Photos from Joshua Tree

I've written about this hike before and posted some photos, so there will be some repetition, but I'm not inclined to try and do an edit. 

Joshua Tree During the Shutdown

I made a brief stop at Joshua Tree National Park during the just ended government shutdown and it wasn't pretty.

Before driving up into the park proper I went to a local supermarket to buy a few snacks to carry with me on my hike.  I asked the cashier if business was down because of the shutdown.  According to her, no, just the opposite.  Business was really booming.  She also told me that she was one of the local volunteers who was picking up trash and cleaning restrooms and she wasn't happy.  Lots of reports of gunfire, especially at night.  She told me that the group she was working with had found a lot of off road vehicle tracks as well. 

"What are they shooting?"  she wondered.  "There's nothing to hunt up there but big horn sheep and they're protected.  Are they just blasting away at stuff?" 

It wasn't long before I was wondering the same thing myself.  I went to the trail head parking lot for the California Hiking and Riding Trail off of Key's View Road.  As I changed out of my sneakers and into my hiking boots, a group of about six or seven men walked into the lot.  I'd guess that their ages ranged from mid to late teens to mid thirties.  They all had jackets on and all had backpacks.  As they pulled off their jackets and started loading their stuff into a couple of cars I noticed they all had side arms.  I'm not an expert on hand guns, but just from watching television I could tell that they were semi-automatics with removable clips.  One of the younger men opened up his backpack and pulled out a shotgun.  I watched as he pulled empty shells from a  holder attached to the stock  and threw them on the ground, so clearly he had been shooting at something.  Another man pulled an assault style rifle from his pack.  I didn't stick around as the other members of their group started digging into their packs.  I wasn't worried about being shot, but I was amazed that they made absolutely no effort to hide that  they had been out shooting in a national park.

The California Hiking and Riding Trail is neither difficult to walk nor does it require any great route finding skills.  The Keys View Road parking area picks it up somewhere near the mid point and I decided to head west away from the paved road.  It's not long after the parking lot that it goes over a not steep rise, descends and continues on in a gentle up-slope for a  few miles.  Passing plenty of Joshua Trees, and between two mountain ridges it's more of a very broad open valley with expansive, 360 degree views. 

Joshua Tree is too near Los Angeles, Orange County and Palm Springs to allow for people free hiking.  I've been going out there for years and I've always passed at least a few people on the trail.  I once walked there in a huge snow storm and I still passed other hikers.  The first group of people I met, coming from the opposite direction, were what I would expect from a national park.  An older woman and two younger men.  We more or less acknowledged each other with a quick nodding of heads and we all went on about our business.  I didn't ask them if they had seen anything out of the ordinary and they didn't ask me anything.  If they had I would have told them to look down.  Ever since I had got on the trail proper I had noticed tire tracks in the sandy trail.  They were too wide for a mountain bike, so they had to be dirt bikes.  I had also seen two very thin tire tracks, side by side about three feet apart.  I couldn't think of any explanation other than someone hauling a cart.  But more on that latter. 

As the angle of the trail started to tick up a bit, with juniper trees becoming more common, I hit a ridge line above a deep, broad canyon.  I followed the trail as it started down.  Steeper than anything I had already walked, but not to the point of being difficult to walk.  I got to the bottom, followed the easy to follow trail through some brush, and started up the other side.  One of the problems with Joshua Tree is that the  times of the year, when it's cool enough to hike through the desert, also  has the shortest days.  I knew I wasn't going to walk all the way to the top of the other side of the canyon, but the trail has markers every mile, so I just decided to get to a point that would allow a fourteen mile day. Just before I got to my turnaround point I ran into another hiker.  Sitting against a rock, listening to his headphones, and eating a sandwich, I decided to ask him if he had noticed anything  different about a park without rangers.  He told me that he had spent the previous night at one of the park campgrounds.  People had been showing up, reservations in hand, expecting to spend the night in an  reserved spot, only to find that someone had already made camp. 

