01/18/02:
Drove down from Lake Havasu City, Arizona this morning. Only took a 3 hours or so. Once I hit California it was 110 miles through the desert with nothing at all around. I kept praying, dear Lord, don't let the truck fail me now.
Bought a Golden Eagle card for $65 which will let me into everything run by the National Parks Service, the National Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, etc. for one year. I got my money's worth out of last year's card.h
A Joshua Tree appears to be pretty much the same as a Yucca Tree except its taller (15-20 feet) and has a lot more branches or shoots. Driving into the park there were none and then all of a sudden they were everywhere. It's like someone had mowed them all down on one side. I guess the reason this is a National Park is these guys don't grow anywhere else, at least I haven't seen them anywhere else. (They're up in the Mojave Desert National Preserve, a few miles north).
The other interesting thing in the park is these huge piles of boulders stacked on top of each other a hundred feet high or more... nothing else around them. It's like some giant came along, stacked a bunch of them together and then moved on and started another pile.
Drove around a little and spotted a young coyote pup that seemed pretty confused. It kept hanging out by the side of the road and didn't seem to be able to make up its mind to cross or not.
Stopped off at Skull Rock to take the little 1/4 mile nature trail and ended up going 1.5 miles or so for not paying attention to the trail. Keys View is a nice view over a large valley. Wind was blowing upwards of 30mph.
Radio said teens in the mountains tonight. If so, I'm outa here in the morning. I'm at 4000 feet and I guess that's mountains in southern California.
01/19/02 Hiking California Trail:
Well, it didn't freeze up last night... maybe in the 30's but no ice or frost or anything like that. I hit the trail at 10am (I'm still on Mountain Time) with the sky overcast, temperatures in the 50's and a 5-10mph wind blowing. If it had been damp the day would have been downright miserable. As it was, pretty good hiking weather.
I started out looking for the Lost Horse Mine Trail but came to the California Riding and Hiking Trail first so pulled into the parking lot. The trail started out a flat, sandy stretch and remained pretty much that way except for a long, slight incline followed by a similar decline. It appears a prairie fire swept through here a few years ago, probably started by lightning. I don't think they do any controlled burning since they claim to leave everything in its natural state. The fire covered several square miles.
Lots of Joshua Trees, tall Yuccas, Juniper bushes with lots of blue berries, creotsote bushes and those nasty cholla cactus, the ones with those little balls that jump off at you. Lots of coyote crap on the trail and lots of freshly excavated mouse and rat burrows. Every once in a while I'd see little fluffs of fur. I'm guessing the coyotes catch and eat the mice and rats, can't digest the fur and regurgitate (barf) it back up again.
Joshua and Yucca trees have some really nasty leaves on them. Needle sharp, 2-3 feet long and 1-3 inches wide and very, very stiff. I can easily believe they'd kill you if you were to somehow fall on one. Those fronds would go right through all but the thickest clothing, penetrate right between your ribs into heart, lungs or other vital organs or right into an artery. Really nasty things.
I hiked (more like a walk) 4-5 miles out and then back again. Saw one snow capped peak way, way off in the distance. Probably part of the Cleveland National Forest.
01/21/02 Hiking Lost Horse Mine Trail:
Howling winds began around 10pm Saturday night and lasted through 2pm or so on Sunday. The old truck was really rockin' as the winds tried to push it around. I never even thought of doing anything on Sunday.
Not even a light wind last night or this morning. 30's during the night but when the sun came up it quickly climbed to the lower 50's.
Lost Horse Mile Trail is 4 miles up and down hills. I added another couple of miles by parking at the beginning of the dirt road and ran the 1.2 miles to the trailhead. The hills on the trail were steep enough to slow me down and to remind me I still had ham strings back there.
The scenery consisted of yuccas, creosote bushes, some juniper bushes and the occasional Joshua Tree. Seems as though the Joshua Tree thinned out to almost nothing as soon as the elevation rose above 4500 feet or so. A couple of nice views off to the north of desert valley and mountainettes beyond.
I could see the mine from a mile away, all fenced in. I passed a single railroad rail and a cast iron water line. I found several concrete and stone storage bins and several corrugated water storage tanks outside the fence. Inside the fence was the well preserved mine shaft going down 500 feet. Tunnels were dug at the 100, 200, 300 foot levels, undermining the stability of the ground, hence the fence. Also inside the fence is a building housing stamp machinery for crushing the rock (I think). They pulled 9000 ounces of gold out of there between 1893-1936. Since everything is so well preserved they've added the mine to the National Historic Register. Dunno if they ever found the lost horse.
Driving around I saw lots of rock climbers going after some of the 100 foot boulders... maybe 50-100. I also saw a lot of them free climbing, without protection.