Valley of the Moon Road?

Hi everybody,

I saw that somebody posted via the MP pages (in June 2017) that the drive in is now impassable to anything but ATVs. Is that true? I have taken this road many times in my stock Jeep GC (Trailhawk) without any trouble - yes, it's pretty gnarly, but not too bad compared to a lot of other stuff. Has anybody been out there recently and can attest to the condition of the road?

Same! I would love to get an update on road conditions 

Went out there weekend before last with my friend driving his Tacoma TRD Double Cab short bed w/265's at 9.3" of ground clearance. It made it but there some scraping along the way. 

Thanks dino74 - this is helpful. Have you driven the road previously? Do you know if it’s any different than, say, last year? I have up to 10.8” of ground clearance so a tad more, but under normal ‘road’ conditions I wouldn’t expect a Taco TRD to bottom out

I can't really compare it to previous years. This was the second time I've been there, first time was walking it in about 3-4 years ago and I don't remember the road condition then. The guy who drove this time, did it it this last April, so there wasn't much change since then.

Don't know if this helps but found a video from April of guy doing it on a KTM.

Great, thanks dino74 - super helpful. Sounds to me as things are likely pretty normal - it *is* pretty tricky as is, so for somebody unfamiliar (the person who posted the comment on the MP pages) with the road it might seem overly hard.

I love how fast he drove the KTM on that road - not going to try that in my car....

Alright, drove down the road this weekend and while it's a little worse, it's basically the same as always - which mean bloody gnarly, but nothing too bad! Made it up and down in my GC Trailhawk, no problem.

The climbing was obviously awesome as always - really love this place!

Sounds like it would be a good bikepacking adventure.

Valley of the Moon is rad...

They have graded (very nicely! They even installed drains!!) the first part of the road up to the gauntlets (about half way to the climbing area - where the road splits to get to the antennas). It is now MUCH easier to drive that part, and any CUV will be able to do it! I’m pretty sure you could get a Prius in too... This means you can now get much closer to the climbing area, without having to take a burly SUV! The gauntlets are as hard as always (they haven’t graded that part), so you still need 4x4 to get all the way in.

Thanks for the update!

It’s probably about 2 miles to the climbs from there. Remember that roads always look much easier on video than IRL - the first part of the road is still significantly harder than e.g. Black Mountain Road. That said, I do think that a really skilled driver could get a normal car up to just before the gauntlets - although I wouldn’t myself attempt it. 

Dont even try it without clearance. No way you will get past the new asphalt waterbars with scraping at least, and prob doing damage. We also saw a couple who we thought were climbers but were out shooting, kinda close to the crags. Boy scout troupe that was thrashing the desert veg, a bunch of off roadint types giving the stinkeye, and all for a small handful of sport lines? Interesting place - if youre into new jack city back from when it earned its name. Sketchy, the kind i wouldnt bring a woman into.