Drive-through Slot Caynon

Titus Canyon is a deep slot canyon in Death Valley National Park with just enough room in the bottom to enable you to drive through the narrows.  The 26 mile dirt road through it typically takes about 2 hours to drive, plus any time you take at various viewpoints and the old mining camp of Leadfield along the way.  The road can wash out and get closed after a heavy rain.  The park's Death Valley Backcountry Roads map notes that you need "High clearance due to steep grades, deep gravel and ruts."  The main Death Valley map marks it as an unpaved road, but unless you read the legend and see the notation "High clearance recommended", you might think it's in good condition like some of the other, similarly-marked roads in the park.  The road currently has a few rough spots with loose dirt and gravel around rocks sticking up, on steep slopes, which you only find about an hour into the drive.  

The real problem and danger comes as you're approaching that section on the better, more level surfaces, confident that no one is coming around the blind curves.  Then you encounter someone in a low clearance rental car coming the other way, hurrying to get off the road which they're driving the wrong way on!  _If_ you narrowly miss having avoid a head-on collision and inform the driver that they must drive the other way, the driver might say something like "We be careful."  At least that's what the wrong-way driver told us on Thursday of last week!  If I'm going to have a head-on collision at a combined 50MPH, it's reassuring to know that we'll do it carefully.  This was not the only rental car we saw on an unpaved, high clearance road.  I had taken a picture of a bright red one way up a high clearance road the day before (I'll put a copy in this album).  The road was about to get much tougher just ahead, so we turned him around.  I suspect that the rental car agencies in Las Vegas get a fair number of cars back with flat tires, missing mufflers and detached bumpers.

Titus Canyon Narrows

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