Death Valley National Park continues to struggle with poor behavior by some visitors during the ongoing partial government shutdown, with off-road enthusiasts going where they shouldn't, and campers camping where they shouldn't.
"The park has had issues with illegal off-roading and out of bounds camping," Andrew S. Muñoz, the Park Service's acting chief of public and congressional affairs told the Traveler in an email Wednesday. "We don't have any photos for release at the moment. We have documented several instances of new off-road tracks, including evidence of vehicles doing 'donuts' in the desert."
Death Valley, which sprawls across nearly 5,300 square miles in California and Nevada, was one of the first parks to encounter problems once the Trump administration decided to keep the National Park System open with skeleton crews of rangers.
A photo of campers (above) distributed January 1 by Basin and Range Watch, a nonprofit working to conserve the deserts of Nevada and California, purported to show three campers off the Keane Wonder Mine Road east of Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley. They had their easy chairs set up, tent in place, and were unloading their SUV.
Muñoz didn't have many details of the latest vandalism because of the limited staff resources at Death Valley.
"We are seeing more incidents near developed areas, for example behind the visitor center, which is unusual," he said. "I'm not able to gather further details because the park is focusing limited staff resources on reopening areas using recreation fees."
Comments
To Cat: Having volunteered in Death Valley for six years, you don't casually walk up to out of bounds campers and ask them to move. You call park law enforcement to care of the issue in a professional manner. But they are furloughed. Many illegal out of bounds campers kn exactly what they are doing and are hostile to being told the rules
Here is a link to a US Borax 1991 article that talks about those claims... http://www.mediafire.com/file/mpzsnuvoa2ucgsr/1991_USB_Pioneer_Ryan.pdf/...
y_p_w do you have any personal knowledge that Rio Tinto (or any other mining company) intends to mine in the DVNP?