saddlesores

a bob comes in mighty handy for lugging half a dozen 2-liter soda bottles.....

mev

I would leave the possibility open for a short day, e.g. Furnace Creek to Emigrant Valley - and then Emigrant Valley to Panamint. I would also get on the road early, likely before sunrise.

It was some years ago, but I cycled from San Jose to Las Vegas by way of Death Valley. It was the first week of May. Not quite as hot, though it did reach 108F in Furnace Creek the day we arrived. That particular day we left around 4:30am and did the first cycling in the dark. Reached the top of Towne Pass in early morning and was into Furnace Creek before noon, and before it became particularly hot. The next morning, we started at 5am to climb out the valley.

July can be quite a bit warmer and you are going in reverse. However, I would do a similar thing. The desert has low humidity and hence a large day/night swing. I would err on side of riding more in the dark, because I'm more concerned about the heat than traffic. I would also keep open an option of bypassing DV if weather forecasts were particularly abnormal, and an option of making a day from Furnace Creek a short one to only ride in morning until it gets hot.

jamawani 

Why?

Sharpshin

For economic reasons and since I am alone in the house now I haven't run the A/C since 2016. This is San Antonio, record high in my house this summer was 102F Blame the Peace Corps, as a young man I spent three years in a West African village with no electricity (or A/C), nor running water either. Doesn't mean I'm Death Valley proof, Death Valley doesn't have electric floor fans like I do in my house, but I am accustomed to some heat.


Heading to NY crossing Texas and Arkansas in late June as I did in 2014, I was drinking four and five gallons of water a day, riding in full sun over asphalt all day. The huge thing with those kinds of volumes is replacing salt. Sodium chloride alone won't do it, you need potassium too. Official rehydration salts are 2:1 sodium chloride to potassium chloride. "Lite Salt", a "low salt substitute" available at grocery stores is 50/50 sodium and potassium chlorides. I just cut Lite Salt with sea salt to give me an approximate 2:1 sodium-potassium ratio plus all the other trace stuff present in sea salt. Worked really well, and absolutely necessary.

Sharpshin

Great advice, and wow! Great rides.


Only thing that puzzles me is the advice about cotton, something I usually avoid because you can get sunburned through sweaty cotton. Here is my usual riding attire, a single layer of loose nylon, no underwear or crotch pad, no exposed skin, broad hat in summer. Platform pedals, loose-fitting slip on sandals (usually Crocs now), pant legs tucked into ordinary cotton-blend dress socks. Nylon remains UPF 50 even when wet, and you can evaporate sweat right through it. This is me 2,000 miles and 30 days from home in July of '14.





This is my 24/7, supremely comfortable all-weather riding attire for everything down to about 50F, at which point I will put on a rainjacket/windbreaker. Warm rain; no raincoat needed as thin nylon when worn will dry in about 15 minutes. Below 40?; rain gear over that outfit with cotton gloves over my riding gloves and maybe a cotton t-shirt under the jacket. Since most of my commuting is done at night I generally do not ride much below 30 for fear of black ice. On group rides this outfit sure makes me stand out in a crowd.


Works for me, 30 days in the summer sun including Texas and Arkansas, no sunblock cream whatsoever, and I never even began to get burned.

Sharpshin

Thanks for the info, I had no idea as to the winds thing, maybe I'll plan a route that touches the coast only briefly just to sy I did it and then meander north inland. If I did choose the Las Vegas-Death Valley route the San Francisco Bay bridge wouldn't be too far out of my way. After that there would be several options for traversing inland between San Francisco and North Central Montana. Still speculation at this point of course.

gerryl

The deal with cotton is that it keeps your sweat from evaporating too fast, thus loosing the cooling effect of wind rushing over wet skin. Many polyester/nylon fabrics do such a good job of wicking sweat away from your skin that you loose the whole reason why we sweat in the first place - to stay cool. Wicking fabrics are best suited for hot humid conditions when you're soaked most of the time anyways, or winter conditions where too much moisture is detrimental.

Tourist in MSN

I think that the coast route is much more enjoyable and it also has a lot of hiker biker sites at some of the state parks. I checked the state park websites first to make sure I had an up to date list of parks that had hiker biker sites, put those into a map on my tablet so each day we could plan out which park our target would be that day. But, like I said, I had tailwinds, so maybe inland would be best if you really have to go south to north?

Check some of the trip logs on Crazy Guy On A Bike to see what others are saying about wind and routing

A friend of mine carries a 100 percent cotton dress shirt on bike trips in places that may have a hot sun, I think complete with button down collar. I can't offer an opinion on sun protection from it, but last April when I was in Texas with him I really wished I had thought of bringing an old white cotton dress shirt since I am now retired and no longer need dress shirts for work.

But if nylon works ok, go for it. But I would prefer cotton myself. I live in the northern part of the country so I usually just get by instead with sun screen.

