Sunday Marbleblogging

Frying Pan Lake in Sky High Valley, Marble Mountain Wilderness.

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Day late; yesterday was crazy. Anyway, this is Purple Milkweed (Asclepias cordifolia) along 108 west of Cold Springs.

Desert Road Trip: Joshua Tree/Mojave April 5-8 (Part 3)

Saturday the plan was to see Mojave National Preserve, or at any rate as much of it as was accessible from Kelbaker Road, winding up at a motel in Barstow for the night. It was a packed schedule: lots of driving, and lots of exploring to do (and staying at Cottonwood added a good 40 minutes or so to the driving). So I got up early and hit the road a little after 6:30 am. More...
Short detour to a cool spot in Twentynine Palms: this guy (apparently) collects old motel signs, and his front yard is full of them.

I took Amboy Road out of Twentynine Palms; no traffic, just classic two-lane desert highway. Had to stop in Amboy itself (on old Route 66) to shoot the iconic Roy's sign.
Then north on Kelbaker Road to a turnout at Granite Pass, and a ramble around the rocky foothills of the Granite Mountains. It's a classic granitic landscape with lots of cool outcrops, well worth the hour or so I spent exploring it.
Wildflowers: not so much. Some nice Panamint Liveforever, isolated paintbrush and Mojave Buckwheat, but not much else.
Next stop was the Kelso Dunes, 45 square miles of sand topping out at 650' above the base.

I wasn't sure when I started that I was really shooting for the top of the tallest dune. The sand slog was tedious and enervating, and as I neared the base of the steepest dunes I looked up at the direct route and thought no frigging way. But when I got a little higher up I spotted a nice angled route to a saddle that wasn't much higher than I was at this point, so I figured I'd just go as far as the ridgeline to see what I could see. ("The Bear Went Over the Mountain" was going through my head at this point.)
And when I got there, I saw a path along the ridge to the high point--a path much easier than the one-foot-forward-two-steps-back way up the dune face. So I did make it to the high point despite myself. And it was well worth the (considerable) effort.
The descent was a lot more fun, half-leaping and half-glissading down every slope. Took me about half as long as going up.
I headed on to Kelso, a onetime railroad way station; trains don't stop here anymore, but Union Pacific still has some operations here. The Kelso Depot, a classic 1920s railroad depot, is now headquarters for the National Preserve. In addition to exhibits illustrating Mojave natural and human history, there are several rooms preserved as they would have been when it was a working depot.
Also restored, and functioning: the old lunch counter. At the top of the dunes a young woman on a college geology trip recommended the fruit smoothies there, so I got myself a strawberry smoothy--very refreshing on a warm day.
After a half hour or so it was back on the road, and another stop for a short walk in the cinder cone area.
Then on to Baker, with the busiest strip since Twentynine Palms, and I-15 heading west. The freeway was a little jarring after a whole day of trafficless two-lane highways through the Big Empty, but I wasn't on it long before exiting for my final Mojave destination.
Zzyzx was a 1940s-era mineral springs and spa, founded and run by a televangelist health-food nut. Now it's the CSU system's Desert Studies Center. Much of it is still intact, a wonderfully incongruous oasis wedged between dark desert peaks and a vast dry lake bed. Great place to spend some time wandering around.
Finally, off to Barstow for a shower, dinner and a coupla Margaritas, Lady From Shanghai on TCM, and a soft bed.
Heading out early Easter morning, I took the main drag through Barstow to catch a few more classic motel signs. Then onto the freeway and straight home, 6.5 wholly (happily) uneventful hours.

Desert Road Trip: Joshua Tree/Mojave April 5-8 (Part 2)

Friday was my day for sightseeing; the plan was to spend the day up in the northern part of the park (where all the Big Rocks are) doing a few short-ish hikes and checking out the popular attractions. The morning was cold and very windy--no incentive to linger over my coffee. I put away anything I thought might blow away, and hit the road at around 6:45.
More... First destination (after a quick stop at the Cholla Garden) was Keys View. Did I say it was windy at the campground? That wasn't windy. Keys View was windy. In the parking lot it was a steady 30-40 mph blast, and up at the viewpoint it was worse--so bad I could barely stand. I snapped a couple of shots and hurried back to the car to warm my numbing fingers. First tourist destination down.
Next up: a hike into Wonderland Wash. Start at Barker Dam trailhead; head toward Wall Street Mill, take a left to the pink ruins, then left again into the wash.
This is the quick & easy way into Wonderland of Rocks. It's not an official trail but the use path is easy to follow, and it's a big payoff for not an enormous amount of effort. I imagine it gets hot mid-day, but the morning was pleasantly cool.
Also in Wonderland Wash: lots of Mojave Kingcup cactus, and lots of it in bloom.
Back via the Desert Queen Well (and a great old rusted-out truck), and on to more sightseeing.
An amble around the Hall of Horrors, and a stop at Skull Rock.
And then the 2-mile loop out of Split Rock picnic area. Rocks and more rocks; this one, a little southwest of the picnic area, I call Gorilla Rock.
Next, the Arch Rock nature trail. When I got to Arch Rock there was a couple taking pictures; they told me that several other people had walked right past it without even looking.
On the way back to Cottonwood, the Ocotillo Patch was in full flower.
Smoke Tree Wash, however, was a little past its prime; there was still lots in bloom, but it was starting to dry up.

