Skip to main content

2016 Fall Mountain Trip Part 3; Panamint Valley and Trona-Wildrose Road

After reaching the eastern Panamint Range Gap in California State Route 178 located in Searles Valley near Trona I took Trona Road north to the Inyo County Line.  At the Inyo County Line Trona Road becomes Trona-Wildrose Road and drops into Panamint Valley. 






This blog is a continuation of Part 2 which summarized the history of the Panamint Range gap in CA 178.

Part 2; CA 178 Panamint Range Gap

Trona-Wildrose descends to the floor of Panamint Valley which is a large desert basin directly west of Death Valley.  Panamint Valley is similar to Death Valley but has a low elevation of approximately 1,100 feet above sea level as opposed to the -282 feet below sea level in Death Valley.  Panamint Valley is separated from Death Valley to the east by the peaks of the Panamint Range which are generally to the right in all the photos of this blog.

Trona-Wildrose Road is mostly paved but not in very good shape.  The asphalt is breaking up and rough to drive upon.  Despite it being a serviceable roadway and a decent shortcut to Death Valley National Park the routing of Trona-Wildrose Road coupled with the terrain of the far reaches of the Mojave Desert is somewhat ominous.

Trona-Wildroad Road intersects Ballarat Road on the floor of Panamint Valley and is notable due to it being the access point to two ghost towns; Ballarat and Panamint City.






Ballarat is mostly known for being a hideout of the Manson Family which inhabited the ghost town in the 1960s.  Ballarat opened in 1897 when gold and silver mining claims were discovered to the east in the Panamint Range.  Ballarat apparently had a peak population of approximately 500 people before the mines played out and Post Office Service discontinued in 1917.






To the east of Ballarat at approximately 6,300 feet above sea level in Surprise Canyon was the location of the Panamint City Mine.  The Panamint City silver mine claim was discovered in 1872 but the community sprang up about a year later.  Panamint City was flooded out in 1876 and some of the miners headed east over the Panamint Range into Death Valley where Borax claims were discovered.  Apparently Panamint City hung on into the 1890s before dying out completely.  Today Surprise Canyon Road still leads to Panamint City but vehicular access has been blocked off.






Trona-Wildrose Road was under repair by Inyo County when I was passing through.  The repair included shifting traffic onto a temporary dirt alignment which was in questionable repair.  I was able to make it through the make-shift dirt segment of Trona-Wildrose Road to where the pavement resumed near Panamint Valley Road.








Death Valley National Park traffic is directed to CA 190 via Panamint Valley Road.  Ahead Trona-Wildrose Road becomes Wildrose Road which continues to Emigrant Canyon Road which serves as an alternate into Death Valley over the Panamint Range via the approximately 5,300 foot Emigrant Pass.

Emigrant Pass is where the Death Valley 49ers crossed the Panamint Range on foot after abandoning their wagons in Death Valley.  The Death Valley 49ers accidentally stumbled into Death Valley attempting to find a short-cut to Walker Pass following the events of the Donner Party Crossing of the Sierras.  The Death Valley 49ers would head south through Panamint Valley to Searles Lake before cutting west towards Walker Pass (which ironically they missed).  Emigrant Canyon Road, Wildrose Road and Trona-Wildrose Road essentially follow the path of the Death Valley 49ers which make them among the earliest surveyed routes through the Mojave Desert.






From Panamint Valley Road I turned east on CA 190 and approached Death Valley National Park over the Panamint Range via Towne Pass.



Trona-Wildroad Road, Wildrose Road, Panamint Valley and Emigrant Canyon Road all appear on the 1935 California Division of Highways Map of Inyo County as County Maintained.  The incomplete routing of CA 190 on the Eichbaum Tollroad is shown crossing Panamint Valley and ascending Towne Pass.

1935 Inyo County Highway Map 

Part 4 of this series can be found here:

2016 Fall Mountain Trip Part 4; Death Valley and Dante's View Road

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Interstate 40's Tumultuous Ride Through the Pigeon River Gorge

In the nearly 60 years Interstate 40 has been open to traffic through the Pigeon River Gorge in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it has been troubled by frequent rockslides and damaging flooding, which has seen the over 30-mile stretch through North Carolina and Tennessee closed for months at a time. Most recently, excessive rainfall from Hurricane Helene in September 2024 saw sections of Interstate 40 wash away into a raging Pigeon River. While the physical troubles of Interstate 40 are well known, how I-40 came to be through the area is a tale of its own. Interstate 40 West through Haywood County near mile marker 10. I-40's route through the Pigeon River Gorge dates to local political squabbles in the 1940s and a state highway law written in 1921. A small note appeared in the July 28, 1945, Asheville Times. It read that the North Carolina State Highway Commission had authorized a feasibility study of a "...water-level road down [the] Pigeon River to the Tennessee l

Mines Road

Mines Road is an approximately twenty-eight-mile highway located in the rural parts of the Diablo Range east of the San Francisco Bay Area.  Mines Road begins in San Antonio Valley in Santa Clara County and terminates at Tesla Road near Livermore of Alameda County.  The highway essentially is a modern overlay of the 1840s Mexican haul trail up Arroyo Mocho known as La Vereda del Monte.  The modern corridor of Mines Road took shape in the early twentieth century following development of San Antonio Valley amid a magnesite mining boom.  Part 1; the history of Mines Road Modern Mines Road partially overlays the historic corridor used by La Vereda del Monte (Mountain Trail).  La Vereda del Monte was part of a remote overland route through the Diablo Range primarily used to drive cattle from Alta California to Sonora.  The trail was most heavily used during the latter days of Alta California during the 1840s. La Vereda del Monte originated at Point of Timber between modern day Byron and Bre

Route 75 Tunnel - Ironton, Ohio

In the Ohio River community of Ironton, Ohio, there is a former road tunnel that has a haunted legend to it. This tunnel was formerly numbered OH 75 (hence the name Route 75 Tunnel), which was renumbered as OH 93 due to I-75 being built in the state. Built in 1866, it is 165 feet long and once served as the northern entrance into Ironton, originally for horses and buggies and later for cars. As the tunnel predated the motor vehicle era, it was too narrow for cars to be traveling in both directions. But once US 52 was built in the area, OH 93 was realigned to go around the tunnel instead of through the tunnel, so the tunnel was closed to traffic in 1960. The legend of the haunted tunnel states that since there were so many accidents that took place inside the tunnel's narrow walls, the tunnel was cursed. The haunted legend states that there was an accident between a tanker truck and a school bus coming home after a high school football game on a cold, foggy Halloween night in 1