Rattlesnake Canyon

The morning started with a hike up Rattlesnake Canyon to do some recon for tomorrow's all day field trip with local 6th graders. I was joined by two rangers: Alison and Kristi, who hikes up here frequently and showed us the path up to the dry falls area. It's very scrambly and it was super fun to squeeze through small cracks, shimmy up slots, climb boulders, etc. It was a very good workout, all around. If I had access to this kind of hiking regularly, I'd have some very strong arms. As we got to the highest area of the dry falls we ran into some other people who happened to be park staff performing a necropsy on a bighorn carcass. The Desert Bighorn Sheep here frequently fall to respiratory illnesses and it's important for park staff to have an idea of how widespread the effects are as they try to support a healthy population. Read more: https://www.nps.gov/articles/bighornrespiratorydisease.htm. It's my understanding that the park still wants to hear visitor reports of encounters with bighorn that exhibit signs of illness, such as coughing, as well as the location of deceased animals. Continuing our hike, we enjoyed a variety of eroded rock formations and came up with a plan for tomorrow. I had lunch in town and then headed home to start preparing for tomorrow. As Alison and I were driving through town today, we watched a coyote trotting along the shoulder of the road, and into someone's fenced yard. The coyotes are so prevalent here, it's incredible.

Apparently I didn't get any establishing shots of the canyon. I'll do that tomorrow. This is looking up into the rocks we climbed.

Heading up the wash.

The first cool find, a pool of standing water at the base of this.

Alison, demonstrating the angle of the rocks.

Looking to the side as we climbed higher.

Had to squat and scoot our way through this.

Towards the top of the dry falls area.

Fantastic erosion formations.

Looking back own the canyon, or what little of it you can see

Tadpoles and some species of hymenoptera (bee, hornet, wasp) utilizing a small pool of water. We heard a frog as well, though couldn't see him in the deep shadows.

Looking back up as we made our way down.

Alison shows the scale of this area.

Alison shows the scale.

Squeeeeze!

Panorama view looking down the canyon towards town.

Rock worn smooth by the force of the water.

So many interesting erosion forms.

At least four different lichen on this rock.

And back down to the wash at the base of the canyon.

Driving back to Black Rock we spotted this great example of a lenticular cloud.

Queen Valley and Inspiration Point

Yoga, three hikes, then more yoga makes for some rather sore muscles tonight. My first hike was to Pine City in Queen Valley, several miles round trip. Not an actual city, and no visible remains of any of the cabins or mining activities that may have been here, but a beautiful area, particularly at the end of the trail. It was another day of intermittent cloud cover, so lighting for photos was hit and miss. Still, I'm including a plethora to share an approximation of what this area is like. The second hike was to the Desert Queen Mine site and around the general area. This is an easy hike to some great ruins and collection of mine shafts. I'll describe it more with the images below. I saw another pair of red tailed hawks here, soaring high above the far side of the mine. My last hike was to ascend Inspiration Point, above Keys View. My plan had been to do a third hike in the Queen Valley region, but as I started my first hike and glanced over at the San Bernardino mountains, I noticed they were crystal clear today; the air quality was excellent. In the back of my mind I've been thinking that if we get a clear day I should try for this hike I read about that follows a trail from the parking area at Keys View up to a neighboring peak, then down and up an adjoining saddle to a peak called Inspiration Point. I love the views of the Coachella Valley, Salton Sea, and Santa Rosa mountains from the top of the Little San Bernardinos, and was excited to read about another spot to see them from. It was a great hike, not super long, but fairly steep, then down and back up again to cross the saddle. As windy as the Coachella Valley always is, it was no surprise to find this ridge frightfully windy as well. Also cold, and colder yet as the sun set. I was all alone until I made the return trip where I met a few other people who had just started up the trail to a flat spot to watch sunset. Back to my car I headed home with the heat blasting to thaw my frozen hands.

Oh before I forget, I have a coyote story from last night. I woke out of a dream at around 4am. In the dream, I was shopping in an enormous national parks store for auto parts (hey, it was a dream!) and some people were pushing a cart with their dog in it, barking loudly. That morphed into a section at the front of the store that offered pet sitting, and was filled with barking dogs. I woke up to realize that the barking was real dogs in real life, then realized that it was coyotes, not dogs. They were so loud I thought they were right out my window, but I couldn't see them (the moon is almost full so it's very bright here at night). They must have been just at the end of the outdoor corridor here, around the corner and out of view. Their barking changed tone and quality several times, soon it sounded like a pack of hyenas, then like the joker's laugh (Jack Nicholson's version in the Michael Keaton Batman). It was so very cool. I realized I should be recording some audio to share, and as I reached for my phone, they stopped. Maybe another night.

Hiking in to Pine City.

It's hard to grasp scale in images of the wonderland of rocks area (these lovely mountains made of boulders), but you can pick out the change in boulder size as the layers of mountains recedes.

Following the trail to Pine City.

Cairns, stacks of rock left by hikers, are not allowed in national parks where the goal is preservation of the natural state of the landscape. In other places, cairns sometimes serve the function of marking a trail, denoting an important location, or as a means to leave a memento behind, and they can make for a lovely visual effect. However, please refrain from the temptation of contributing to cairns in the national parks, allow other hikers to experience the landscape in its natural state.

Looking northeast toward the civilization of Twnetynine Palms.

The barrel cactus' red needles gave a nice pop of color across the landscape here.

Closeup of the needles of a barrel cactus.

A special rock, posting this find for my friend Kerry. <3

some rock and sky closeups.

Along the hike out of Pine City, that's negro hill ahead.

A lovely specimen of Joshua Tree.

Ruins of a cabin near the Desert Queen Mine.

The trail down to the path across the draw to the mine shafts.

Looking across at the Desert Queen Mine, A couple of large shafts, covered by rusty metal grates can be seen.

Mine opening. While interesting, the many min tunnels and shafts in Joshua Tree should be admired from a safe distance. All are old, crumbling, and some of the shafts drop several hundred feet straight down. Not something to take chances with.

Old mining equipment along the trail.

Looking across at a covered shaft.

This one still has rail disappearing into the depths.

From near the top of the mountain of the Desert Queen Mine, looking across at the trail to this point,

The Desert Queen Mine.

Cyanide tank and Desert Queen Mine.

The trail back is a clear old road.

Looking back after starting the hike up to Inspiration Point. That's Keys View with all the visitors.

Where I'm headed.

Another view back toward Keys View, the Salton Sea is in the distance.

I was admittedly carried away with the photos tonight, it was remarkable gorgeous.

Mounts San Jacinto and San Gorgonio.

Looking across the Coachella Valley at mount San Jacinto on the right and the San Jacinto mountains. The ridge across the valley floor is the San Andreas Fault.