Gas, tires, oil.

I have previously posted about my quest to visit as many sites as I can that contain the word “devil” in their name. I just got back from several days at Death Valley and added several to my list. I’ll post about them later, but today I’ll show one not listed on any map. American WWII airmen blamed gremlins, but the British term “The Devil’s Spanner” seems appropriate here. I wanted to visit the Devil’s Racetrack, home of the mysterious moving rocks. The map lists the road as designed for “high clearance vehicles” and 4x4s. Truthfully, a car can make it, the problem is that it is 37 miles of the worst washboard road in existance. I could see the bottom edge of my dash vibrating about 3″ in amplitude at speed. Slow sucked and so did fast, but at least it was over sooner. When I got to the racetrack

I heard a clanging noise underneath, both sides of the exhaust had broken off behind the mufflers and were banging the driveshaft.

Not a big deal, I just unbolted them and threw them in the back.
After having a great time at the racetrack (look for an upcoming post with lots of pics) we headed back. During the last mile I noticed that the steering didn’t feel right and the brakes had lost there powerboost. When I pulled into the parking lot there was a spray of oil down the side of the truck; the pressure side powersteering line had come unscrewed. Broken off or blown out I can see, but not unscrewed. So while I’m preparing to fix that I hear a hissing noise, a rear tire had gotten a stone cut and was going flat.

So I’m standing there surveying the damage and this guy walks up and says “I see you just came out of the racetrack, I’ve heard you need special tires to avoid flats, do you think my rental SUV will make it?”. My reply “I can’t think of a better vehicle to take down that road than a rental car”.

On recent trip, I was looking up a place I wanted to hike (the devil’s ladder), and noticed that there are a large number of places and geological sites that are named “The Devil’s whatever”, like devil’s tower, devil’s postpile… I thought it would be interesting to try and see how many of these sites I could visit. So I hit 4 in just this first trip.
First, “The devil’s ladder”:

This is at the top of Carson Pass, it got its name from settlers who had to winch their wagons up over the top.
Next, in a nearby valley above Upper Blue lake, “The Devil’s Corral”:

It’s a box canyon that opens to the left in this pic, sorry it so crappy.
Then we went through “The Devil’s Gate” on Monument pass:

And lastly, above Yosemite Village is “The Devil’s Dancefloor”:

Anyone know of some other spots with devil or diablo in the name? Post suggestions in the comments.