Twentynine Palms and Joshua Tree National Park

Saturday, 2 February 

With rain forecast for the afternoon, we spent the day planning and taking care of a few errands.  One errand was to go by the Oasis Visitor Center for Joshua Tree National Park to get park information.  Most of our planning is done via iPhone/iPad, but we prefer planning visits to iconic places using the Greta resources provided by the National Park Service.  In addition, there is no cellular coverage in the park, so having off-line information is expected to be useful.

While there, Darrell struck up a conversation with one of the staff at the Visitor Center.  She is not a National Park Service employee, rather an employee of the Joshua Tree National Park Foundation.  They got furloughed for a couple of weeks, then were brought back as they were not government employees.  Unfortunately, they were not able to perform necessary things like picking up trash, etc. as they could be mistaken for being park employees who were furloughed during the shutdown.  Her summary of the unfortunate incidents that occurred in the Park (covered by much of the media) was that it was a minority of people, and that they also usually displayed a confrontational attitude.

The wind picked up as the day went on, and in the gustier periods, Sprinty was rocking and swaying even though he was tucked in an RV park, and had a six foot wall behind him to break up some of the wind.  We stayed inside and streamed the RV Nomads movie which premiered a few months ago and featured several of the RVers we follow on social media. 

While the day was quieter than most, the most important part was very present.

Sunday, 3 February

We woke up to a sunny 39 degrees.  We made a tee time for 10:30am at Desert Winds Combat Center Golf at the Marine Corps Base in Twentynine Palms.  We purposely selected 10:30 to let it warm up a bit, and anticipating that most golfers would start early to finish in time for various Super Bowl parties.  When we arrived at the golf course, the parking lots was about 3/4 full.  

After warming up, we went off just before 10:30.  Both of us hit good drives, Kris making par to Darrell’s bogey.  Kris just grinded it out, making the turn one stroke up.  On the back nine, she increased the lead for a bit, but Darrell closed to within one stroke with a birdie on the last hole to finish only two back on the day.  As we expected, by the time we finished, there were only a few cars left in the parking lot.

Sprinty stopped off at the Starbucks on Base for Kris to pay up, which she was delighted to do.  Then back to the campground to watch the end of the Waste Management golf tournament in Phoenix and the Super Bowl.

Monday, 4 February

Another cool night followed by a sunny morning.  The weather forecast was for high temperature in the upper 50s, partly sunny, and very windy.  In Twentynine Palms at 1,780 feet elevation.  Our destination for the day was nearby Joshua Tree National Park with day hikes planned for elections ranging from 3,800 feet to 4,400 feet.  

We entered Joshua Tree NP via the North Entrance Station, and continued upward.  

We checked out Jumbo Rocks campground along the way.

We then drove to Keys View at 5,150 foot elevation.  As luck would have it, when we arrived  in the parking lot, the cloud layer was at 5,000 feet.  The first time we walked to the overlook, there was mostly clouds to see trying to look in the distance.  

We decided to be patient inside warm Sprinty as it was cloudy, 40 degrees, with 30+ mph winds outside.  Our patience was rewarded after about 10 minutes and we were able to get a nice view and made a panoramic photo.

Next stop was the Cap Rock Nature Trail, a short, 0.5 mile loop.  Very scenic and an easy walk.

Our next hike was the 1.1 mile Barker Dam hike which is most popular hike in the park.  In the late 1800s, the area received more rainfall, so cattleman were able to use the area to raise cattle.  A guy named Barker built a dam to hold water for cattle, which was later expanded upon.  In the early 1900s, the climate changed and the area became more arid and unable to support cattle grazing.  The historic dam still exists.  The main parking area was almost full when we got there - and this was on a chilly weekday.  Made us glad we did not try to visit on the weekend.

Next we did the one-mile Hidden Valley hike in a rock-enclosed valley that was once rumored to have been used by cattle rustlers.  Along the way, we saw a rock climber starting to ascend a nearly vertical rock face.  Steep enough that we both cringed after watching him for a few minutes, then walked away.  We had seen numerous signs for various climbing rocks, and a sign that said Joshua Tree NP is considered to be a world class rock climbing destination.  

Photo from a distance of climber going up rock face:

After over 3.5 miles of hiking, we continued west and exited the park at the West Entrance Station.  As we exited, there was a 15-20 car line to enter the park.  On a chilly, windy weekday.

As we traveled in the park, we looked for signs of the destruction in the park (downed trees, vehicle tracks off-road, trash, feces, etc) that was reported to have occurred during the government shutdown.  We did not see any evidence.  That is not to say there wasn’t any - we just did not see anything that appeared out of the ordinary.  The efforts of the National Park Service and various friends of Joshua Tree community organizations deserve much of the credit.  And an example of the media sensationalizing some incidents to the point of making it seem like there was major destruction everywhere in the park.

After exiting the park, we did some shopping in Yucca Valley, CA then headed back to the campground in Twentynine Palms.  As we drove along California 62, we saw a large cleanup operation in progress with graders, front-end leader and dump trucks moving the sand that was washed into the road with the heavy rains.  There were still “Road Flooded Ahead” signs out even though the road were not flooded.  Making us glad we decided to drive to Twentynine Palms before the big rains on Saturday.

Tuesday, 5 February 

After a quick load of laundry and dumping tanks, we headed back into Joshua Tree NP to hike a few more trails.  First stop was Split Rock.  The iconic Split Rock is located right by the parking area, so no hiking required to see it.  We hiked the 2-mile Split Rock Trail which is a loop that starts and finishes at Split Rock.  A very nice hike among the granite boulders.  We enjoyed looking for shapes in the various rocks.  

We then drove down the road just a bit to hike the 0.7 mile Discovery Trail and the Skull Rock Trail.  Skull Rock is located right by the min road making it very accessible if you can’t hike, or the conditions are not favorable to hike.  S it was, it was mostly sunny, breezy and mid-40s during our hikes.

We then tried to do the short 0.5 mile trial to Arch Rock, but the very small parking lot was full.  While there was another parking lot on the other side of the road, we decided to skip the hike as it would have been over a mile, and we already had 4.5 miles of hiking on the day.

We then headed back to the campground to pick up a piece of mail.  We made a few Amazon purchases relying on the 2-day Prime shipping.  One of the items did not get delivered Monday as promised.

We then headed west for Yucca Valley to pick something up at Harbor Freight Tools, and decided to treat ourselves to Starbucks even though it was not a golf day.  As we pulled into the Starbucks parking lot, Kris looked in the parking lot adjacent to the Starbucks and pointed out a rather unique GMC delivery truck that had been converted to a camper.  This was the 5th time we had seen that camper - the first time was at the Visitor Center in Big Bend NP; the second time was boondocking on BLM land near the highway near Carlsbad Caverns, NM; the third time was at a boondocking BLM area near White Sands National Monument (where we almost stayed a night); and the fourth time was at the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous in Quartzsite.  We also saw a brief introduction of the owner in a video of a couple we follow on YouTube, so I remembered her name was Meghan.   When we went into Starbucks, I looked around for the lady we had seen at Big Bend, White Sands, and in the video.  Seeing her, I went up and asked if she was Meghan.  She was, with her daughter Mollie.  We spent a few minutes talking.  She was planning to visit Joshua Tree NP, so we were able to offer some suggestions.

We then turned north and headed for Barstow, CA for the night.  Along the way, we saw snow showers in the distance at higher elevations (around Big Bear), and experiences gusty winds of 40 to 50mph.

Tonight we are staying at a KOA in Yermo, CA, just east of Barstow, right off I-15.