Quick Death Valley Trip - SMB + Rivian

[bolty]

Took a quick trip to Death Valley, mostly because I wanted to check out my Rivian R1T on one of my favorite off-road tracks into Death Valley - the Goler Wash - and then see if I could actually charge it enough to drive around and enjoy this beautiful park. We set out from LA then charged up to 98% at the Rivian supercharger in Inyo-Kern which is 123 miles from Furnace Creek. Death Valley currently has six level 2 chargers (5 of which were working, 2 of which were available when we recharged on a Saturday evening...it's a bit embarrassing that there's not a supercharger at the HQ of a national park.)

We were travelling with my Sportsmobile van. Here we are in the middle of the Goler Wash. I have street tires on the R1T so I was a bit concerned about sidewall tire damage. The Goler Wash trip is about 50 miles of mild/rocky pretty typical desert dirt road on either side of some "difficult" rated rock trail in the middle over Mengel Pass. Both trucks did great. No problem at all with clearance or traction or range. The next day we drove 12 miles each way up Echo Canyon and camped overnight. It was beautiful. This road was mild the first 9 miles and then got worse until we hit an impassable (to us) solid rockfall which really required a specialized rock crawler to mount. We drove back to Furnace Creek with about 100 miles of range left, charged overnight to 90% (free) and then hit the road home. Great trip and great truck.

Previously I had taken the Rivian on a portion of the Mojave Road. We hit some soft sand and crossed maybe 16" deep water. Truck did great here as well. On all these trips, I aired down to 37-ish pounds tire pressure for improved traction/floatation but mostly for a bit more comfort. That said, the Rivian is way more comfortable than the Sportsmobile. Based on these two trips I would have a lot of confidence going off-road anywhere I can plan to get charged back up.