State #2 - Part #3!

In the last blog, we woke up after spending our first night in Joshua Tree National Park and ate breakfast burritos.  


Us with Skull Rock,
one of the more famous formations in the park.

After filling our bellies with a delicious breakfast and caffeine, we figured it was time to get moving, so we headed out on the short hike to the Skull Rock formation.  The entire loop from our campsite and back was right around 1.5 miles, and although there was a tiny bit of up and down and rock scrambling (like, the tiniest bit), it was an easy hike overall, so we figured it would serve as a good warmup for anything else we might want to try the rest of the day.

We loaded up our packs, got the camera ready, and ensured our morning campfire was properly extinguished.



Getting the lens flare picture over with early in Part #3


So soft and fuzzy!


Someone is very pleased with the folding shovel
he found on Amazon

To get to the trailhead, we walked back to the entrance to the Jumbo Rocks Campground and across the main road, and the gap in the wooden fencing was right there!  There's a reason this campground is often sold out - it's really convenient to many different locations within JTNP.

By the way, all of these shots were taken before we even made it to the road; that's right - all of these formations are still within the campground itself:





All of the trails in the park were still open, although many of them (the ones that were loops) had been converted to one-way use, so folks weren't constantly walking face-first toward one another.  Skull Rock is really popular, but since it was only mid-morning on a Monday, we encountered very few other folks, and we always had our masks ready to pull out of a pocket and put on, should we have needed them.


We never saw these guys - or any tortoises,
which also rated signs - but we were looking.

The first part of the trail (about a mile) winds through the higher desert and passes all sorts of cool rock formations.


This first shot is a panoramic -
click it to make it bigger.




Looking back toward the campground entrance


Another camper drives through the Joshua trees,
towing something with...a Chrysler LeBaron?



More spiky plants to photograph!


Taking a quick break




Go that a-way!

After the short hike through the desert, you cross the main road again and finally see Skull Rock itself (if you want to skip the short hike, you can park right at the rock formation, as you can see in the first shot below).






The rocks in this part of the park are a type of granite - 
monzogranite, to be specific - 
and there are these cool lines that run through them
due to the way they were formed all those centuries ago.
If you want to read more about this (nerd!), click here.


The hike back from Skull Rock to our campground was super short - maybe another 1/3 of a mile or so (truly, the end of the trail dumped right into our campground not too far away from the loop on which we were parked).  We made it back to Arlene before too long and mapped out a plan for the rest of the day.  Since we knew we'd want to do some driving and sightseeing, we figured we'd head the rest of the way north through the park, out into the city of Twentynine Palms, to see if we could find a gas station.  If we filled up there, we could likely make it all the way back to Quartzsite the next day without stopping, which would be ideal.


This guy on his bike was having the best time
coasting down the hills


Bustling Twentynine Palms
While Chris filled up the truck, I crossed the street to
the small souvenir shop for curios
and to use their restroom.
I bought two cool stickers and a bag of coffee no one really likes.
Score?

Back into the park, this time by using the main entrance station:


I was trying to grab a shot of the ranger in the booth
exchanging cards/receipts with the car in front of us
via a set of "grabby hands" on a stick.
Please donate to the parks, y'all - they need help.

One of the neatest things about the huge scope of the park is that the elevation and climate changes also drastically change the landscape as you move from area to area.  While there's a huge cholla garden in the southern side of the park (you'll see that in later blogs), here, there's just a massive number of Joshua trees, growing wild as far as the eye can see.  My attempts to capture them as we drove past at 40 mph are included here:



They're, like, EVERYWHERE

On our way out of the park earlier, we'd passed Quail Springs, a day use area with several picnic tables, which we thought would be a great spot to stop and have lunch.  We've learned that when we're driving around in a park like this, doing hikes and whatnot, throwing some snacky, charcuterie-style items in a cooler bag makes an easy, rewarding lunch, and we happily unpacked our spread.


Noms!

Some of the locals also thought our snacky lunch sounded good, so we were constantly on guard to ensure our lunch stayed our lunch.


So cute!  But for real, you can't have my salami.


"Hey, I heard you guys have Triscuits..."


"He's right behind me, isn't he?"

After we finished lunch (we donated our crumbs to these dudes, but far away from the table), we packed everything up, hopped back in the truck, and headed to our afternoon hiking destination, the Lost Horse Mine Trail.  Read about that on the next installment!

Later!

Amy

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