Streamin with Joe and Buddy: Desert

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Joshua Tree National Park

3/3 - 3/4/2013
Joshua Tree National Park

This is one of my more favorite parks, actually I really like all the National Parks, but I like this one out in the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. The difference in these two deserts is that the Mojave is above 3,000 ' and is mostly the western side of the park with lots of Joshua Trees; while the Colorado is at or below 3,000' and mostly the eastern side of the park. We stayed in Cottonwood Springs Campground in the eastern part of the park at about 3,000' and really there are very few of the actual Joshua Trees. In 2011 we were here in mid November this campground was closed because of torrential rains they had in August that just about wiped out the campground. We camped at Jumbo Rocks at that time.

Cottonwood Springs Campground has several hiking trails that take off in every direction. We hiked down to the actual Cottonwood Springs, beautiful large palm and cottonwood trees with many pools amongst the trees.

Looking back at the springs area.

I hiked up to Mastodon Peak, these are pictures from along the trail

I took this picture because it was steep and narrow and now you can't tell that.

Reminded me of a small Half-Dome like in Yosemite

Looking over a ridge or two is the Salton Sea and in the upper right corner just out of the picture is Mt Jacinto above Indio, CA

The top of Mastodon Peak is just to the left and up another 200 ft. Very windy so no one was actually going to the very top as is is narrow and the wind was blowing us around.

A struggling Juniper Tree

Down the other side and through this wash.

And, up and over several ridges.

Below are several plaques of information that I wanted to keep.

At 3000' very few blooms were opening but I did come across this one.

We only stayed at Joshua Tree two nights but it was great, very nice campground.

Thanks for stopping by, safe travels.

Nancy

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Joshua Tree National Park, Part 1 of 3

Leisurely leaving "The Slabs" as we only have about 80 miles to go to Joshua Tree we continue on the east side of the Salton Sea. By the way, The slabs where a nice place to stay, and something to experience once, plenty of room and we felt completely safe. Along the way was flat farming but the road was a roller coaster. In Mecca we took Box Canyon Rd that heads northeast to I-10 and the south entrance to Joshua Tree National Park A truly beautiful drive that I would highly recommend to anyone in the area. The road actually goes up a canyon that is a wash, as in flood plain when it rains. There are many smaller canyons to hike up off of the main canyon. We did not take any of those hikes as we were unaware of them and only learned about them later. A few pictures taken with a regular point and shoot type of camera so it doesn't show as many of the spectacular colors and depth.

Looking at the map a little closer I noticed that just 5 miles east on I-10 is General Patton's Memorial Museum. We had never been there so with trailer in tow off we went. We had completely forgotten that it was Veterans Day. They were having a big ceremony, along with BBQ hamburgers, hot dogs and a chili cook off; the place was packed with people, cars and even a tour bus. We went up a little dirt road and pulled up along side of a couple of Army tanks behind the building and parked. We even put our flag up so we looked official. The tour or the memorial museum was very good displaying items of history from WWI to Iraq.

The shell casings where beautiful

This was a frame that they would put on top of a Jeep in WWII and then cover it with canvas so it would look like a tank. I guess it worked

A fly-over of P 34s

After a few hours, we were on to Joshua National Park, just a few miles up the road. When we got there we found out that the campground that we wanted to stay at was closed. It had heavy damage from flash floods a few months ago and it had not been cleaned up yet. The other campgrounds where full because of Veteran's Day Holiday weekend. So we turned around and went just outside the boundary which was BLM land and found a nice place to boondock along with several others.

The road looked good, but there had been quads running around and the place that there was a flash flood became very loose sand and we didn't make it through. Luckily there were other really nice people that gave us a hand at getting unstuck. We actually had to unhook, pull our truck out and then another truck with 4x4 pulled our trailer out. A couple of years ago when we got our truck..............We don't need a 4x4. We were thinking snow, not sand.