This spring, I made my maiden voyage to Death Valley National Park with Four Points Adventures, a boutique outdoor tour company that specializes in camping excursions with an off-roading bent. The trip was led by owner/guide Todd Rogers, a search-and-rescue trained professional photographer and lifetime outdoorsman who made us glampers feel like we were in very safe, knowledgeable hands.
Four Points is all about getting you to remote, beautiful locations for multi-day camping trips. All you have to do is show up and enjoy Mother Nature while they do all of the heavy lifting and dirty work. You can drive in your own vehicle (needs to be outfitted for off-roading) or let them do the driving—I went for the latter. The well-researched itineraries are planned to a "t" and they bring all the equipment and gear to camp in style. This is glamping with just the right amount of grit to make you feel like you’re answering the call of the wild without sacrificing creature comforts like beds with mattresses, gourmet food and private “bathrooms.” More on that in a second.
Let’s start with the accommodations. Four Points is affiliated with Tepui Tents, a Santa Cruz, California, company that makes tents designed specifically to use car rooftops and truck beds as their base. The tents have foam mattresses to ensure a good night’s sleep and sturdy ladders for ease getting in and out. There are even annex attachments that come in a variety of sizes to create more sleeping spaces, privacy for a changing area or to protect from the elements. (We experienced firsthand how those annexes really come in handy during a dust storm!) The Tepui tents were key to seamless transitions as we changed locations throughout the trip since they pop up and down pretty darn quickly and simply.
If there are no bathrooms at the campsites, Four Points will set up a temporary camp bathroom with a porta potty that has its own tent to create privacy. (This was essential to the comfort of us ladies!) They also have a portable shower that can pump hot water. Ah-mazing. Chairs, tables and shade canopies were also supplied, and guests didn’t have to lift a finger to help set anything up…unless we felt like pitching in!
Food is central to the Four Points experience. They take feeding you very well very seriously and have elaborate meals planned for breakfast and dinner daily; plus, tons of healthy, nourishing snacks and easily transportable lunches for eating on the go while on hikes and off-roading adventures. Coffee was freshly brewed bright and early every morning and ice-cold beers and a selection of wines were always at the ready.
Onto the adventuring! We started at the Trona Pinnacles, a special addition to the front end of this particular tour. After a night camping under the towering tufas of Trona, we caravanned to meet up with the rest of the group at the designated spot just outside the Big Pine entrance to Death Valley. Our first camp location in the 5,262 square mile park was near a massive sand dune, the second tallest in the United States at 700 feet. We hiked to the top and then got into some cornhole games back at camp. The silence, stillness and darkness around us that night was absolutely magical—and it wasn’t too cold so we could leave the “skylights” of our tent roofs open to stargaze.
The next day was a crash course on the true definition of off-roading. We took Steel Pass, a route that can only be traversed in four-wheel drive vehicles and dirt bikes. Todd coached the other drivers as we made our way through a high walled slot canyon that looked impossible to navigate due to the narrow, steep and rocky terrain (where flash floods are known to blast through, eek!). About half way, we stopped for lunch on a scenic plateau and checked out the famous Marble Bath.
It was a slow and steady daylong drive through Death Valley’s otherworldly, constantly-changing landscape as we made our way to the Saline Valley, where we set up camp at Warm Springs, a more developed campsite in a location established by miners in the 1930’s. True to its name, the camp was built around hot springs and is an oasis with several pools fed by the mineral-rich waters. Needless to say, soaking in the springs was divine after a couple of dusty days relishing in the elements!
The next day we embarked upon an excursion to Lippincott Mine Road with a stop at the Racetrack Playa where big boulders mysteriously move and leave tracks in their path. The winds had kicked up by the time we got back to camp and a frenetic dust storm that went on for hours made our final night quite memorable. Todd and his crew were completely unfazed and set all of us guests up quite comfortably in a Tepui tent annex. That small space was just enough room for us happy campers to enjoy our last supper together—it didn’t hurt that our cups were always full and our gourmet dinner was miraculously dust-free and just as delicious as every night before!
We survived the dusty night in high spirits and packed up camp for the last time the next morning. We caravanned out of the park through a different route, passing more abandoned mines and cabins as we made our way to Big Pine, where everyone said their goodbyes and headed back to their respective homes.
I will most definitely be signing up for another Four Points trip in the near future. They create a truly luxurious camping experience so you can relax while "roughing it" and get off the grid to see awe-inspiring places where the real stars of the universe shine.
