Ang and I made a day trip to Joshua Tree National Park today, and it ended up being one more adventure to remember.
Joshua Tree is a huge national park located between the right edge and the middle of nowhere. We didn't really know what to expect going in, but were blown away with what we found.
[More:]
We took off earlyish this morning (even set an alarm!) for a hike around the park. We entered the park at the north entrance - at Twentynine Palms - and drove up to the first campground - the Jumbo Rocks Campground - and found a trailhead there. It ended up that this would be the perfect trail - mainly because I forgot to check the fuel gauge on the Jeep before leaving and found we had about an eighth of a tank! We decided to go on a hike before returning to town to refuel.
The hike was incredible. The 1.7 mile loop seemed to be just a few steps worth of walking. The scenery was incredible. We took some time to go off-trail to do some ad-hoc exploring, and spent quite a bit of time crawling up the smooth, weather-washed rocks in the area. The weather was perfect, not a cloud in the sky, and we only stumbled across one other group of hikers.
The short loop showed us so many things. We walked amongst the yucca, lizards, and, of course, Joshua Trees. We had such a great time that we had wished this trail was a bit longer. It came to an end way too fast.
After the hike we decided to head back to town to refuel, feed Malabar and ourselves, and relax for a bit before heading back out. After a quick regrouping, we headed back out to the park and decided to seek out a four-wheel drive trail we had read about. Good call.
We left the paved road and started our adventure down Geology Tour Road. The road states at the beginning that it is a non-maintained road, although we found the first half or so to be graded. The second half, however, ended up being a kick-butt one-lane Jeep road that took us through some beautiful desert landscape.
The drive was so much fun, although we never really ran into any spots that made us concerned about the abilities of the Jeep (which is probably a good thing). On the way in, however, we did see someone that did not have such a good experience on the road. Somehow a RAV4 tangled with the berm and ended up with the tires pointed in a skyward direction. Not a direction any driver wants to experience. We stopped to make sure everyone was OK (which they were), and that help was on the way. On our return trip, there were plenty of rangers lending a hand to get things cleaned up.
Our drive finished up with us chasing the sunset around some mountains, and enjoying the dusk as it fell on the desert. It will be a memorable day for a very long time, and we look forward to spending some more time in the desert. The sights and weather were amazing. We look forward to returning soon.
See more pictures of the day in the Photo Album.
Looks like we will be leaving here tomorrow to head over to the Quartzsite area of Arizona. They have better EVDO service there, and we need to get heading down the road to make it to Florida by the end of the month. We will miss this little park - cheap, clean, and close to a killer national park. Nice combination for an RV resort.
--kev
