The lake referred to in the term “dry lake bed” is Lake Manly, a Pleistocene lake that dried up about 10,000 years ago. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
God, you’re dumb.
Because stuff that belongs to you is important, but stuff that belongs to other people is not important.
Your opinion seems dumb in light of what actually causes the rocks to move: floating ice
When that stuff is rocks and dirt that doesn’t belong to anybody, yeah, it’s not that important.
Fuck off, troll. That lake bed belongs to me, and I’d gladly see the vandals dead. OK, maybe not dead. But maimed at least. Maybe a finger or three, couple of permanent scars visible to everybody. A limp even.
“You don’t hold mud and rocks in the same esteem as I do, therefore you must be a troll”
That’s just fantastic! 
Does it belong to you? How so? In the general “Everyone owns it” sense? Therefore it also belongs to me. And I think it is no big deal. I think it would be awesome to drive around in a big dry lake bed, especially one named “Racetrack”
Sporadic precipitation is sufficient to move the sailing stones, but not to repair this kind of damage. If the water that moves the stones were sufficient to erase tracks, the stones probably wouldn’t leave tracks behind them when they move.
Yeah, i was wondering about that myself. But they mentioned in the news story about “wetting the tracks” to erase the tire marks. How does that happen then?
Wet the surface and rake it out a bit, I’d assume. As long as it’s not too compacted, a little surface disturbance should mobilize enough of the fine sediment to let the natural surface features form as the water pools and evaporates.
I haven’t seen the raking done in Death Valley, but I’ve seen it done in other wilderness playas to minimize attractive disturbances (if there are obvious tracks in an area, jackasses are a lot more likely to drive out into off-limits areas).
They didn’t mention raking anything in the news article, but maybe that is what they do. If the water didn’t erase tracks, wouldn’t the thousands of years of moving rocks have laid tracks across the whole lake bed?
I think it’s worth noting that National Parks DO belong to all of us. That’s the whole point. They’ve been set aside for *everyone *to enjoy…and I don’t think “enjoy” implies any license to ruin the natural landscape in a way that mars the enjoyment of future visitors. That’s why people who do things like this are such assholes–they’ve fucked up that beautiful place (I’ve been there) for everyone who goes there now. There are playas out there in the desert you can drive on to your heart’s content, but not this one.
And, let’s see…I guess it hasn’t been mentioned yet that driving off-road in the National Park is prohibited anyway. So at the very least they should be prosecuted for breaking federal law. I don’t have a problem spending my tax dollars for that.
[QUOTE=NPS Website]
• All vehicles must remain on established roads. This includes motorcycles, bicycles and four-wheel-drive vehicles.
[/QUOTE]
Well, they wanted to enjoy it by driving around a dry lake bed. Who are YOU to decide they can’t get enjoyment that way? Why does your right to look at undisturbed mud trump their right to enjoy a large driving space?
They were talking about taking about tanks of water and spraying down the tracks manually with hoses. They can’t use a tanker truck to do it, because that would just cause, yes, more tire tracks. The tanks would have to be carried.
It is therefore somewhat poetic that the perpetrator be made to do the repair work, if he or she is caught.
As far as why all of us might think that we “own” this dry lake bed, it’s a national park. That’s the entire point of a national park. The citizens of the country own the park. It’s preserved and maintained for the citizens of the country, and individuals do not get to fuck it up for everyone else because they think it might be fun to drive their vehicle on a dry lake bed. Believe it or not, there are lots of other places in the US where one might do that.
Yes, i get that. But how does that work? The pressure from the water is somehow different than the pressure when it floods? It takes that much pressure that, um, pressure hoses are needed, or what?
I’m a citizen of this country and I think people should be allowed to drive around there. My opinion doesn’t count simply because you disagree with it? Looks like fun to me to drive around a huge dry lake bed.
Emotionally, and even mostly rationally, I agree with this and love it.
But a part of me wants to keep taxes from being punitive. We already have to deal with people who say that income tax increases “punish the rich” or “punish the poor,” and that isn’t exactly correct. I don’t want it to become exactly correct.
So…just hit 'em with a hefty civil fine… It would have the same general effect, since the fine collection agency would probably be willing to make a time-payment deal.
Out here in the California Desert is a site called the Yuha Geoglyphs, very old markings in the desert made by the native tribes. Abstract images, kind of pretty. Some dipshit rode his motorcycle all over them.
My emotional response is to want to set fire to the fucker. So it’s a good thing that we try to keep emotions out of our sentencing laws…
That was the name of my short lived punk band.
No - the visitor’s centers are air conditioned. Idiots like these vandals should have to clean the outhouses for a summer.
I’m sure there’s an outhouse with manson1972’s name on it, as well. (Just, you know, maybe not in Death Valley.)
Can you find that outhouse? I would love to see a picture of that!
Your opinion is fine, it counts as one opinion, its just fuckwad contrary for the hell of it stupid… but you probably know that.
I’m a citizen of this country too, and I’m fine with the Park Service doing their thing, setting laws and doling out access. I’ve seen places that have had no rules regarding anything, and look pretty ugly… So thats my one opinion.
Its against the Park Service rules to drive around that particular lakebed. There are miles and miles of empty lands to fuck up, some special ones IMHO should be off limits. The crust that often forms on dry lands keeps them from blowing away. Unlimited tearing up of the surface makes hideous duststorms, then nobody wants to go there, or really cant without serious eye and lung protection…