"People were shouting at each other,  There was some shoving, and a couple of fist fights."  he said.  "But hey, there's no one to complain to."  He also told me that quiet time wasn't enforced and a couple of RV's worth of folks were really partying well past midnight.

After a pleasant and uneventful walk back to my car, I started the drive back to L.A. There was an awful lot of traffic that was pretty much as it would have been had the park been officially open and fully staffed.  I could see the rock climbers loading up their ropes and padding and saw all the tourists wandering around the roadside parking areas.  Apart from the large and growing mounds of garbage around trash cans that wouldn't get emptied until local volunteers swung by, it really was just like any ordinary weekend. 

It wasn't late enough for a full dinner so I decided to hit the local McDonald's to feed my Dr. Pepper addiction.  I pulled into the lot, parked, and as I walked towards the door, I saw it.  A pickup truck, it's bed full of desert plants.  And, a two wheeled cart.  Mystery solved. 

Small Death In the Verdugo Mountains

How shall I describe the Verdugo Mountains.  As mountain chains go, the Verdugos aren't all that impressive.  They only rise to an altitude of around 3,000 feet; there are no imposing forests; in fact most of the vegetation is chaparral, the scrub that once covered all of Los Angeles.  And there it is.  What makes the Verdugos so interesting is that they rise up from the second largest metro area in the United States.  Surrounded by Burbank, Glendale, and Los Angeles, a dirt road along the crest, and radio antennas.  Also hawks, deer, coyotes, and the occasional mountain lion.  It's also the perfect place for southern California hikers and mountain bikers who don't have the time, or money, to go further afield than the city itself.

I was in the Verdugo Mountains this afternoon.  I started  from the northern side of the mountains, off La Tuna Canyon Road, walking one of the few true trails.  As I neared the crest, and the dirt access road used by  people who service the antennas,  fire fighters, and mountain bikers, I came across a small death.  A snake had struck at a lizard.  But the snake had made an error in it's search for food.  The lizard's lower jaw was in the snake's mouth, but the upper jaw had a firm grip on the snake's head.  I got down on my hands and knees to get a closer view.  There was a very small drop of blood where the snake's left eye had been.  The snake, for the most part, was absolutely still, while the lizard kept turning itself over, trying to free itself from his predator's grip.  I thought how easy it would be for me to save the lizard's life.  All I had to do was  reach behind the snake's jaws and apply enough pressure to force his mouth open, releasing the lizard.  But then I thought that, perhaps, without this meal, the snake might not have enough strength to save itself when another creature tried to eat the snake.  After about ten minutes, the snake lifted the front third of it's body off the ground, with the lizard still in it's mouth, and slithered off into the brush.  And that was it.  Game over, and another small death.

Cave Mountain in Pictures

The last picture in this group was taken just off of Basin Road, at the north end of Cave Mountain on the day after the other pictures.

