“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.
The first thing I noticed was, how green was the valley. The substantial amount of rain this past winter has really changed the look of JTree. Two months from now, this picture will look a lot different. The second thing I noticed was, lots of colorful splashes along the way, partly responsible for tuning a 3-mile hike into a 5-mile hike.
Read MoreSet aside a half day the next time you're in Joshua Tree National Park and hike the Wall Street Mill trail. The round-trip distance is less than two miles, but there is a lot of history and desert gold along the way. It's an easy hike, but could end up taking you the entire day if you like to roam and explore as much as I do. I generally make sure I have plenty of water and some trail munchies, and then I don't worry about the time. I just go and wander and generally find something I haven't seen before.
Read MoreThere are trillions and trillions of rocks at Joshua Tree National Park and I hiked over many of them on my way to the Contact Mine. At least it felt that way. Big rocks, little rocks, sharp rocks, moving rocks. I also discovered a new sport I call “Rock Surfing.” It’s a spontaneous and unexpected event that occurred several times when I stepped or jumped onto large, flat rocks along the trail that I assumed would not move when I landed on them. Depending on the angle of the trail, I sometimes caught a pretty good scree wave and “surfed” the trail several feet.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
