My goodness, it’s been a while since I wrote down an adventure. A whole month! Well, the wait is over, because this weekend, I decided to make the journey past the giant dinosaurs of Cabazon and the most spectacular wind farm I’ve ever seen to visit Joshua Tree National Park during its dodranscentennial! (That’s 75 years, by the way.)
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Normally, I like to visit National Parks in the off season (October through March) when the crowds are smaller, but in Joshua Tree, like most desert parks, the off season is actually the on season. Whoops! had originally planned to arrive at the north entrance of the park and migrate south to Cottonwood Spring to set up camp and conquer Mastadon Peak the next morning—I mean, who wouldn’t want to shout “I conquered Mastadon Peak!” to the world?—however, the moment I arrived at the Visitor’s Center, I met a grouchy sign that told me “All Campgrounds Full” and a much friendlier lady behind the counter, who said that Cottonwood Spring and the trail to Mastadon Peak had been closed for flooding! Well, that was a predicament, but I decided not to worry about that until nightfall.
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When I passed the wind farm earlier, I was racing some huge, scary clouds, so I made my priority to visit Keys View before they swallowed up the sky. High above the park, Keys View provides some spectacular vistas of the Coachella Valley and the San Andreas Fault, which I visited last month in San Juan Bautista. The clouds, which I thought would be halfway across the valley, had drunk too much water from the ocean and gotten stuck on the San Gabriel Mountains! That meant I could see all the way to the Salton Sea, though it’s rumored you can see as far as Mexico on a clear day! That is pretty rare nowadays, because of all the smog that gets channeled east from Los Angeles. Yuck!
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With good weather now on my side, I hopped down the mountain to see what all the fuss was about with these Joshua Trees. It turns out, Yucca brevifolia is pretty darn important. In the early years before time, it provided a home for yucca moths, wood rats, and songbirds. Later, humans came onto the scene, and used its pieces for weaving material and healthful snacks! Then, in the 1800s, Mormon pioneers discovered the trees and changed their name from humwichawa to “Joshua Tree,” since they thought the trees looked like a fellow named Joshua with his arms outstretched. Now, they are mostly used for decoration, though I have to say, they make for lovely climbing.
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Joshua Tree is home to some fantastic climbing rocks! This is a big reason why it’s popular year-round. There are rocks shaped like faces, oysters, and even croissants, all jutting out of the desert like surrealist monoliths and beckoning the potential climber. I started my adventure at the Hall of Horrors, a series of rock hallways designed for all sorts of climbing levels, and I meandered toward Skull Rock. Skull Rock really does look like a human skull, which is spooky, being so close to the Hall of Horrors. All around it, though, is the most wonderful of rocky playgrounds! I spent hours leaping and careening across the monzogranite monoliths until my leaper was well worn out! When a field of flowers is not available, a boulder field does nicely for a good frolic!
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With daylight drawing to a close, there was still one more place I wanted to see: the cholla garden! To get there, I had to transcend deserts. Joshua Tree is situated on the frontier between the high Mojave Desert, home of the Joshua Tree, and the low Colorado Desert, home of the fan palm. I didn’t get to see any fan palm oases on this trip, but nonetheless, traveling through the transition zone was fascinating! The Joshua Trees stopped abruptly, the creosote mediated, and the cholla took over! The actual cholla garden was a remarkable gathering of the spiny cacti, which, backlit by the sun, appeared deceptively fuzzy. It was a good thing I stayed away, though, because these were jumping cholla, and not the kind that can do the Mexican hat dance!
As the sun set over Joshua Tree, I scrambled to find shelter for the night. I’d almost forgotten that winter is upon us again, and it was darn chilly! Luckily, I was able to find the Country Inn in Twentynine Palms and asked really nicely for a place to stay. The lady at the counter was very friendly and the room was spotless with a soft floor that felt so nice on my tired feet. I dined at the historic 29 Palms Inn, where I had an engaging chat with some locals and enjoyed the jazzy tunes of white-haired Beverly on the keyboard. All in all, despite the initial setbacks, this turned out to be a lovely day in a lovely park. I was so pleased on my way out that I made sure to tip Beverly, and not just because her name is one letter shy of “Beaverly.”
Riding twenty-nine trails to bliss,