Climbing Cave Mountain

Cave Mountain is the large pyramidal shaped peak about 30 miles north of Barstow, California on I-15. For those traveling north towards Las Vegas, it's easily seen, not as part of a chain of mountains, but as a solo mass just past the Afton Canyon exit.
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It had been at least 15 years since I had last scrambled to the top. I exited the Interstate at Afton Canyon, drove a half mile or so, and at the distinct turn off to the left near the high tension wires, parked the car. It was early in the morning and late December, and I knew that I would need most of the daylight to get to the top and back down again. It didn't help that I had pretty much forgotten the route I had used the last time I climbed Cave Mountain, and that I would have to spend valuable time in route finding.
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As I walked along the dirt route on the backside of the mountain (I thought of the side along the Interstate as the front side.) I scanned the ridge line looking for a good, safe route to the top. After having crossed a wash, as the road seemed to brake away from the mountain, I left the road and began working my way up hill. In a long angling walk, I made my way towards a distinct, sandy section on the ridge line. It was steep, and for every three steps in the sand, I slide back one, but in time I made it to the top. Between me and Cave Mountain, there was a steep walled canyon. And then it hit me; all those years ago I had stood on the exact same spot and looked down into the same canyon. What had seemed like the most direct route to the top 15 plus years earlier had led me to repeat a route I had forgotten. Looking to my right, I could see a flat area at the head of the canyon and I could see that after crossing that flat, I could get to a rocky, hand over hand section that I could use to get to the peak.
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The fact is, I would have been easy to follow along the ridge line and down to the flat, but instead, I reversed myself, slid down the sandy slope and took a route that followed along the side of the ridge, and then climbed up and over the ridge and on to the wide flat area. As I gained altitude, looking over my shoulder, I could see that if I had stayed on the dirt road that I had first used in my approach, I would have been able to avoid the sandy slope and ridge line altogether. Of course, I wouldn't have had the great view down into the canyon that separated that ridge from Cave Mountain, so I was quite happy with having left the road early.
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It was getting towards mid-day, and I was surprised that the fog that had been in Afton Canyon when I started in the morning was lifting rather than burning off, and that the peak was now somewhat obscured. I made sure that my handholds were solid and that my feet were on stable ground as I worked my way up the steep side of the mountain. Cave Mountain is not a technical climb and no ropes are needed , but I was very aware that if I tried to pull myself up on a loose piece of rock, it would be a long way before I'd come to a stop. As I made my way higher, the fog began to finally blow out, and I could see a cairn with a post sticking out of the top. It wasn't long before I reached it and gained the peak.
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The top of Cave Mountain isn't the classic, pointed peak, but a flattish, rocky area. While I assumed that the cairn was the true, highest point, I would have needed an altimeter to be sure. For the next hour, I enjoyed the views from the top. While climbing the backside of the mountain, all I could hear, other than my own footsteps, was the wind. Once on top, I could hear and see I-15 to the west. Beyond the interstate is Fort Irwin, an army base. It had rained for the better part of a week before my trip, and the Mojave River,that has been mostly dry since the building of Silverwood Lake Reservoir, (Afton Canyon is one of the few sections of the river that has running water year round.) was like a long ribbon of silver, as the sun reflected off all the water that meandered from side to side of the very wide river bed. The Mojave is a basin and range river, that runs from the San Bernardino mountains to the south, before sinking into the desert north of the canyon. What are usually dry lake beds were the water once evaporated in the desert heat were full, a very rare thing now. Clouds swirled up from the desert floor. There was also a USGS survey marker, dated 1929. Rather than being stamped Cave Mountain, it's stamped El Frio, the cold. The surveyors who climbed the peak all those years ago must have done so in the winter. It does snow in the desert from time to time.
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As much as I hated to leave the peak, it was soon time to head back down. I made for the road rather than repeating my cross country route. I like to use the BLM campground in Afton Canyon as a base for my high desert trips, but with all of the rain the previous week I had decided that I didn't want to risk getting bogged down, so I left the cabin tent at home, and once back at the car I prepared to bed down in the back of my Volvo station wagon. It was dark when I set up the camp stove and cooked dinner, and was quite surprised when the head lights of a pick-up truck, coming up from the canyon, lit up my camp sight. I grabbed a flash light and decided to walk down the road and see if it was safe to drive. There were some large pools of water, and I would not have risked driving down into the canyon, but it wasn't a problem to walk down to the river. The campground was deserted and the sound of the water was more like a cascading mountain stream than the slow trickle of a shallow desert river. I sat by the river, turned offthe flashlight and listened to the water. The night sky was clear, and stars could be seen from canyon side to canyon side. There is a railroad through the canyon. When a train went by, the engine cabin, the only thing with artificial light, seemed to move south, suspended in a dark landscape.
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Pictures to follow in a separate post.

Joshua Tree National Park Photos