Flying out of Seattle can be lackluster sometimes, but not on this flight to LA. Nope. Mt. Rainier was a dream in the sea of clouds.
Jay's lovely cousin, Amy, was getting married in LA over the first week of June so I decided to take advantage of the flight to LA to check out a national park I had never visited before - Joshua Tree! Because Jay just got back from Saudi Arabia he couldn't take two extra days off to join me in the park, so I went by myself because I couldn't pass up the opportunity to camp and hike in a desert.
I headed straight to the Hidden Valley Campground to set up my home for the next two nights. I scored on a spot where I could sneak my tent in underneath a tree so the thing wouldn't turn into a pressure cooker during the day. I also made sure my spot wasn't too close to other campground sites because I prefer hearing natural sounds over human noise when camping. Jay and I like paddling and backpacking because we prefer to be alone. It is amazing how loud people can be when they camp - why bother camping if you aren't going to listen to the birds and the trees waving in the wind?
Once my territory had been established in the campground, I headed straight out into the park for a long hike. Almost all of the day hiking trails in the park are super short (i.e. three miles). At first I thought it was quite wimpy of the park, until I covered three miles in 100 degrees in the middle of the day. I get it now. Yup. But the trail I headed to this afternoon, the Willow Hole Trail, was much longer and it was fine for me to tackle it because it was later in the day and the sun wasn't overbearing. I was actually thrilled to be hot and in shorts. The hot sun is not a common thing for us to deal with in Washington, so I soaked it up in the California desert!
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| Black-throated sparrow |
I spent about four hours on this trail and each step was amazing. I couldn't get over all the plants, mammals, birds, and lizards I was seeing in this living desert. Considering the harshness of the environment, evolution was working some wonders with the flora and fauna of the park. The Joshua tree stole my heart, I loved watching the jackrabbits, I got pissed at myself for forgetting my binoculars, I marveled at the red-tail hawk drifting over my head, and I soaked up the bird song from a black-throated sparrow. About five little gray blobs of birds teased me (surely because I forgot my binoculars) by hiding in some type of shrub. I managed to fire off a few photographs so I could try and identify the birds later on....which I did attempt. I've concluded that they were a tiny flycatcher species, perhaps
Hammond's flycatcher, but who the heck really knows? Flycatchers are known to be extremely difficult to identify and I didn't take all the right shots with my camera. In addition to the biology surrounding me, the geology was fascinating! I'm not a geologist by any means, but the rocks are totally awesome at Joshua Tree. This hike took me along the Wonderland Rocks formation and eventually into an area that clearly sees water occasionally (flash floods?). I wandered along the sandy trail, enjoying the sound of silence and having the entire place all to myself. Only Jay would have made this better.
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| Canterbury bell |
The next morning I hiked up Ryan Mountain, hitting the trail at 7:30 am in order to avoid the heat of the day.....although it was already at least 85 degrees when I set out. There was one other couple on the trail, but I quickly got in front of them and had the trail all to myself for the entire hike up. This was lovely because I was able to spot all the lizards and birds before they were spooked off the trail. The view at the top was fantastic - looking out to the north over the Mojave Desert and to the south over the Colorado Desert. Although it isn't easy to see the difference in the two deserts from the height of a mountain, when you drive or hike on the land the difference becomes quite obvious. The Joshua tree (which is a yucca, not a tree) thrives in the higher elevations of the Mojave Desert. When you cross into lower elevations and the Colorado Desert, you lose the Joshua tree and gain patches of cholla cactus.
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| Happy |
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| Southern desert horned lizard |
After hiking up Ryan Mountain, I decided to drive north to a trail called "Fortynine Palms Oasis". In my mind I was thinking, stupidly, that the trail would involve hiking in the shade. Sometimes I'm not that smart. The three mile trail was the longest three miles I've ever covered.... a mile and a half out at 1:00 pm with no shade was brutal. I found one tiny spot of shade halfway out and I curled myself under that rock for at least 20 minutes to just cool off before continuing to the oasis. I knew once I got there that I would be able to cool off under the shade of luscious palms. Hiking alone in the desert in this kind of heat isn't always that smart, but I had a massive amount of water and salty snacks with me so I felt fine even if I was sweating like a pig. There had only been one other car in the parking lot and I eventually passed a couple heading back to their car. Unless someone arrived after me (and no one did), I had this wild little desert spot all to myself. And it was lovely. I took a nap in the shade of a tree, munched on stuffed grape leaves (thanks Trader Joe's!), and drank coconut water. It was idyllic, beautiful, silent, peaceful, and relatively cool in the shade. Does it get any better?
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| Fortynine Palms Oasis |
Now I'm in the Colorado Desert - note that there are no Joshua trees but there are cholla cactus gardens. This little spot was just off the road, which was great because I was pooped - mildly overheated from my two very hot and long hikes - and I couldn't handle much more than pathetic walks at this point. This was a great little walk though because the NPS had an educational pamphlet with numbers marked along the trail, so I could learn about everything I was seeing. Perfect for the dorky biologist in me! I saw jojoba, cholla, and desert woodrat nests. I would have been stoked to see a kangaroo rat, but alas, they are nocturnal and in the Colorado Desert. I am diurnal and sleeping in the Mojave Desert, so that wasn't meant to be.
My last stop of the day was at Jumbo Rocks to walk another short trail among the, well, jumbo rocks!
Loving the shade and the wine in my campground. I had stashed the bottle well back in a shady spot so it never actually got that warm! Woohoo!
I wandered around the Hidden Valley campground at sunset, dreaming of clouds to help make the photographs even better, but happily settling for the gorgeous blue sky.
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| Early morning light |
I got up at an insanely early hour the next morning to drive up to Keys View, where I had been told you had a good chance of seeing bighorn sheep. One of the rangers even drew out a little map for me to follow so I could wander up a hill to a spot where they commonly hang out. I had been warned that even 8 am was too hot for the sheep, so I arrived at the viewpoint at 7 am. No sheep. I hiked up the unofficial trail to the top of the hill at Keys View, and found.....their poop. Still no sheep. Oh well, wildlife cannot be told when you really want to see them right? Seeing such a fantastic mammal in the desert would have been so cool, but at least I saw their poop. Only a biologist can be pleased with a poop sighting right?
Keys View isn't too shabby of a view, even if there are no bighorn sheep around.
I headed back, sheepless, to the campground and packed up my stuff. It was time to drive back to LA, meet up with Jay and his family, and party like rock stars to celebrate Amy and Avner's wedding!
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