“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.
Driving south along Pinto Basin Road, the mountains squeeze in on both sides of the road as you drive through Wilson Canyon, a couple miles northwest of the Cholla Garden. The Hexies are on the south and the Pintos are on the north. Just as Wilson Canyon begins to open up and become Pinto Basin, there are a number of mining prospects, shafts, tunnels and drifts on the southern slopes of the Pinto Mountains.
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 MoreBy all accounts, Bill Keys got along pretty well with most people but was not a man to let anybody run over him. He once said, "if the law won't uphold me, I'll uphold myself." And it appears that is just what he did on May 11th of 1943.
Read MoreThe Desert Queen Well is located along the same trail that will take you past the Wonderland Ranch, Worth Bagley's stone marker, and finally to the Wall Street Mill. The well sits on land that was located and developed by William Morgan sometime between 1905 and 1908. Morgan had hopes of erecting a mill on the site, but those plans never came to be.
Read MoreWhether you call it the Ohlson House, the Wonderland Ranch or Uncle Willie's Health Food Store, the pink ruins near the Wall Street Mill trail are certainly photogenic and definitely enigmatic. They cause me to wonder many things and take many pictures, ask many questions but find few answers. Which makes me return again and again to see what I can find. This is another of my favorite spots in J Tree.
Read MoreJoshua Tree National Park, the California Gold Country, forgotten places in the Mojave Desert. These are a few of my favorite things.
