Some person on the ihc-digest asked me if it was really difficult to get a Travelall up Surprise Canyon in the Panamint Mountains or if this was just rampant speculation. The question was asked sincerely and this answer was in no way a put-down.
Please note that both Surprise Canyon and Happy Canyon are now closed and my remarks about them is history, not a guide to their travel.
I don't consider this rampant speculation. It is insane to think of trying to get a Travelall up Surprise Canyon. There are seven waterfalls the first of which is a marble wall maybe 8 feet high and vertical. I've been up once since the canyon washed out, in my son's vastly modified CJ. Getting to the first waterfall bent my Scouts drive line badly and when it got to the waterfall and I set the bumper against the fall, and looked at how far my front tires would have to be lifted before they contacted the marble to even begin the ascent, and then looked at what the top of the fall was going to do to my undercarriage when my winch dragged the underbelly across it, I decided that the Scout had already had enough. My Scout has been down the sluices of the Rubicon and although way more than a 118 inch moderately lifted Scout should be asked to do, the sluices were nothing compared to the falls of Surprise Canyon. I often took my Travelall up the Canyon before it washed out and sometimes then had to winch 2 or 3 times. I agree with the rating of Surprise Canyon as being the toughest 4WD road anywhere, that is fairly commonly traversed. Go to the next canyon South and try your T'all on the three Happy Canyon waterfalls, which although not in the same ballpark could be a good try for your vehicle. Beyond the waterfalls, however, is some very dense brush and to not scrape your vehicle paintless requires a massive amount of brush cutting. Either fork above the brush is interesting and an adventure, but the brush is something else. The left fork takes you to the top of the Panamints and a view of Panamint City after a short hike. The right fork takes you to the cabin of Jim and Norma Weston, good and long-time friends of ours, who as of 2002 were evicted from the "wilderness" and now live in Texas .
They lived up here year-round with no vehicular access. They parked their truck high up in Pleasant Canyon and carried everything they needed on their backs down to their cabin, a hike of several miles up and down canyons. How old are the Westons? Let me just tell you that when I first started taking travel study trips to Death Valley in about 1965, there was a wonderful picture of an oxen-pulled wagon painted on a rock at the intersection of several "roads" in Ballarat. For years,I told everyone that one of the Manson family had painted it during a hallucinatory spell, and that it was so great because of the particular drug that inspired, but actually Norma Weston had painted it, and Norma was no kid then. Norma is an outstanding painter and specializes in scenes from the desert area. Her paintings have been for sale in Ballarat at those times when there is some place there open to sell things. Norma and Jim, who have lived one of the most interesting lives that I can imagine, wrote a book that has never been published. Unfortunately, instead of writing about their lives, they wrote a romance novel set at about Civil War time. Big mistake we think because they lived adventure, we think they should have written about.
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