The Lost Cabin of Tucki Mountain, Death Valley
By Del Albright
I was alone in Death Valley. My heart kicked up a notch as I sat in my old Jeep, staring across what felt like a hundred miles of empty desert. Not a soul in sight—just a couple of persistent flies sharing the cab with me while I “glassed” the landscape through my binoculars.
Somewhere out there, tucked into the folds of Tucki Mountain, was the hidden cabin. I could feel it. And when you spend enough time wandering Death Valley’s backcountry like I have, those hunches start to feel like gospel.
Sweat dripped from the brim of my desert hat as my eyes bounced between my faded map notes and the distant ridgelines. My scribbles were vague at best, but that didn’t matter. I’d been chasing this cabin for years—off and on—and today felt different. Today felt close.
The Jeep was perched on a narrow, cliff-hugging road snaking off Tucki Mountain toward places that don’t show up in tourist brochures. I eased down the shelf road inch by inch, letting the old rig crawl while my eyes scanned for clues.
Along the way I passed the usual ghosts of mining days long gone: rusted cyanide drums, sun-baked car carcasses, even an old wooden-spoke wagon with a single-tree still attached. It hadn’t been disturbed in a lifetime. For a road-tripper like me, that’s like finding a fossilized dinosaur track.
I stopped for a swig of water, wiped the sweat off my nose, and re-read the bits of story that kept fueling this hunt. Because the cabin wasn’t just a cabin. It came with a legend that I found in an old journal archived in a museum.
The Legend of the Two Gunmen
In my mind, I could picture the scene the old journal described:
Two pistol-packing hardcases sat across a hand-hewn wooden table, each wondering who would be quicker to the draw. Between them sat the prize—a bag of gold and jewels worth killing for. They both knew they would not share the prize. The desert heat pushed beads of sweat down from the rims of their battered hats. The air was heavy… thick… ready to explode. Tension hung in the air like a bad smell.
The prospector’s cabin clung to a lonely side slope on Tucki Mountain—so remote that no scream or gunshot would ever echo far enough to matter. The two men had argued and lied and schemed for days. The desert – the unending search for riches – had caught up with them. The treasure was too much temptation for either one. So, as they sat across from each other, they decided to settle it the only way they knew how.
A single moment. Two guns. Two shots. One bag of treasure. And silence.
Rediscovered… and Forgotten Again
Twenty years later, in the late 1870s, a wandering mapmaker spotted the cabin from a distance. No tracks. No burros. No smoke. Nothing but weathered boards clinging stubbornly to the mountain.
He approached anyway—because that’s what mapmakers do. But the closer he got, the more his gut churned. Something was off.
He crept to a broken window, peeked inside… and nearly tumbled backward down the slope.
There was the table.
There was the bag.
And there were the two skeletons—still slumped in their chairs, revolvers in hand, as if the argument had ended just minutes earlier instead of decades.
When he finally forced himself inside, imagination played tricks on him—whispers of old gunpowder, echoes of anger, the chill of a place where the air still remembered violence.
A careful look told the story clearly: Each man had fired once. Each bullet had found the other’s heart. Their sternum bones were clipped by pistol rounds right at the heart. They died exactly where they sat.
He turned his attention to the treasure on the table. One bony hand still rested inches from the bag. The mapmaker hesitated. Then , decided no treasure on earth was worth the curse tied to that table. His breath was coming in short, ragged, gulps. He was scared. This wasn’t right. He had to get out of there.
Before leaving, he noticed a trapdoor in the floor. It opened to a rough, unshored mine shaft—dangerous even by frontier standards. He didn’t go in, but he guessed the truth: the treasure probably came from down there. Maybe stashed by outlaws. Maybe found by the men themselves. Either way, the mapmaker closed the trapdoor, stepped outside, wrote a brief note in his journal… and never returned.
My Turn in Death Valley
Fast-forward to 1996.
I found that mapmaker’s journal years ago, and it lit a fire in me. Since then, I’ve been chasing the lost cabin and its story through every nook and cranny of Tucki Mountain. Heck, if I were to be honest, I’ve chased Death Valley dreams all over that dad-burned desert for now on to 40 years.
I didn’t find it on this trip. I still haven’t found it. But I will.
And when I do, I’ll leave the treasure right where it belongs—with the men who paid the ultimate price for it. Some legends aren’t meant to be disturbed.
But I’ll take pictures. Oh, you can bet on that.
