to be most fertile. At right is a diagram of the shape of the hole underground. It exists because the underground aquifer (aka the Amargosa Flood Plain) is forced upwards there, due to bedrock that was also pushed upwards by plate tectonics millions of years ago. This can clearly be seen in the photograph, below.

The Family is known to have repeated native stories about fertile subterranean lands inhabited by redheaded giants, and is likely the reason they were so interested in the Devil's Hole. Countless little habitats like this one were probably feasible human residences at some time in the history of the advancing and receding Lake Manly, but Devil's Hole is one of the most well known. Some scholars have written (albeit dubiously) since 1932 that the redheaded giants of native lore were the dessicated mummies of a taller native people from the North who lived and died in these habitats. The mummies' dark hair turns red due to the chemical composition of the caves, much like the hair on the "bog bodies" of Northern Europe (see below).

Anyhow, Patty contacted the National Park Service to see if they are having any problems with people trying to climb or throw things over the fence there? She thought that perhaps she could get the word out to Manson oriented tourists to "be cool." Patty is pleased to report that Dr. Wilson who is in charge of the fish's wellbeing reports that indeed, park visitors have been very respectful. Here is what he wrote:

"Thank you for your interest in Devils Hole.  I'm currently the Devils Hole Program manager for Death Valley National Park.  My title is an Aquatic Ecologist.  I have a PhD in Zoology from the University of Toronto and did my masters working on energetics of Devils Hole back in 2000-2001. Program staff have recently upgraded the security system and overall site at Devils Hole.  This has reduced vandalism, but some minor events have occurred.  For example, someone threw broken glass down into Devils Hole from the observation deck. Otherwise it has been quiet over the last several years.If you are ever in the area please contact me and we could arrange a more personal tour of Devils Hole.Regards, Kevin"

The desert. It's fucking amazing. If Patty wasn't planning on being in the area anytime soon, well then, she is now!

References:
Andersen, M.E. & Deacon, J.E. 2001. Population Size of Devils Hole Pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) Correlates with Water Level. Copeia, 2001(1): 224-228. 
Barrett, P.J. (2011) Estimating Devils Hole Pupfish Lifestage Ratios Using the Delphi Method. Fisheries, 34:2, 73-79.
Baugh, T.M. & Deacon, J.E. 1983. Daily and yearly movement of the Devil’s Hole pupfish Cyprinodon diabolis wales in Devil’s Hole, Nevada. Great Basin Naturalist, October 1983, 592-596.
Bernot, M.J. &Wilson, K.P. (2012). Spatial and temporal variation of dissolved oxygen and ecosystem energetics in Devil’s Hole,Nevada. Western North American Naturalist 72(3), pp. 265–275.
Deacon, J.E., Williams, A.E., Deacon Williams, C. & Williams, J.E. 2007. Fueling population growth in Las Vegas: How large-scale groundwater withdrawal could burn regional biodiversity. BioScience, 57(8): 688-697.
Duvernell, D.D. & Turner, B.J. 1998. Evolutionary genetics of Death Valley pupfish populations: mitochondrial DNA sequence variation and population structure. Molecular Ecology 7: 279–288.
Duvernell, D.D. & Turner, B.J. 1999. Variation and Divergence of Death Valley Pupfish Populations at Retrotransposon-Defined Loci. Molecular Biology and Evolution 16(3): 363–371.Echelle, A.A. & A.F. Allozyme Perspective on Mitochondrial DNA Variation and Evolution of the Death Valley Pupfishes (Cyprinodontidae: Cyprinodon). Copeia, 1993(2) pp. 275-287.
Echelle, A.A. & Dowling, T.E. 1992. Mitochondrial DNA Variation and Evolution of the Death Valley Pupfishes. Evolution, 46(1), 193-206.
Lee, B. 1932. Death Valley Men. MacMillan Co., N.Y.
Wilson, K. 2014. Personal Communication via email with Devil’s Hole Program Manager for National Park Service: March 3, 2014.

