Saturday, March 10, 2007
Desert Nationals
Joshua Tree
Leaving Salton City we decided to take a “short cut” through Joshua Tree NP. We hardly got into the park and we decided to camp at Cottonwood Campground. Nice afternoon hike. The next day we went all of 30 some miles to Jumbo Rocks Campground—stopping at all the “exhibits” (aka signs) along the way. Jumbo Rocks was really cool. I love these big boulders. Besides a regulation hike we climbed to the top of the “mountain” above our camp.
Mojave National Preserve.
This is a huge place but we only explored the part near our campground. We did the “rings trail” which means you go down into a slot canyon climbing on rings embedded in rock. Then we spent a morning searching for petroglyphs. I knew how to find them from someone I met but we looked at every rock on the mountain before we found the “right” set. Awesome. I forgot to mention that before we started the truck to drive the little ways to the place we needed to go—Kit decided to check the oil—and found a CAT in our engine. It came so close to being mincemeat. The park hosts came to help us capture it. It turned out to have come from some other campers up the way. Friday we went on another hike in search of the “birthing rock” which we found with no sweat. It was a sacred ceremonial site. I think we must have offended the spirits because when we continued our hike a gust of wind came up and blew off Kit’s hat and fancy sunglasses. We looked for an hour and could not find those sunglasses.
We are now on our way to the central coast.
Leaving Salton City we decided to take a “short cut” through Joshua Tree NP. We hardly got into the park and we decided to camp at Cottonwood Campground. Nice afternoon hike. The next day we went all of 30 some miles to Jumbo Rocks Campground—stopping at all the “exhibits” (aka signs) along the way. Jumbo Rocks was really cool. I love these big boulders. Besides a regulation hike we climbed to the top of the “mountain” above our camp.
Mojave National Preserve.
This is a huge place but we only explored the part near our campground. We did the “rings trail” which means you go down into a slot canyon climbing on rings embedded in rock. Then we spent a morning searching for petroglyphs. I knew how to find them from someone I met but we looked at every rock on the mountain before we found the “right” set. Awesome. I forgot to mention that before we started the truck to drive the little ways to the place we needed to go—Kit decided to check the oil—and found a CAT in our engine. It came so close to being mincemeat. The park hosts came to help us capture it. It turned out to have come from some other campers up the way. Friday we went on another hike in search of the “birthing rock” which we found with no sweat. It was a sacred ceremonial site. I think we must have offended the spirits because when we continued our hike a gust of wind came up and blew off Kit’s hat and fancy sunglasses. We looked for an hour and could not find those sunglasses.
We are now on our way to the central coast.
# posted by Carol Harma @ 3:16 PM 
