You may find this guys site interesting about Death Valley:
http://rogerhomrich.com/deathvalley/He did a hike the whole length of the park.
If your backpacking most trips are planned around the Panamints such as Surprise Canyon to Panamint City.
I have never heard anything about people not being able to use the natural springs, if you visit Butte Valley there are a few camps still completely intact and the indoor plumbing is still functional to the near by springs.
To avoid going any more off topic maybe I will just make my own thread about my proposed route since there seems to be a few Death Valley fans on this forum.