Eviliz Tour 2012 - Day 2

DAY 2

Today we headed out to Death Valley. Since we are in Nevada the first stop for the Eviliz crew will be the Devil's Hole. It is located surprisingly close to Pahrump. The final five miles or so are dirt roads, but not too bad as far as dirt roads go.

The Devil's Hole is not in Death Valley National Park. In Fact, it's quite a distance from it. In looking at the maps we all came to the same conclusion: Charlie really covered some ground!

The actual Devil's Hole spot itself is a scientific place of importance because of the small population of prehistoric pup fish that live there. It is in fact the only place on Earth where they exist. For this reason it is fenced-off but you can still stand almost directly over it.

To go down in 1969 would have taken robust young people. It's quite a climb and quite a drop to the bottom if you were to fall. On this day the bottomless pit did not open.

The drive into Death Valley was beautiful. It is however, long. Our second destination for the day was to get to Father Crowley Point. In order to get there we would pass through places like Furnace Creek and Panamint Springs. Both places are very isolated, but each has a nice restaurant or two which we took full advantage of. Crossing the mountain ranges took us to elevations over 5000 ft where we needed jackets. But Furnace Creek is some 500 ft below sea level and it was HOT. We couldn't imagine how hot it gets in August. Oh, and gas was a little pricey in Furnace Springs, but luckily for Mr. Patty and I, the ale was cold.

We finally got to Father Crowley Point. When we first arrived the wind was really kicking. Grump and I both thought we heard a train coming. On the second hearing we realized it was the acoustics created by the winds churning between the mountains around us!

Of course you all know that this is the spot where Fillipo Tennerelli's car was pushed over the edge after his murder in Bishop, CA. It is one of those incidents that fits the Manson pattern but was never proven. FCP is like being at the top of the world. The view of the Panamint Mountains and Death Valley below are spectacular. It gives a vantage point to see the route that Charles Manson sought to find to bring the Family to its desert hideout undetected by not traveling on public roads. The expanse of this area kept ringing home the same thought: Charlie and the Family really covered some ground!

We decided to bunk in Ridgecrest, way to the south but a town that has modern amenities and is relatively close to tomorrow's destinations - Ballarat, Barker's & Meyer's Ranches! Upon examining our map we concluded that we had time to hit Olancha - the site of the Family's staging area, Hannum Ranch and of course the spot of yet another Family related but never proven murder - Karl Stubbs in 1968. Olancha is quite close to the mountains beside it. The Spring runoff makes it plush and green compared to what we had seen all day.

The Karl Stubbs house

TOMORROW, BARKER'S RANCH!!!

The Snuff Flicks buried in Death Valley

Weird.  They are making a movie on the mysterious death of Bobby Fuller.  He was the guy that wrote
"I fought the law". Very tragic the way he died.

For some reason they are throwing Charlie in the mix along with the missing snuff movies supposedly buried in Death Valley.  The snuff stuff might "hold the secret to Fuller's death."  I copied a couple of paragraphs for you below.
The Colonel is going to be on a rant. 


http://thefilmstage.com/2011/03/30/james-marsden-attached-to-play-charles-manson-in-the-dead-circus

it looks like James Marsden isn’t ready to just get sucked into the vacuum of generic films quite yet. Deadline reports that the actor will be playing famous cult leader (and decent musician) Charles Manson in The Dead Circus. The movie, written by Adam Davenport and John Kaye (who also wrote the novel), fictionalizes the very real and very mysterious death of singer Bobby Fuller, throwing in the Manson family as part of the conspiracy for giggles. 

With the help of a former Manson Family member who’s trying to put her past behind her, he finds out that the mystery of Fuller’s death may be solvable if he can find a series of snuff films the Family shot back in the 60′s, which have been buried in Death Valley, California

The Dead Circus is currently seeking financing with eyes on starting production this summer in Los Angeles.

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!