“Yeah, Desert Sky - Dream beneath the Desert Sky”
A drive through Joshua Tree National Park might take a couple hours, viewing the park from the road. An exploration of the park would take a lifetime. Joshua Tree National Park has over 550,000 acres of wilderness filled with a variety of plants and animals that make their home in this land shaped by strong winds, unpredictable torrents of rain, and climatic extremes. Every now and then, man intrudes in this wilderness and leaves his brief, passing mark among the surreal geologic features that cover the landscape. Let’s go see what we can find.
August is generally hot at JTree, and the 24th of August, 2015 was no exception. But sometimes it's nice to experience the extremes, as long as you're prepared for them. That said, I think I prefer the cold extremes over the hot ones....
Read MoreWho was "Little William" and why did someone inscribe a short, sad tale of his life on the dam at Squaw Tank? Did he ever even exist, or was the epitaph left as a hoax? Who wrote it and when was it written? Like many things in Joshua Tree National Park, it's a mystery.
Read MoreSometimes you just have to be in the right spot at the right time. I credit Murbachi, the intrepid 3-D photographer, with being in the right spot at the right time. While wandering around what he likes to call "The Towers of Uncertainty-North," he found this hitherto unknown (to me at least) dam.
Read MoreI remember visiting this area when I was a kid and how excited I was to get out of the car, climb the hills and explore the tunnels and drifts that dot the Hexie Mountains. And now, many years later, it’s still the same. Even though I know hundreds of people have explored these old mines, places like this seem to renew that sense of adventure and discovery I’ve had since I was a boy. And that motivates me to hike the trails, climb the mountains and explore the backcountries. The gold I find are the pictures I take.
Read MoreI recently found an old, 1975 edition of the Geology and Man Motor Nature Trail Guide on my bookshelf. I must have bought it back it back in the day, probably on a trip to the Monument with my brother and parents. I can remember traveling along the bumpy road, stopping at the points indicated while someone read the description of what we were looking at. Those were fun trips and as I haven’t done that since, I thought it was time to revisit the Geology Tour Road to see what I could find.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
