The Best Hikes in Inland

 Attended a celebration of life service for a family member Saturday in Yucca Valley, so I figured I would multi task while in that horrible state, so I got an early start to my drive home so I could spend some time in Joshua Tree National Park. Started from the West Entrance stopping at multiple areas for a couple small hikes (Barker Dam, Cottonwood Spring) coming out at the south entrance, meeting up with I10 to finish my drive back. Although I did get some hiking in, the weather was hot (90's) so I did not go more then a couple miles, but the park is beautiful and I will definitely return when it's cooler to get some additional exploring in. It was a great way to spend a long draining weekend.

 On the last morning of the trip, we arose early to a sleepy Hidden Valley Campground and returned to the west side of The Old Woman formation. We had the area to ourselves, so I onsited (sounds weird) Sexy Grandma, 5.9 and then Dave flashed Double Cross, 5.7+****. These two routes were fun and I'm looking forward to climbing some of the other routes on this formation on another trip.

 Later on Saturday after lunch, some breezes and light cloud cover moved over to really make a difference. The four of us decided to hike over to the Hidden Tower located on the north side of the Real Hidden Valley. The ladies relaxed at the base of the formation on the shade ledges and Dave redpointed Sail Away, 5.8**** with me following. I rapped second and setup Wild Wind, 5.9** with a few directional cams so that we could quickly top rope it. This turned out to be a good choice because the route seemed tricky, we were both feeling tired and another party of four showed up to climb the same routes.

 After climbing The Eye, the four of us walked over to The Old Woman's west face to climb some of the routes. That side of the formation was already getting sun, seemed quite warm and there were also a bunch of different groups actively climbing and waiting to climb, so we decided to revisit Intersection Rock. After some procrastination and coaxing, I led the Lower Right Ski Track, 10b/c***, but had to hangdog at the first slippery and overhanging crux. The upper section of this pitch was challenging and fun also, especially the final belly-flop mantle to reach the seal ledge. Dave followed and then we swapped leads to finish on the Upper Right Ski Track again. We had to wait for another climbing party to rap before us, but it gave us an opportunity to gape at the Hidden Valley circus below us. There was a lot of shenanigans going on below!

 This is such a fun hike, and I can't believe I've wintered nearby for the past four winters and only just recently heard about it!

I just found out, via a bit of online research, that there are also some red pictographs (painted rock art) in the canyon as well, and I will look for those next time I go. I have a meetup event planned for March 25th.

Wildflowers
The brittlebush is blooming. I also saw a lovely flower new to me, which I found out is called Broomrape, (Orobanchaceae).

 This hike is mostly in California, but when I posted the GPS route it forced me to use Nevada, because the starting point is in Nevada, and so is the first part of the access road, which is the historic Mojave Road. That is annoying, but whatever. This was a scouting hike to see if I could find any petroglyphs in the canyon. Since I had a friend with me who wasn't feeling up for the walk, I said I'd go as far as finding the first one or two of them, and then turn back. I did see a couple of them. I don't even know if there are any panels or what, but I will go back later to see. As you can see from my GPS hike route, I did not reach the main area of petroglyphs. But that's okay. It's only a few miles from where I live, and I can go back with someone who wants to hike all the way in, or by myself.

Next time I will either crop the GPS route so it will be entirely in CA, or I will not turn the GPS on until I have walked about 20 feet up the wash, and am in CA.

You MUST have 4 wheel drive to get to the trailhead, or walk from the Needles Highway. Here is the GPS route to the trailhead:
[ gps route ]

This is in a wilderness area, but as you can see from the map, there is an old Jeep road that crosses the Dead Mountains in this canyon, and it is popular with ATVers and dirt bikers. They are breaking the law by riding it, but the road has been there for a lot longer than the wilderness area, so maybe they feel justified. Certainly the BLM isn't doing much to stop it. Although I didn't see anyone, there were plenty of fresh tracks.

It's an interesting canyon.

Wildflowers
Brittle bush is blooming a little bit.

 The wind had been unrelenting all night. MJ and I had been enjoying sleeping out under the stars the previous 3 nights. She opted to move into the tent, but I figured the winds would die down as the night progressed. Sometimes you just get it wrong. So I was dragging a bit as we headed from camp to visit Virginia May.

