Hiking The Steepest Tramway In The US! (Saline Valley Salt Tram)

hello my name is Brent and this is part of the saline Valley Salt tram and back in 1913 when this thing was built it was one of the biggest engineering Feats the state has ever seen you know at that point in time it was the steepest aerial Tramway in the United States and it was used to take salt from saline Valley behind me all the way up and over this mountain range and into Owens Valley over the course of 13 and a half miles and from where I'm standing about seven miles and seven thousand feet of elevation below me is where this tram station starts and that is where I'm hiking to in this video [Music] so the saline Valley Salt tram it's very difficult to even describe how Monumental of task this was you know at that time in California it Rivals the LA Aqueduct as the biggest thing humans did you know the point of this Tramway system is to take salt from saline Valley and bring it all the way around into Owens Valley and they discovered salt originally about 1904 in Saline Valley and has tested as some of the purest salt in the world and so what they originally would do was load into wagons drive it around to a pass bring it into Owens Valley and sell it and that would take something like two days by wagon and the cost related to that and just the difficulty made it not very financially viable So eventually two dreamers stood down in the valley looked up and thought hey what if we just take this salt just straight up and over and to describe how crazy of thought that even is so you would start in Saline Valley at an elevation of one thousand feet and the top would be at an elevation of 8 700 feet and then I don't have to drop back down to three thousand feet over a 13 and a half mile Tramway a Tramway that would be the steepest Tramway in the United States if they pulled it off and just to describe in between those points what they're working with they were working with just Cliffs Shale Cliffs with washes with waterfalls you have to hike down no roads just the most Preposterous route you can imagine plus the most inhospitable place in the United States we're talking about Death Valley we're talking about a place where working there it's going to Peak out over 120 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer and you got to figure it's not like they were bringing it up in Machinery or anything this is a time where all they had was a dream Manpower and mules but they did it you know they pulled it off you know by 1913 they were sending salt from saline Valley into Owens Valley 800 pounds at a time in these buckets and the Tramway employed between 40 and 60 people and unfortunately never made a profit you know they could never make it financially work they ran at different companies to about 1930 and these days it's abandoned you know it's just a monument to a big dream but I don't think that means it was unsuccessful I just think by them proving that was possible someone else probably looked to that to make their own dream of reality you know when I'm struggling here at Cerro Gordo I love to just go to places like that just reminds me of things I can do if I put my mind to it because it's so difficult to get to almost nobody goes down there you know I I searched far and wide trying to find somebody that's hiked the salt tram into saline Valley you're not going to find them you know it's just it's too difficult it's too dangerous it's too hot for me like I just couldn't get the thought out of my mind I talked to my friend Tim and Tim is the guy if you need to know where anything is in Owens Valley Tim knows he's been there twice on his dirt bike because that's all he does is ride around all day looking for stuff on his dirt bike in the valley and he knows where everything is I was like Hey Tim think about like an assault tram you know would you meet me down at the bottom uh when I finish this thing he said sure So our plan was this you know we both have inreaches we're essentially Satellite Communication where you can text people anywhere in the world and if necessary press an SOS button and somebody's gonna come find you in a helicopter and know right where you are Tim was going to know when I left Cerro Gordo I was gonna let him know when I Departed the summit station I knew roughly when I was going to get down to the bottom and in between with the inreach you can track somebody's path so if I stopped for too long he's gonna send me a message hey man why are you stopped so that was our plan but uh all good plans get tested sometimes and this week our best plan was definitely tested so this hiking day started around 5 a.m I knew it was going to be a scorcher out there so I kind of wanted to get on the road as quickly as I could the first step of the salt tram hike was just getting to the summit station Cerro Gordo is about a six or seven mile ride out to the summit station but it's probably one of the most beautiful rides anywhere around Cerro Gordo foreign [Music] [Music] Summit station and it goes from 1100 feet in elevation down there where I'll be walking today to 8 700 feet in elevation where I'm standing now so there's a ton of gain along the way and if you can see there's more stations down that way a very popular road goes down this way into Owens Valley but very few people ever walk it towards Death Valley because