A clean white shirt in the desert sun can be almost as high visibility as high vis yellow or green jerseys because nothing else has that bright of a white color.

Doug64

+1 on cotton and low humidity heat. I always carry at least one cotton T when riding in the western U.S. There is a lot of info on the web discussing the pros and cons of cotton in various conditions. My wife often wears a long sleeve cotton shirt in hot dry conditions. Also if you want to cool down a little by wetting your shirt or hat, cotton does a better job. Note my wife's cotton hat in the photo below. If we are not worried about water she uses it to keep her hat moist.

Southern Spain in late June with temperatures of 43C (109F).

Tourist in MSN

The friend of mine last spring wearing the white long sleeve shirt in the heat of West Texas in the photo.

PedalingWalrus

obrentharris 

Average high daily temperature at Furnace Creek in July is 116f. See this page for annual temperature date: https://www.nps.gov/deva/planyourvisit/weather.htm
I have ridden in Death Valley a few times but never in July. As @skidder points out above, Death Valley will not be the only hot area with limited services that you will traverse. Everything from Las Vegas to the Owen's Valley is pretty sparsely settled. I wouldn't worry a lot about drunk drivers. The roads are lightly travelled through the park in July and the bars are few and far between.
Brent

Sharpshin

I appreciate all the input, and I'll have to look into the cotton thing.

As far as traversing the park, I figure that "services" for me would basically amount to available water.

Google tells me that 1) Pahrump (an actual town) to Death Valley Junction is 30 miles. There is a Amargosa Cafe there at the junction presently open 8:00 - 3:00 Friday through Monday, plus a shaded porch on an abandoned building across the street.

2) Death Valley Junction to Furnace Creek is another 30 miles.

3) Furnace Creek to Stovepipe Wells; 25 miles.

4) Stovepipe Wells to Panamint Springs; 31 miles.

5) Panamint Springs to Lone Pine is 50 miles, but passes three inhabited unincorporated towns beginning at 35 miles (Keeler), alternatively it would be 42 miles to Olancha.

The suggestion of bringing one's own shade with a reflective tarp or blanket is a good one.

Five days max (if those short hops were necessary), sounds doable.

Hey, pretty much the whole first 2,000 miles of this trip west out of San Antonio would be hot and miserable, trending overall hotter and more miserable over time all the way to Death Valley

So why? Because June-August is when I have off, West is where I want to go next, and simply because its there is all. Plus I got an audience of a couple of thousand high school kids plus family and friends to set an example for.

alan s 

mev

It should be possible, though also one to be careful. My experience:
1. For me humidity makes a big difference on two counts:
a. At the same temperature, I'm a lot more comfortable in drier places, e.g. El Paso vs. Austin/San Antonio - big difference at 95F.
b. More arid places have a larger day/night swing. So that San Antonio morning might not get below 75F, but an El Paso 95Fmorning might be 60-65F.
So my guess is if you cycle in coolest times of the day and cross some slightly higher elevations on your way to Las Vegas, it might actually be more comfortable for much of the distance after you leave San Antonio.

However...

Everyone seems to be different and I find a pretty big large difference once temperatures go much above body temperature or are humid, particularly for more extended periods of time. I've noticed this for myself on a few different cases in supported rides
a. riding hotter than hell 100 a few times (still humid)
b. a ride named "Vegas Hell Week", where I cycled from Las Vegas to St George and back over four days. It was early May, but that particular year temperatures of ~110F were abnormally high. Our small group of ~6 riders all seemed to end up with different distances before we finished: It was nice and cool in the morning and ~90F at 11am when we had a lunch. Two riders stopped at lunch at 70 miles. I went another 20 miles at which point it reached 102F and decided to stop then. We picked up our next rider within 10 miles because his heart was starting to race. One rider finished the posted 108 mile distance and the last rider did some bonus miles to go 120 miles. We had the luxury of support - but our bodies were also reacting differently once it went over 100F.
c. I got heat exhaustion in Sudan when riding TDA. Not sure of the actual temperature, my cycle computer reached 47C (117F) and was over 43C (109F) for an extended time - but was also in the sun some of that time. Again cycling before it got hot was fine, but the onset of heat exhaustion was fast and serious enough that it scared me a bit.

So in general, my caution is to take advantage of cooler temperatures as much as you can; and to be quite cautious once temperatures go above body temperature. It seems like heat-related symptoms can come quickly - so I'd be watching daily temperature swings carefully and not push an extra 20 miles in situations where it is crossing 100F and "seems OK" right then...

fantom1 

Like so many things in life, heat is not just heat. Death Valley is a special kind of heat, beyond the 115-degree mark many consecutive days in June-Sept, but also combined with the high pressure, low humidity, very little shade, and above all, few resources, it really feels like much more. It's not a crazy idea to do it, but my advice would be to plan very well with 100% sure bets on water and food stops. Like many others, I have ridden there in February, March, April, and May, but only have driven through in Summer.

