Like any good and worthy adventure, this most recent trip out to Joshua Tree National Park started out with problems. Leaving around 1:30pm on a Friday, the trip out to the desert, which should have taken about three hours, took seven. Traffic was unbelievable. When we arrived, my girlfriend Sarah and I were politely informed that there were no more campsites available at any campground in the entire park. This, however, turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Any unexpected situation always has a silver lining - something good in the unwelcome - and in the case of not being able to get a campsite, the silver lining came in the form of the bright light from a full moon.
Though we had planned on using the National Park's campgrounds, I brought an 80L backpack with us, in case we wanted to do some backpacking on our second night. It came in handy sooner than expected though, as our only options now were either to leave, or head into the backcountry.
After battling our way along a very frustrating and hectic drive to get there, we were not turning around, finding a hotel, or giving up in any sense. We had come to camp; to be outside when we fell asleep, woke up, and experienced our days. So, around 8:30pm, with the moon lighting up the desert like an opaque blue spotlight, casting dark shadows behind boulders and trees as it lit up the plains, we filled the pack with a tent, two pads, two sleeping bags, a small stove, and a gallon of water, and began to hike out into the desert.
From the Juniper Flats backcountry registration board, we set out along a trail leading West, across a vast, flat landscape, with no flashlights. The moon light in the clear desert air was more than enough for us to see everything we were doing, and enabled us to successfully hike over a mile out, off the trail, through the brush, and set up camp without ever using any other light source than that beautiful cosmic reflection. After struggling through seven hours of stop-and-go traffic to get there, the raw, moonlit hike was an extraordinarily welcome change of pace.
The night was cold, but bearable, and the morning brought beautiful warm light. When we could really see where we were, the expanse of the place we had come to in the night was finally graspable and magnificently striking. Awe immediately took over upon realization of one's relative size to other things on the planet earth, not to mention the universe as a whole.
We spend the morning looking around, starring out as far as we could see, and having a breakfast of oatmeal and tea before packing up and heading back. Once back at the car, we visited Key's View: an unbelievable mountaintop perch looking down across the Coachella Valley to Salton Sea in the South and the Santa Rosa Mountains in the West.
After sufficient time spent absorbing the stunning view, we headed to Lost Horse Mine. The four mile hike visits an abandoned gold mine, now preserved and awaiting approval as a Nationally Registered Historic Site.
After a nice lunch, we set out on an 18 mile off-road adventure along the Geology Tour Road. They were out of pamphlets, so we didn't actually get a geology tour. We did, however, take time to stop at an enormous pile of boulders. Climbing up their large (about 15 foot) faces and through small caves and tunnels, we made it out to a spectacular viewpoint. We sat on the giant, un-named, un-remarkable, relatively-similar-to-every-other-boulder-pile castle, and gazed out again, with a stark realization of how small the amount of matter and energy we are given to work with as a human being in a human body really is. After carefully descending from our temporary fortress, we finished the adventure, drifting the dirt turns and bouncing over rocks along the way.
Next, we took another dirt road out to the Pine City backcountry registration board, where we re-loaded the pack, and began hiking out in search of a suitable camp around sunset. With the sky still casting a bright glow over the land, we came to the top of a hill, found a flat spot, and set ourselves up for the night.
Before the sun's post-set-glow had dissipated, the visible arm of our Milky Way had begun to show itself shining bright directly above our heads. After hastily re-hydrating and consuming our freeze dried dinner, we laid back on the rocky ground and watched the Milky Way take over the sky. We starred for the better part of an hour, simply gazing at the endless speckled vacuum, and, you guessed it, attempting as best we could to really take in our incredibly small size and impact in the grand scheme of things. A few shooting stars later, with the nearly full moon rising and our heads about to explode from the gravity of the cosmic experience, we took to our sleeping bags and instantly crashed for the night. Luckily, warmer than the night prior, we spent the whole time sleeping, rather than shivering and attempting to do so.
5:30am the next day greeted us with the first hints of a two hour sunrise experience that would be as awe-inspiring as anything we had seen at Joshua Tree NP. Watching the light slowly brighten the landscape, then cut into the tops of the higher surrounding peaks, before finally coming to warm us, we looked out over the vast plain below our hilltop residence and realized that no matter how much air you breathed in, there would always be more and there would always be enough for tiny creatures like ourselves.
Later that day, we came down off our hilltop, drove around, checking out a few more giant, beautiful rock exhibits, and got back on the road heading home.