you just end up in the middle of nowhere so for me today what I'm going to do is just follow that line you know wherever it goes I go and walk down and end in Death Valley but it's going to be very very warm today in Death Valley potentially over 120 but today's the day you know there's a little bit of cloud coverage and it's beautiful you know you have to imagine just the engineering feat it was to build this thing back in 1911 you know if you look around and look at the train it's not like they had roads it's just Cliffs like that so it's incredible just to think about what these guys had to go through to accomplish this job and luckily there's a little bit of wind which you might hear but uh that and the cloud cover should keep it a little cooler [Music] and so I can only imagine what an entire day of this is going to be like not even to the first station yet and I'm already talking about how steep it is so that's a good thing huh nope we continue there's a moment there there's a moment where I was like wow I don't have to do this [Music] [Music] all right just approaching this first transfer station all sorts of Old Wire here still I imagine the further I get away from the beaten path the more stuff is going to be left behind look at this yeah got an old uh something I guess maybe that's how they brought the salt so I'm not even totally sure how they brought this all that would make sense so it was covered so they didn't lose any on the way up so this obviously would go on this cable system this would take it down or up wherever they're trying to go and that's interest there's another one over here so like at Cerro Gordo there wasn't these tops because I guess the Galena was so heavy that it wasn't going to fall out there may be salt because it's a little bit lighter yeah look that's the same one they're almost like barrels that have a lid on them because see that white stuff way out there I believe I have to hike all the way there and if I follow the tram the whole way it's not going to be the quickest way you know they're not going to go up the wash or something that makes it an easy hike they're going to be going the shortest distance so that's going to be up and over Peaks how did I do this it's ridiculous really even these I mean that's like what a 25 30 foot beam like look at the ground it is not anywhere near flat I mean how do you even getting these beams here it's ridiculous how is any of this stuff here it was so steep in places that anytime I could grab on to the cable that used to be used for the Tramway I'd use that as a guide to not slide off so a lot of the times I couldn't even go straight down it I'd be going sideways kind of walking like a crab across the side of the mountain just to not try to slip down it as you can see it's not even as steep it just goes through like washes that are intersecting so you just have to go down like a little Ravine almost back up over and over and over again [Music] this station looks like it's starting to you know succumb to the weather and the elements out here and the reality is this whole Tramway will eventually you know give it enough time this thing won't be here anymore you know in a hundred years the only thing that'll be left of these types of engineering Feats will be you know videos like this you're able to I would definitely encourage going out and checking out any aerial tramways you can find they are just something to be seen I mean look at that line it's still up you know 110 years later it's still off the ground and we're on side cliff in the middle of nowhere and it's incredible you know it's crazy to think about oh in another 100 years this will just be a distant memory but maybe that's how it's supposed to be maybe some of this stuff is supposed to be fleeting not some of the beauty in it you know if this was made out of steel and I know I could see it you know in another 100 years would have the same appeal I don't know I have no idea what happens beyond that Cliff there I'm very curious and in between me and that Cliff is just yet another wash I see you now why people say that the pyramids are built by aliens because like how is all this stuff here you know I know this is in the pyramids but none of it makes sense looks like we're coming up on a really big one this one is the one that I saw on the cliff a while back and I was wondering what was beyond it because I haven't been able to see past this peak yet but look at this structure I mean this is still an amazing shape look at the middle I think that's like a weight system to keep everything in place see where the big chains that sounds good it's remarkable how big these structures are there's another one of the buckets also from the Trenton metal company from Trenton New Jersey ah looks like just more of the same more cliffs more valleys more hiking [Music] so I just took a little peek you know just to check with the Drone how things are coming along and uh it seemed like things were leveling out a little bit I thought I was over some steep parts No in fact not even close it gets extraordinarily steep coming up [Music] it was apparent that the terrain was going to get very difficult from there on out you know first it was side Hill Shale no problem no problem then it started becoming Cliffs so it would be Cliffs down into a wash back up a cliff over down into a wash back up a