That said, it really itsn't that wide of a stretch. If you leave around 2-3AM and stop around 9-10AM at a campsite you could be out of the really bad heat in 2-2.5 days.

Truly though, plan ahead and don't assume resources. It is mostly National Park, National preserve, and state BLM land, so there aren't many RV camps, resources, etc. which is the biggest hurdle for a bike tourer. Plan on about 1 gallon per two hours of riding if you are thinking about 115+...plus electrolytes. (You will need to also wet your body, not just drink...)

And shade, at those temps you really want another layer beyond a jersey. Two layers (like a huge hat, cape, etc.) work really well, even if somewhat counter-intuitive. You need something to block the sun, let the breeze through, then another layer to keep moisture close to the skin. Think the Arabian peninsula/middle east. In that heat, more can be more.

Everything IMO though.

JoeyBike

^^This

I read somewhere years ago (no source handy) that you could die of dehydration in Death Valley sitting next to a tanker truck full of water. The human body can not absorb water as fast as the desert can desiccate you. Assuming the temperature doesn't kill you with heat exhaustion first.

That being said, please tell us you are just a troll and not seriously thinking of "death by desert". Please. "DEATH" is the freaking NAME of the place!

I personally know two Brits who biked across S. Cali parallel to I-10 in late August and arrived at the Pacific Coast around Labor Day in 1989. They biked at night. I have no idea where they hid during daylight. They told me the experience was terrible. They actually biked ON I-10 from Florida to California where the State Police kicked them of the Interstate. They even biked through the Mobile Alabama tunnel on I-10 and through Houston, Texas on I-10 . Not the smartest of dudes. They were cycling for cancer research. One of their fathers died from cancer. They did not recommend cycling through the desert in August whatsoever and thought they were lucky to be alive.

Don't be these guys.

saddlesores

marketing....i read somewhere that in the long, long history of death valley (in ancient times) only one person died there. some intern in the parks department decided on the name "death" valley 'cause it sounded cool enough to bring in the tourists. that was after whatever mining company had stripped the valley of resources and gifted the leftovers to the government for a big, fat, juicy tax break.



anyhoo, it wasn't until the cool sounding name started attracting tourists that it actually become deadly to humans. it's doable, enjoyable, and awesomely groovy....if you are mentally and physically prepared, and have a proper plan with contingencies.

alan s 

JaccoW

When I did a self-supported hike with my girlfriend in Big Bend NP in late spring we carried 2.5 gallons of water per person per day. On a 3-day tour we had the fortune of being able to store water in advance at the end point of day 2. We needed that water and pretty much finished all of it. At the end of the first day, when we descended into the dessert valley during noon we quickly decided to just stop, set up a tarp and wait out the worst of the heat.

When I visited Death Valley a decade earlier I remember the spontaneous nosebleeds (that would not stop) from the dry heat. You simply don't feel like you are sweating because it evaporates as soon as it comes out.

I'll echo what others have said bring as much water as you can carry and calculate about 1 gallon of water for every 2-3 hours. If 70 miles takes you 6-7 hours you need to carry 3-4 gallons of water. Preferably 4.

jamawani 

The actual history of the name "Death Valley" is not hard to find - -
https://www.nps.gov/deva/learn/histo...lost-49ers.htm

J.Higgins 

Part of me wants to ride DV in the HOTTEST time of the year just for the challenge of it. In my youth, I'd have done it, but the reality of being 60 slaps me hard in the face.

JoeyBike

I believe I could think of 1000 better things to do with my bike and time off. But...to each their own. Maybe the OP wants to write a book and needs dramatic material. Whateva...

I would love to do DV in the Winter. That would likely have the word FUN in the brochure somewhere.

Tourist in MSN

You are correct that the human body can only absorb water at a certain rate.

And not mentioned previously in this thread but there also is the danger of hyponatremia if you try to re-hydrate too fast and dilute the salts in your blood system. (Google hyponatremia for more info.)

But, one of my old college professors did geological research decades ago in death valley. He said that they carried two and a half gallons of water at the start of each day, carried that on back pack frames when they were in death valley. I am not sure how fast they drank it or what time of year that was, but they would have started each day walking around carrying an extra 20 plus pounds of water on their backs. Thus, I suspect that they ingested over a quart to quart and a half per hour.

JoeyBike

I also suspect that they started their study at first light and quit when they began feeling the heat. Then hid in the shade somewhere until late evening for a couple hours more work. I highly doubt they were "trapped" there in July.

Can you imagine how refreshing 115*F drinking water might be? At least they could use it for evaporative cooling if need be. Zero humidity would be awesome for evaporation. Which of course is the problem!