Back at the campsite, I discovered that my chair had blown over and a couple cookpots had been blown into the road. (A friendly Canadian in the next campsite had been kind enough to collect them.) That was some serious wind.

I did a little more exploring around Cottonwood, enjoyed a bottle of Brother Thelonious, checked out a very interesting ranger talk on the human history of JTNP, and again retired early.

Desert Road Trip: Joshua Tree/Mojave April 5-8 (Part 1)

It was the best of timing, it was the worst of timing.

I've long been wanting to see Joshua Tree and Mojave NP, and this spring I finally decided to do it. The plan was to drive down Wednesday night, spend Thursday and Friday in Joshua Tree, spend most of Saturday in Mojave National Preserve, and head back Sunday. I lit out around 8 pm Wednesday evening; after some traffic in the City and on the bridge, it was clear sailing. I stopped for a nap at the Buttonwillow rest area, got maybe a half hour of sleep--not as much as I had hoped, but enough to keep me going for a while.

Around Mojave I was starting to get drowsy, and I probably should have stopped for another nap at the Boron rest area, but I was so close to Barstow I kept on. I pulled into Barstow around 5:35 am, and stopped briefly for a few night motel shots. Then on to Denny's for breakfast and coffee, which revived me for the rest of the day. More... There was no traffic at all on 247, and not much on 62. I got to the Joshua Tree visitor center around 8:30.

This is where the bad timing comes in. Sign on the visitor center door said all campgrounds were full. Turns out lots of people take off the week before Easter (who knew?), and all of them go to Joshua Tree. Inside they told me the sign wasn't quite right: there were sites at Cottonwood, the least scenic and most distant from the main attractions.

Heading into the park, I thought about trying Jumbo Rocks in case anyone was leaving, but when I got there I saw a couple other cars ahead of me with (apparently) the same idea. So I hightailed it down to Cottonwood where I had my pick of a bunch of empty sites. Here's where the good timing comes in. Just from what was blooming in the campground, it was clear Cottonwood was wildflower central that week. Desert Globemallow, Purplemat, Brown-Eyed Evening Primrose, Desert Pincushion, and one lone spectacularly blooming Mojave Yucca, among others. After paying, and leaving enough gear out to let people know the site was taken, I headed down to Cottonwood Basin Wash (1.7 miles south of the Cottonwood visitor center), where the JTNP wildflower update had said the bloom was at its peak. They were not wrong. I hiked up the wash a half mile or so and saw a dozen or more species that were new to me. Highlights included Desert Bluebells, Sand Blazing Star, Bigelow's Monkeyflower, Notch-Leaf Phacelia, Desert Star, and (best of all) a lone Beavertail Cactus in full amazing bloom. After returning to the campsite and having some lunch, I headed down to Cottonwood Springs trailhead for a hike to Lost Palms Oasis. Wildflowers along the trail were abundant and gorgeous. Lots of Desert Bluebell and Sand Blazing Star, plus Pygmy Poppy, Mojave Aster, Scarlet Locoweed, and Calico Cactus. This is a 3 mile or so hike through low hills and desert washes, ending with a steep descent into a rocky canyon. Early-to-mid-afternoon is a sub-optimal time for this hike, which has virtually no shade; I was hard-pressed to drink enough water fast enough to keep from dehydrating. Still, the destination was worth it and then some: a classic oasis, the largest grove of fan palms in the park. I got back to the campsite around 5:00 for a quiet evening of pasta for dinner, a bottle of Fin du Monde, and Ragtime for reading material. Then a well-earned night's sleep, after being awake for nearly all of the last 36 hours. The wind picked up during the night, but miraculously (considering it was staked in loose granite sand) my tent held up.

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Red Sierra Onion (Allium obtusum) near Woods Lake off Highway 88, Eldorado National Forest.

Sunday Sierrablogging

Crown Lake, Hoover Wilderness.

In the Land of the Big Rocks

Arch Rock near White Tank Campground, Joshua Tree National Park.

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Wildflower season is finally kicking in here, and I just spent a long weekend down in Joshua Tree National Park...where I found this one: Calico Cactus (Echinocereus engelmannii), along the Lost Palms Oasis trail near Cottonwood Springs.

Wednesday Wildflowerblogging

Mountain Dandelion (Agoseris aurantiaca) on the trail above Marble Valley, Marble Mountain Wilderness.

Sunday Sierrablogging

Red Devil Lake, Yosemite National Park.