cliff etc etc it is right now we're at 6800 feet in elevation and I believe this starts at 1100 feet in elevation so there's 5 700 feet of drop to go and I've only gone down 1500 feet in drop so far it is not leveling out in fact it's about to get very very very steep look at this thing it's just built on the side of a cliff if you look down this way pretty high up these things are just getting more and more ridiculous to build our beautiful cloud coverage I was here earlier is gone so it's about to get roasting hot I'm talking 120 degrees Fahrenheit so let us continue there's this little kind of like shaded spot I thought it'd be a good spot for some animals but if you look these really old cans and even a shelf built up in here so I think back in the day they use this as a place to get cool for a second you know maybe even camp out overnight see the old cans okay that shelf over there it's kind of the only break from the Sun you get out here in Death Valley so I imagine they were just looking for anywhere to stay cool so you had that oh I got down one Cliff but now I'm in a wash of cliffs as you can see I need to get over there to get back on track and it's just turned from a uh hike to a rock climbing situation where I have no rope so I did just watch free solo about El Capitan so if you can do that I can do the 25 foot right there [Music] this hike was also humbling in a way that only nature can be a reminder never to get too comfortable to remember your place in the world you know I was walking looking at all these structures and just thinking how impressive it was that man had overcome such obstacles to build these things where they did and then not even two hours later I was just being beaten down by a 120 degree heat you know this heat that literally has killed people not too far from where I was hiking you know heat that could easily kill you if you don't have a plan in place and even with the best plan a rock slide a flash flood a rattlesnake could have ended my hike and my life in an instant you know and elsewhere tornadoes hurricanes lightning strikes they all have this power to Humble us you know to remind ourselves of our place in the world none of those things care about well with their nationality or your profession all those things just disappear in the shadow of Nature's power and if you expose yourself to Nature enough and allow those thoughts to enter your mind you leave nature with a greater sense of humility than when you went in and that's just one of my favorite parts of being out in nature just being reminded of our relative insignificance to bring the focus way out from just our person and I think that's a reminder that's good for everybody to have this is pretty crazy I found what looks to be a Desert Oasis or obviously some of the water is pooling here but just thick weeds and to be honest it's kind of the last thing in the world I want to walk through in Death Valley with snakes and all that I would not recommend this hike to my worst enemies it is truly miserable foreign there it is the next big one and now that the cover is gone it very much feels like I'm just trudging through the desert I've come down 2500 feet but I still have double that to go down which is uh daunting at this moment in time but I'll take a break up there made it to this one that was in the distance on the hill and it's incredible the amount of stuff that's still here so look at the tracks that was the track that the buckets will come in on even the little pulleys are still there the cable it's just these giant pieces of metal also from the Trenton iron company you know up here you got of course the Prince Albert a bunch of pickaxe heads homemade coffee pot maybe oh wow look at that I'm an old pocket watch guy probably keeping time out here looking up like when do I get to go home it's probably an oil bucket yep there's still oil in it for grease and uh or grease and these wheels if I had to be greased all day a little bucket to grease them this is incredible it's [Music] kinda left here you know any sense of being tired just left me I was pumped up again you know I was excited I was going around finding all these cool artifacts the buckets were still hanging from the cable in this amazing way oh wow look at that look at the bucket and now you can see how dramatic it was from where I came from so that Cliff way up there and the cliff way up beyond that foreign look at this the underbelly just the amount like how did they get these wheels here you know surprised some of the gears you can see to crank everything above it says 15. very likely could be the year because this was built in 1911. I believe only ran for a handful of years should I grease it up and give it a go just over to this side is like an old cabin site where obviously one of the guys probably that was working out here lived because I didn't even think about that it's not like you're coming and going every day if you're working at this place you're living at this place way out here and so a little conductor stove you know we got a bunch of stoves like that at Cerro Gordo oh man look even he's making some muffins so this is it this is uh this guy's life this wasn't just some you know Monument from the past this was someone's home at one point in time you know some guy came up here lived up here and possibly died up there you know it just