California/Nevada with baby. Death Valley too hot?

Hi All,

I'm planning a trip from LA to SF over two weeks with myself, my gf and our 8 week old baby. Trip is from 17th July to 2nd August. Car will be rental car (prolly small SUV RAV4 maybe)

Original plan was to Drive from LA to San Diego to Palm Springs to Lake Mead(Hoover Dam) to Death Valley to Yosemite to SF. All with lots of stops on the way.

Thinking about it now.. Will it be too hot in the Death Valley area for a baby? The car will be air-conditioned. But in the case of a breakdown, how often will other cars be around?
Route from though DV would be I-190 - detour to Dante's View - Furnace Creek(overnight) - detour to Badwater then exit out via Panamint Springs.

I was thinking of changing to LA-San Diego-Palm Springs-LA *FLY* Reno-Yosemite-SF. So avoiding Death Valley all together.

Assuming we didn't do much between 11AM and 3PM when we're in Death Valley how bad(hot) does it get? I know about taking lots and lots of water.
Any suggestions? Other detours? Any advice for traveling with a baby?

Thanks in advance,

Joe

Welcome to the RTA Forum!

I wouldn't do your flying option. You'd be missing out on some great country, you'd significantly increase your costs, and it would likely end up taking more time (it just would be time spend backtracking to LA/then time in airports and in an airplane)!

I would say you should go ahead and visit death valley, but you should also know that even if you did skip it, you're still going to be spending a lot of your proposed trip in the Desert where it will be nearly as hot. The Palm Springs area can easily be above 110F in the summer, as can the Las Vegas area.

.... would be a loop something like:

Sequoia/Kings Canyon
Yosemite
Tahoe
SF
Monterey/Carmel/Pacific Grove
Big Sur
Hearst Castle
Cambria
.......

It avoids most of the really hot spots.

While DV is probably OK (I've passed thru in the summer, never spent the night), I understand with an 8 week old you want to be a little more careful than with an 8 month old.

This routing will be much more crowded at this time of year, as it's peak season (while your other routing isn't).