The trip took 48 and 1/2 hours. In that time frame, I don't believe I've heard of two people who gasped or sighed, trembling at the foot of the true realization and appreciation the raw beauty and power of the universe, more than we did.
Any unexpected situation always has a silver lining - something good in the unwelcome - and in the case of not being able to get a campsite, the silver lining came in the form of the bright light from a full moon.
Though we had planned on using the National Park's campgrounds, I brought an 80L backpack with us, in case we wanted to do some backpacking on our second night. It came in handy sooner than expected though, as our only options now were either to leave, or head into the backcountry.
After battling our way along a very frustrating and hectic drive to get there, we were not turning around, finding a hotel, or giving up in any sense. We had come to camp; to be outside when we fell asleep, woke up, and experienced our days. So, around 8:30pm, with the moon lighting up the desert like an opaque blue spotlight, casting dark shadows behind boulders and trees as it lit up the plains, we filled the pack with a tent, two pads, two sleeping bags, a small stove, and a gallon of water, and began to hike out into the desert.
From the Juniper Flats backcountry registration board, we set out along a trail leading West, across a vast, flat landscape, with no flashlights. The moon light in the clear desert air was more than enough for us to see everything we were doing, and enabled us to successfully hike over a mile out, off the trail, through the brush, and set up camp without ever using any other light source than that beautiful cosmic reflection. After struggling through seven hours of stop-and-go traffic to get there, the raw, moonlit hike was an extraordinarily welcome change of pace.
The night was cold, but bearable, and the morning brought beautiful warm light. When we could really see where we were, the expanse of the place we had come to in the night was finally graspable and magnificently striking. Awe immediately took over upon realization of one's relative size to other things on the planet earth, not to mention the universe as a whole.
We spend the morning looking around, starring out as far as we could see, and having a breakfast of oatmeal and tea before packing up and heading back. Once back at the car, we visited Key's View: an unbelievable mountaintop perch looking down across the Coachella Valley to Salton Sea in the South and the Santa Rosa Mountains in the West.
After sufficient time spent absorbing the stunning view, we headed to Lost Horse Mine. The four mile hike visits an abandoned gold mine, now preserved and awaiting approval as a Nationally Registered Historic Site.
After a nice lunch, we set out on an 18 mile off-road adventure along the Geology Tour Road. They were out of pamphlets, so we didn't actually get a geology tour. We did, however, take time to stop at an enormous pile of boulders. Climbing up their large (about 15 foot) faces and through small caves and tunnels, we made it out to a spectacular viewpoint. We sat on the giant, un-named, un-remarkable, relatively-similar-to-every-other-boulder-pile castle, and gazed out again, with a stark realization of how small the amount of matter and energy we are given to work with as a human being in a human body really is. After carefully descending from our temporary fortress, we finished the adventure, drifting the dirt turns and bouncing over rocks along the way.
Next, we took another dirt road out to the Pine City backcountry registration board, where we re-loaded the pack, and began hiking out in search of a suitable camp around sunset. With the sky still casting a bright glow over the land, we came to the top of a hill, found a flat spot, and set ourselves up for the night.
Before the sun's post-set-glow had dissipated, the visible arm of our Milky Way had begun to show itself shining bright directly above our heads. After hastily re-hydrating and consuming our freeze dried dinner, we laid back on the rocky ground and watched the Milky Way take over the sky. We starred for the better part of an hour, simply gazing at the endless speckled vacuum, and, you guessed it, attempting as best we could to really take in our incredibly small size and impact in the grand scheme of things. A few shooting stars later, with the nearly full moon rising and our heads about to explode from the gravity of the cosmic experience, we took to our sleeping bags and instantly crashed for the night. Luckily, warmer than the night prior, we spent the whole time sleeping, rather than shivering and attempting to do so.
5:30am the next day greeted us with the first hints of a two hour sunrise experience that would be as awe-inspiring as anything we had seen at Joshua Tree NP. Watching the light slowly brighten the landscape, then cut into the tops of the higher surrounding peaks, before finally coming to warm us, we looked out over the vast plain below our hilltop residence and realized that no matter how much air you breathed in, there would always be more and there would always be enough for tiny creatures like ourselves.
Later that day, we came down off our hilltop, drove around, checking out a few more giant, beautiful rock exhibits, and got back on the road heading home.
The trip took 48 and 1/2 hours. In that time frame, I don't believe I've heard of two people who gasped or sighed, trembling at the foot of the true realization and appreciation the raw beauty and power of the universe, more than we did.
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