Joshua Tree in the Snow

It was winter break and we were going to take advantage of having a week off to make a short trip out to California. It started with a night in Vegas to see the Blue Man Group. The weather was absolutely awful with just buckets of rain pouring down. In Vegas, it does not matter too much because we were mostly inside except for the part where we have to move back and forth from our car. Where it did impact us was the next day when we tried to drive to Joshua Tree. We should have only had a 3 to 4 hour drive.

Leaving at 9:00 AM this would have left us plenty of time to do some hikes in Joshua Tree. Unfortunately for us, though, the interstate had been closed the night before in Primm which led to a massive pileup of automobiles in Primm, Nevada.

A drive that normally would have taken us half an hour, took us over an hour and a half just to get to Primm. Then, when we finally made our turn, the road into the Mojave Desert Preserve was closed. This made us completely switch our driving direction and instead cut over to Needles, CA, then down to I-10 to come into Joshua Tree from the south. It sounds simple enough, but it was literally all day. We finally got to our campsite in Joshua Tree at approximately 4:00 pm. Given that we were still pretty close to the shortest day of the year, this meant that we were going to have to leave almost immediately to get out on a hike. Luckily, there was a short loop hike right near our campsite called the Mastodon Mine trail.

The lighting turned out to be fabulous and we took many photos as we watched the sun go below the clouds. The trail itself was good and we got to see all the interesting rock formations of Joshua Tree. There were still other people out and about which was sort of surprising given how late that it was. We could tell that this park was going to be pretty busy by that. We were able to make it back to our campsite before it got too dark, but everything else we did that night was in the dark. Setting up the tent, cooking dinner, eating dinner, hanging out, were all done in the dark. It was needless to say an early night to bed because it was also fairly cold.

The wind was blowing too and honestly I was exhausted from the driving that day. The kids and Jacqueline slept in the car that we had decked out with a nice comfy mattress whereas I got to enjoy the four person tent with lots of extra space. I slept great and the next morning after finally getting the rest of the crew moving was also delayed by the fact that we had to relocate our campsite given that I was not able to book the same campsite two days in a row. After we got everything resettled, our plan was to go enjoy the part of the park that we had missed with our long drive the previous day.

The park had other plans for us, though, because as we approached the higher elevations of Joshua Tree, we realized that they had received a massive amount of snow the same day that the Interstate was shut down near Primm. There were still 8-12 inches of snow in many places. This was going to impact us because we did not have the clothing options to go tramping around in the snow for the day. It also impacted us because there was absolutely nowhere to park. We finally found a parking spot near a road and we decided that our best bet was to just walk this road for a while.

 It was good, but also really muddy and there were still foolish people that seemed to want to drive their cars down this obviously not in good shape road. This was a climbing area in the park and we even saw one group of climbers braving the elements. We walked until we saw that this road was probably just to access some park housing which was at the end of it and then walked back to our car. It was pretty fantastic seeing the Joshua Trees buried in snow, but as far as getting our for a hike, this was not ideal. We decided to make our way back to our campsite, stopping briefly to complete a short loop at the Cholla Gardens.
We were once again approaching dusk when we decided to go back toward the trail that we had done the previous night, but instead head out on a different trail. This one went toward the Lost Palms Oasis. We did not make it to the end of the trail, but we were happy that we got to stretch our legs and probably made about 2 hours of hiking. We asked some people who had done the whole hike and it sounds like there were a bunch of palm trees at the end. The wild palms were so much neater than the groomed city palms.

These were just so massive and wild looking. We had to turn around because of daylight, but we did enjoy another evening in camp. This one was cold enough that frost formed on the outside of the tent and on the inside windows of the car. We got going early in the morning for a drive out to Santa Barbara to meet up with our friends. Joshua Tree was a good place, though, I think visiting it again without the piles of snow may give us a different perspective in the future. 

Yellow Knolls to Black Gulch

It started out simple enough. It was Jacqueline's birthday and while we had explored other options for family activities, she chose to go on a hike as long as we postponed our Vegas show idea until we were down there a couple of days later. I had just purchased a new map of the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, so I was excited to go check out a few trails that I had never been to off the Cottonwood Road. This road went right from a spot in between Washington and St. George. It started out paved put quickly became a whitish clay. Luckily it had not rained in a few days, so the road was in good condition and we found our way to the Yellow Knolls trailhead.

The hike looked great as we started out in the flat desert scrub, but almost immediately went downhill into a canyon with slick rock to our right. Unfortunately, I had forgot that I left my phone charging in the car, so I had to turn around and run back to the trailhead while Jacqueline hiked with the kids. Luckily, I had been running often at this time, so the jog was not too bad. When I got back to the family, we were well on our way through this canyon that now began to slowly climb uphill. The trail was in good condition and easy to find and it just sort of meandered uphill. Given that it was Jacqueline's birthday, she got to take her sweet time getting ready in the morning, so this hike did not start until 2 pm.

 This would come in to play later, but for now we enjoyed some excellent weather and some amazing views. The highlight of the Yellow Knolls trail is the slick rock that is fractured to create pentagon and hexagons that look like the scales of some giant extinct dinosaur. We had to take a side trip so that we could get some pictures and so the kids could climb up and down on the rock. Zyla gets more and more interested all the time in exploring. After we left that spot, it was just hiking the rest of the trail until we hit a junction above. We had a choice. We could either continue on this current trail up to the high point and turn around coming back the same way that we came or we cut turn it into a loop with Black Gulch.

Everyone seemed up for the loop hike, so we headed toward the road which we crossed before coming to a canyon starting to appear on our left. I suggested we cut down immediately, while Jacqueline said that did not make her feel comfortable. Instead, we continued until we crossed the wash. Then we immediately started down. I should have known that this was going to be a bit more adventurous than I planned when it was slow going from the beginning. There were also no signs and the only way I knew I was in the right place was the map and my watch that was a new toy but also showed me a map right at my wrist.
Soon, we knew we were in for it though, because Black Gulch was just absolutely filled with tumbleweeds. Given that we had our two children with us, this made for some slow going because the tumbleweeds were sometimes over their heads. Looking at the time on my watch, I knew that we were in for an experience because this was the second shortest day of the year and it was now after 4 pm. We had only an hour to make our way through this canyon that we did not know what would be around the next corner. Sometimes it was puddles of icy water. Sometimes it was down climbs through volcanic rock.

No matter what, I knew that the person that would take the blame if anything happened to anyone else on this hike was me. So I went first and I found a way down. I would position myself so that I could hand the kids across drop offs and over tumbleweeds. There were a couple of times that I came around a corner and thought that we had come to a point that we could not get down, but every time, there seemed to be a way. The worst I had it the whole time was once when I had to step into a pool of water and lift everyone else so that they did not have to. Twice I made a bigger step then I planned given the amount of tumbleweeds which could have given me an injury.
Only once did Jacqueline start to panic and say that she wanted to try to hike out up onto the cliffs. I was willing to go, but the best course of action was for us to continue downstream without a headlamp and hope that the approaching darkness would not overtake us. Eventually the canyon started to open up. Just about that time we ran into two slow moving men who were heading up canyon. We did our best to warn them that they should probably turn around.

Tough to listen to a family with two children under the age of 10, but I think our kids are actually pretty tough to move as quickly as we did through that canyon. The biggest complaint was the amount of cheat grass in the shoes that slowed down Conrad. We did not give him much sympathy, though, as we had to keep moving. The GPS on my watch told us the trail was near and soon we found the way out. We hiked up the steep cliff and out onto the plateau and there was our car just as the last hints of daylight were receding. We were all relieved and celebrated with a trip to Benja's for dinner.