Advice for hiking Telescope Peak?

[Halohiker]

A few friends and I are planning on bagging Telescope Peak in Death Valley. I plan on starting at Shorty's Well, and finishing at a pre set car shuttle at Mohogany Flat. My question is: Anyone who has done this, or is familiar with DVNP, do you recommend we camp at Furnace Creek? Or is there a better option?

Thanks!

[Florian]

Are you going to walk from Shorty's Well or drive up the 4x4 road up the canyon first? I'm somewhat familiar with the desert areas of DV but not so much with the climb you're planning. I've only done Telescope Peak from the Mahogany Flat road. Camping would not be allowed at Shorty's Well but would be starting 2 miles up the canyon.

-Florian

[Kevin]

I'm familiar with DV and Telescope (hiked it again yesterday).

If you're thinking about camping anywhere down low, I'd wait several more weeks. While it was quite pleasant up high yesterday (outside of the smoke from the Station fire), down low the temps are still running a million 5/million 10. Last week a heat emergency has been declared for several days. While that's no longer the case, it would be sheer nuts to camp at Furnace Creek right now unless you were in an AC unit.

And no, I've never done Shorty's Well to the summit. I know several who have though. It's not something which interests me in the slightest.

[Cy Kaicener]

Here are two trip reports that will give you some information
http://www.summitpost.org/trip-report/3 ... -250-.html
http://summitpost.org/trip-report/34937 ... scope.html

[KathyW]

You might want to ask over at one of the Death Valley forums, like:

http://www.death-valley.net/forum/

or

http://www.deathvalley.com/dvtalk/dvtalk.shtml

or even over on the California forum of summitpost.

Maybe more people are familiar with the route on those sites than on the San Jacinto forum.

[Halohiker]

Thanks for the responses!

We're hiking from Shorty's to Telescope Peak, then down to Mohagany where we will have a car parked. I think we'll camp at Furnace creek, not too far from Shorty's. We're not going until mid October.

[pdforeme]

I've gone halfway, so can opine of the first part; that is, from Shorty's well you can hike a long straight dirt road up to Hanapauh Canyon (with year round creek (albeit one the donkey's go the bathroom in )). (water clear, but of course needs to be treated).

While hiking it we were passed by jeeps and forresters... no clue if road still open.

If parking down by shorty's well and hiking, shoot, i slept on the ground about 100 yards in....nobody (save for the jeep that drove up that wash) could see us.

Its the worlds largest alluvial plain; big and wide and seems to go forever.

I stopped at 5k feet. From what i could tell the trail veers north at about the junction of the wash up to Hanapauh springs

[tomcat_rc]

We stayed at Shorty's - started about 3am and easily hiked the 9 miles to reach Hanapaugh Springs in the early morning pre-dawn light to fill our water. The last mile of the road is somewhat washed out and you are just following the creek bed up. Then the climbing off trail start from Hanapaugh Springs. Nice to have a vehicle at Mohogany for the trip down - still a 24 mile day with over 11k feet of gain. Shorty's is -256ft below sea level.