Obviously this was a big operation as evidenced by the remaining concrete slabs and old equipment near Horn Springs. Lots of old rusty stuff about to include a car down in the wash. Everyone enjoyed poking around and seeing if we could figure out what things might have been back in the day. There were even rusted aerosol cans.

The road split and Blake and MJ (who were both feeling much better than me) scouted the upper road in search of Virginia. I think Steph held back to make sure I was OK. Nothing that way so we continued west in search of Virginia. I was real happy when we found that hole in the mountain. Got some more water and an energy bar in me and that gave me courage to join the rest in the mine shaft, something very out of my comfort zone, but it was highly interesting (and dark).

 Memory. It’s a good thing to have. Either that or you make notes and refer to them at the appropriate time. Unfortunately, neither method worked for me on this hike.

I was especially looking forward to this jaunt because the destination offered palm trees, a spring, and petroglyphs. We were getting a late start as we’d lazily broke camp that morning. But, no big deal, the hike was only 5 miles roundtrip with a modest elevation gain.

From the trailhead, you follow an old road, headed east-southeast. After coming to a substantial stone windbreak or the remains (?) of a stone building, the trail follows a wash, still headed southeast. The canyon walls are covered with dark brown rocks and little vegetation. But in the wash, there was brittlebush, palo verde, a fragrant bush with small purple flowers, an occasional red fishhook barrel cactus, and a couple of chollas thrown in for good measure.

The further into the wash you get, the more you see of Mopah Peak (which is considered the most difficult mountain to climb in the Turtle Mountain Wilderness). But, our goal wasn’t to scale Mopah. It was to see the palms and petroglyphs. Just then the glint of glass or metal up on a small rise caught our eye. We scrambled up to find an old jar containing very brittle paper and indecipherable writing. With a lovely view of Mopah Peak, we chose to plop down and enjoy lunch.

About this time I consulted the GPS. Hhhmmmm... we’d hiked over two miles, but had only covered about half the distance to the spring. How could that be? That means the hike is more like 8+ miles roundtrip. Was I confusing this hike with another one we'd mapped out for this outing? Still puzzled and knowing we still had many miles to drive and camp to set up, we chose to have a leisurely lunch on our viewing knoll and head back. The palms and glyphs would have to wait for another day.

P.S. Yes, my memory failed me and, no, I didn’t bother to consult my notes before setting out. The hike out to the spring is 8.2 miles roundtrip.

 Started off at a decent TH with some informational signage at the wilderness boundary. The trail begins as a tral and then drops into a wash. Along the way there is an old airstrip carved graded into a flat area and what might have been a stone cabin, now just a wall. Steph said 5 miles round trip. Mopah Peak looked a little farther than that, but it was a nice morning. Lesson learned. Old rocks know where they are. GPS tracks might lie.

We stopped off to check an old mine claim marker. The little knoll had a nice view so theat became both our lunch break and turn around point since we had to find our next campsite as well as replenish our ice at Vidal Junction. (Possibly ice cream was consumed there as well the ice replenishment.) A coyote, the largest animal we'd seen yet in the Turtle Wilderness, entertained us during our repast as he tried to slink away unnoticed.

I'm sure the Mpah Springs would have been wonderful, but this was a nice little hike.

 The drive over from the Coffin Springs trailhead was more of an adventure than the short hike. I managed to bump both the front and back ends of the 4Runner on the same rock, just not at the same time. The right seat occupant was less than impressed.

We'd seen this annotated on a map. If it is on a map it might be worth a look. I'd never seen obsidian in the wild and expected jet black glass with razor sharp flakes laying about, not crumbly gray stuff. There was a small hole dug into the deposit, so maybe the center was my idea of obsidian and some rock hounds had dug it out.

I crumbled a few pieces of the obsidian which did yield small hard black nuggets at the center.

We did see a good sized covey of quail at the entrance to the shall canyon, the largest animal we'd seen in the wilderness area to that point. The were clustered around a small seep and retaining structure built of bags of concrete. Pretty austere environment out here.