brought a very human element to everything around me and I loved it there's a lot of cabin sites around here I imagine if you spent some time you could find a bunch of other ones there's the kitchen [Music] maybe out there they're more in a little cabin sites but they humanizes it more you know that this wasn't just salt coming through here there's another bed of course there's people staying out here someone had to man it imagine living out here I think I have a hard time getting food supplies I imagine your life out here menu out here was uh canned goods canned goods and canned goods this Hawk keeps circling me as if it thinks I'm dead or something still alive 1911 that they built this it's kind of surprising that it had electrical I mean I guess they had to to power it all the way up some of these Canyons but Sarah will go to get electric until 1916. as I was browsing around that middle transfer station I Came Upon A logbook [Music] you know a log book that showed who was the last people that had hiked out to it and reading through it my entire mentality towards the hike changed pretty much immediately because one entry said came up from the bottom used 300 feet of rope left from some friends above and the next entry after that said hike down from the top camp for the night walk back to the top and there was no real entry if somebody hike you from the top to the bottom and the guy mentioning rope made me start to wonder you know I know I had already come down about 3 500 feet in elevation and I had about another 4 000 feet in elevation to go down I started thinking why do you need a rope you know was he just exaggerating a little bit or what's going on and my options at that point were you know turn back or keep going I just read in the the guidebook that they came up via a rope Trail when they came up in 2010 whoever signed that book which makes me concerned which leads me to believe that potentially further down this there's going to be a part where I can't pass without ropes I mean maybe there's like a waterfall in the wash or something which would really suck because that would mean turning around and going all the way back up I don't know if I have a stamina to even do so I'm gonna hope that's not the case but I guess we'll see here shortly huh all right so the tramway's up there I'm still down in the wash I've abandoned following the Tramway it's just as you can see it's just way too Steep and I've fallen 20 times a day and it's hot hot I do have to be conscious of my water and so at this point my main goal is just getting out of here to be honest my friend Tim is at the bottom of the Tramway system because that's where he expected to pick me up later today and obviously we don't have a cell phone service and my inreach is acting up or my bag slid down when I was going down one of those washes so it's having a hard time sending the messages my only goal now is just to get out of here I think I've seen 20 25 of the Tramway stations so it seems like more than enough and given the fact that I'm in Death Valley with no communication with limited water it's not taking any more chances I am ready to GTFO so to speak [Applause] I'm out in down in the wash below the trail and the bird is still circling me which seems very rude this wash is super smooth it's like it's been evened out for a long time with a lot of water and so far there's no waterfall which is my great fear now after reading that oh there's the next transfer station it's about takes you it takes you into this wash like it kind of follows the trail of the cables above starting to get the washer is getting narrower so it's starting to become very steep on the sides and I started to be little five foot waterfalls dry waterfalls they had to kind of slip and slide down then it was a 10-foot waterfall that you're slipping sliding down well I kind of committed now coming down that right there so I really hope this wash is the way out getting a bit nervous because my drone's dead now I can't use it for scouting I almost lost it right there this camera's even running low time you slip and slide down a waterfall you're committing even further to that path working out for you because if it doesn't you have to turn around and climbing back up these slick waterfalls is significantly more difficult than sliding down them and given the fact that the walls around you this way are going up steeper and also very slick you could be in for a really bad time if things don't work out I'm really committed now after coming down after that we're just walk in the wash that was a steep one with no rope note to self bring rope next time well I made it through a bunch of waterfalls that I kind of had to play slip and slide there for a little bit I'm still on track you can see the trim there and there and up there it looks like there's a road going up to it or something I'm not through this wash yet still a little bit nervous that it's going to come upon a really big waterfall and so far there's been a 20 or 30 footer which is traversable any more than that it's not going to feel comfortable just sliding down and it's like each step further in the wash I'm committing to the wash further so I think when I get up on this road up here you can kind of see I might take that go back up the high route if for no other reason than then I could at least see what I'm working