Land Rover event tackles rugged Death Valley trail

The first Land Rover Las Vegas Wheels Event of 2012 took a group of intrepid adventurers on a 200-mile trip from Las Vegas to Death Valley and back. The nearly 12-hour journey began at Land Rover Las Vegas the morning of Feb. 26 with 15 vehicles venturing out to take on the challenging Furnace Creek Trail. The caravan consisted of about 50 Land Rover Las Vegas customers and employees.

Land Rover Las Vegas sales guide Rick Nelson, the dealership's Wheels Event coordinator, said the Death Valley trip offered a mix of challenging terrain and scenic beauty. Wheels Event participants are Land Rover owners who enjoy testing the capabilities of their vehicles in nearby off-road environments.

The Death Valley event contained a dry waterfall climb that put the Rovers' Hill Descent Control through its paces.

"It had nearly vertical 3-foot drops," Nelson said, adding that all the vehicles came out of the challenge none the worse for wear. "The worst damage we got was a punctured sidewall from sharp rocks, or scratching of the wheels and vehicles, which usually comes out in a detail. We call it desert pinstriping."

A cross section of years and models were represented on the trip, ranging from a 1995 Range Rover Classic to a 2012 LR4.

"It runs the gamut," Nelson said.

As Wheels Event coordinator, he tries to vary the environmental conditions the Land Rovers are likely to encounter from event to event. Nelson also likes to incorporate a historical element into the trip if possible.

He described Furnace Creek as one of the more technical events and said the next Wheels Event, which will explore abandoned ghost and mining towns at the Mojave National Preserve on the Nevada-California border, will be purely scenic.