with inside the wash and that might be the best approach of them all I think so there's the Tramway it's getting real real hot well down to 4 200 feet in elevation still climbing down these rocks you know I had my inreach I was being able to communicate with Tim at the end of the day he's still miles away from me so the only thing he could do was call and help which was the last thing that I wanted to do and I remember at that point my focus went from oh this is an enjoyable walk to let me just focus on getting out of here foreign so there's about three hours that I didn't film at all it was just purely in problem solving mode you know I would come across the waterfall have to get down this waterfall and try to make sure that I get down the next waterfall to get on the next waterfall to eventually get in the bottom of this hill and it all kind of came to a head about one mile before I got to the end of the Tramway and there there's a waterfall that was about 40 feet down it was quite steep and I was exhausted you know I was probably six or eight hours into the hike at that point Tim was a mile away and I knew he was a mile away because we've been texting and there was always a plan that if I was running low on water that I'd have him start hiking some water up the up the wash and I had brought a gallon and a half with me but I was running low and while I was sitting there looking at this waterfall the main concern of mine was just not that I could get down but in my tired State making a mistake you know I have to be very conscious that I was significantly more tired than I was when I started down this wash and one mistake falling 30 feet you're going to have a pretty bad time so I texted Tim hey can you start walking up the wash bringing some water and he started up and we realized that when he got to be 0.2 miles away from me there was over a thousand feet in elevation change between where he was and where I was so this wash was incredibly steep right where I was at that point Tim wasn't able to get any closer to me you know it was way too steep for him to walk up to meet me and so I basically had three options I could one turn around try to walk back up all these dozen waterfalls I'd slip and slowed down two I could try to Traverse my way down it you know free climbing down a very slick structure or three you know I could start walking up the mountain that the wash was intersecting on and just basically walk around the waterfall and then back down into the wash but that would require probably another 500 feet of walking up over and another 500 feet of walking back down into the wash to try to avoid this waterfall and in the end I realized that that was probably the safest option and so over the course of another hour or two I walked back up over back down and at that point I was feeling pretty nervous you know I was pretty low on Water I didn't really know where Tim was but uh I remember after I slipped and saw down one rock I looked forward and there was Tim with water came to save the day and at that point I realized that everything was going to be all right luckily Tim survived saved my life thank you Tim I got your spots as I could yeah and that was half a mile an hour I know I think I'm going one-third mile an hour we got about a mile left I guess now we get to my house it's tacos tacos look there's the tram the tram [Music] basically how I feel about it now so I met up with Tim took some water recounted what was going on and then probably walked about 0.3 miles per hour down the rest of the wash just you know going very slowly all the way down and eventually you made it you know we made it to the very bottom of the Tramway down there in Saline Valley and as you come out you just see this crazy large white stuff that used to be a lake and that's where this the borax and the salt were harvested back in the day ah back to Tim's car and the final Terminal Station of the Salt Tree getting salt way out of there that was the most difficult hike I've ever done in my life it's the most difficult day it was the uncomfortable day I've ever had but it's done now I guarantee you I will never walk this whole trim again and being out there you just realize how inhumane this environment was I think it was peaking over 120 when we were down there and I think it just reminded me why Death Valley has that name you know it's very dangerous to hike out there it's probably more dangerous than any of the mines I've ever been into to be honest it made me a little bit more nervous than any of the mines I've ever been into but all as well that ended well you know I got out of there Tim brought up some water we made our way out and uh I'll say this much I don't think I'll ever walk the salt tram again but I'm glad I did it one time and if you're thinking about walking the salt tram I think my first piece of advice would be don't it's uh it's quite difficult and if you do maybe do it in the winter time and uh pack a tent and make it a two-day thing that would be my advice but God I made it out of there

Channel: Ghost Town Living

Views: 952,697

Keywords: brent underwood, cerro gordo, cerro gordo ghost town, ghost town, ghost town living, hiking, i bought a ghost town, living in a ghost town, saline valley salt tram

Id: iuk0B2itiXo

Length: 35min 41sec (2141 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 03 2021